Oops! Have you ever made a mistake that has negatively impacted your graphic design business?

You know the feeling…the red burn of shame hits you in the face. A deep pit of despair churns in your stomach as you realise the potential financial repercussions. You’re wondering if your client will ever trust you again. Could you even lose your client as a result of this?

You’ve made a mistake in your graphic design business and you wish the world would open up and swallow you whole.

Mistakes happen. If you’re human, you are going to stuff up from time to time.

We work when we’re tired. We get pushed to our limits. It’s often this kind of environment which is a perfect storm for mistakes. 

The best thing to do if and when a problem arises is to face it head on. Own up to it, apologise quickly and take steps to fix the problem as soon as possible.

It’s ok to say you stuffed up. You might even find that relationships grow stronger as a result of this. People are attracted to authenticity. To make mistakes makes you real and even endearing.

To err is human—and at Design and Prosper we are very human ; )

Last week we sent an email to our mailing list only last week with a link that didn’t work, so we sent it again with an ‘Oops! This time with the correct link’. This email had a higher than usual open rate and click rate. People were fascinated by our mistake….”what did they do?” and also, it must have deepened their connection to us as human beings because the click rate was so high. They were interested in what we had to say and wanted to find out more.

From major printing stuff-ups to embarrassing emails, in this episode, we fess up about what happened, and what we did to resolve the issue.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• What happened when Kris sent a file to print with a major error
• How Donna handled a very expensive print colour issue for a client
• The time Kris sent an embarrassing email to her entire list and made not one but two mistakes.
• How Donna sped around the city in a mad panic trying to fix a problem with an advertising campaign
• And more embarrassing problems!

The interesting thing about all the mistakes we made, is generally we only made them once. Some of our biggest mistakes became our most valuable lessons as they inspired new systems to ensure the problem never occurred again.

Even though it can feel so HUGE in the moment, try to gain perspective around it. Will this issue affect you 1 year from now? Even 1 week from now? 

If you’re making a shit-tonne of mistakes, this can be a sign that something in your life or business is out of balance. When you are out of alignment with your mindset and thought process, things tend to show up that are messy and complicated. The little annoyances get bigger and bigger and bigger…

So take a look at your internal chatter. Are you being kind to yourself?

Another reason why things may be going pear-shaped for you is that you don’t have effective systems in place. This is something that we would love to help you with. We offer 1 to 1 mentoring for entrepreneurial graphic designers where we share all our knowledge, strategies and business systems—we are an open book. There’s no need for you to make the same mistakes we did.

You can find out more about how to work with us here.

Use the player below or listen on your favourite podcast player. You can also read the full transcript of this episode below.