Learning from My Failure, So You Don’t Have To

You’re reading an excerpt of Great Founders Write, by Ben Putano, writer, entrepreneur, and book publisher. He’s the founder of Damn Gravity Media, a publishing house that inspires and educates tomorrow’s great founders. Purchase now for lifetime access to the book and on-demand video course.

In the aftermath of WeContent’s blog post debacle, I took a hard look at the way I ran my business. It was clear I had set my team up for failure. Instead of training them on my editorial standards, I threw them into the ocean without a raft. The curse of knowledge bit me hard, and it almost cost me my business.

So when I hired a new freelance writer six months later, I made sure they’d be ready. I wrote a detailed creative brief for each article to serve as their training material. Coincidentally, this document included all the same steps as Curious Lion’s training development approach:

• Building blocks—My client’s mission, brand positioning, value proposition, and product descriptions; word count requirement; and links to relevant prior research and blog posts

• Learning outcomes—Blog post objective and target audience description

• Delivery format—Tone and style guide

• Storyboard—Blog post outline

• Reinforcement—Blog post call-to-action

Most importantly, I spent hours giving detailed feedback to the writer, especially on his first few articles. Because sharing information is not enough. True learning comes from trial and error. Which is probably why, even had I known Andrew Barry in 2018, I still might not have heeded his advice on training my team. That was a lesson I had to learn the hard way, but you don’t.

Great founders teach and train.

Free Tool #3 BONUS: How to Create a Perfect Digital Training [Ebook]

Training is one of your most vital jobs as a founder. Don’t leave it up to chance. Go to curiouslionlearning.com/ebook to download a free ebook from Andrew Barry, How to Create a Perfect Digital Training.