Core Values | Innovation

INNOVATION

By Matt Hardesty

If showing up is half the battle, what’s the other half?

Remember that shiny new product that ate up your time & quickly got left behind? Did you see it as a waste of time or an opportunity to develop something better? Sony Betamax, 1975. RJ Reynolds Smokeless Cigarettes, 1989. Apple Newton, 1993. Google Glass, 2013. Epic failures of innovation that all ultimately resulted in huge successes.

Failure is frustrating, to say the least, but failure is critical to growth. The founder of Honda said “Success is 99% failure.” I’d say that’s a little dramatic, but true in concept. If we’re afraid to be innovative, we fail to take risk & never have the opportunity to grow. Where would you be if at 10 months old you didn’t let go of the couch? What if when you finally did let go and fell down the first time, you said “Nah, I’m good at crawling. It gets me where I need to go. I think I’ll just stick with this”?

Our industry is changing at the speed of light, consumer expectations & agent needs are evolving daily, new tools (and threats) are popping up everywhere, and your management team is committed to leading that change on a local and regional level to put you in position to be at the front of the pack. The combined knowledge of our huge agent network empowers us to do just that, but we need your input, so please be open with your ideas, encourage growth from the inside out, and try to see failures as opportunities.

Showing up is half the battle. I’d argue the other half is a combination of risk & adaptation. Try new things. Celebrate failure. Fall forward. And most importantly, remember that every failure is an opportunity.

“If we’re afraid to be innovative, we fail to take risk & never have the opportunity to grow.”