There's a line of thinking that successful people are those who are willing to fail – and not just once, but as many times as it takes to reach their goals.
This certainly seems to be the case with many start-up businesses.
As the C.S. Lewis quote goes, "failures are finger posts on the road to achievement”.
At the AIP National Conference in Queensland last week, McCormick & Co head of global innovation Jacqui Wilson-Smith shared her personal story of obstacle after obstacle on the road to sales success, starting with the slowing sales of Gourmet Garden herb tubes.
In response to this product hiccup, Wilson-Smith's strategy was to throw herself into getting to know the brand's end consumers by visiting their homes and talking about their buying habits.
This process enabled her team to switch from focusing on how to sell more tubes, and tap into what shoppers really felt in the herb section of the supermarket.
“When the consumer would go to the fixture in the herbs and spices section they would see a wall of green, and this was overwhelming – and when they didn't use those herbs at home, they experienced what we called 'wilt guilt',” she said.
A series of ideation sessions followed as Gourmet Garden collaborated with suppliers and continued to visit consumers’ homes in order to help develop new prototypes.
“For consumers, tube food was weird – squishing up basil and coriander and so on – so we tackled this consumer-led problem of a herb and spice that was closer to fresh, but would last,” Wilson-Smith said.
So they came up with a range of lightly dried herb pots which went on to win awards and met consumers right where they were at.
Wilson-Smith says companies need to "look for failure" in a constructive way, with a willingness to “adapt and pivot quickly”.
As part of her customer-led plan, Gourmet Garden, which was acquired by McCormick & Co in 2009, has gone from strength to strength, more recently launching the disruptive Finishing Drizzles range which aims to help busy home cooks with healthier, fresher condiment options for meats.
Five key take-outs from Wilson-Smith's talk:
- Inclusive diversity breeds innovation: Be inclusive with your consumers, customers, and suppliers.
- Be brave enough to say you disagree.
- Give people a voice so you ensure you’re hearing from the right people. You never know where that good idea is going to come from.
- The world is changing more rapidly than ever before. Resist building the highways – we’re all chasing economies of scale. Prove the path first.
- Create a culture of brave employees and suppliers who are willing to challenge the status quo.
