Podcast Summary: The Marketing Millennials – Episode "Why Failure Is Your Best Growth Hack | Bathroom Break #68 🚽"
Release Date: August 11, 2025
Host: Daniel Murray
Guests: Jay Schwedelson (Host of "Do This Not That" Podcast)
Introduction
In the 68th episode of The Marketing Millennials, titled "Why Failure Is Your Best Growth Hack," host Daniel Murray teams up with Jay Schwedelson from the "Do This Not That" podcast to delve into the pivotal role of failure in marketing. This special installment, part of their collaborative series "Bathroom Break," offers a candid discussion on embracing failure as a catalyst for growth and improvement in marketing strategies.
Embracing Failure in Marketing
Jay Schwedelson kicks off the conversation by emphasizing the necessity of being comfortable with failure to foster growth in both personal and professional realms:
"Failure is actually how you grow in anything in your personal life, in your business, in your marketing."
— Jay Schwedelson [01:54]
He underscores that recognizing and accepting failure is foundational before delving into specific marketing tactics.
Daniel Murray echoes this sentiment, likening marketing efforts to "at bats" in baseball, where not every attempt will succeed. He points out that unnoticed or poorly received marketing endeavors simply fade away, making room for new strategies without significant repercussions.
"Marketing is all about at bats. It could be the 11th, 12th, 13th thing you do that could catapult your brand to the next level."
— Daniel Murray [02:36]
Learning from Failure
The discussion transitions to the importance of documenting failures to extract valuable lessons. Jay highlights that celebrating only the successes while ignoring the failures can lead to repeated mistakes:
"If you're not comfortable with failure, you're not going to grow. Period. End of story."
— Jay Schwedelson [01:54]
He elaborates on the need to categorize different failed tactics to understand what doesn't work, thereby preventing the recurrence of the same errors.
Daniel adds that without a structured approach to evaluating failed campaigns—such as analyzing whether it was the wrong audience, an ineffective color scheme, or a misleading call-to-action—teams may continue to stumble over the same issues.
Creating a Culture that Accepts Failure
A pivotal point in the conversation revolves around fostering an organizational culture that accepts and learns from failure. Jay emphasizes that sharing failures without attributing blame encourages a healthy environment where team members feel safe to experiment and innovate:
"You can't make people feel uncomfortable about a failure occurring because if you don't have an environment where failure is extremely acceptable, then you're gonna have a really hard time as a business or as a marketing department growing in any way."
— Jay Schwedelson [04:02]
This openness ensures that failures are viewed as stepping stones rather than setbacks, promoting continual improvement.
Implementing Kill Criteria
To manage and mitigate prolonged failures, Daniel Murray advocates for establishing clear kill criteria or tripwires for campaigns. This involves setting predefined metrics and timelines to evaluate the success of a campaign, allowing teams to make informed decisions about whether to continue or discontinue efforts:
"Have a kill criteria or a trip wire to say, like, after seven days, if I'm at, like, conversion rates, don't raise by X percent or something doesn't happen here. We shut off this campaign and it's agreed upon ahead of time."
— Daniel Murray [04:51]
This proactive approach prevents the wastage of resources on underperforming campaigns and ensures that focus remains on strategies that yield results.
The Concept of Failing Fast
Jay introduces the concept of failing fast, cautioning against the dangers of clinging to ideas due to personal attachment or ego. He shares a personal example from his media business, Grew Media Hub, where an ill-fated awards program was promptly discontinued upon recognizing its lack of potential:
"Holding on is really how you hurt a business."
— Jay Schwedelson [05:50]
By swiftly identifying and terminating unsuccessful initiatives, businesses can redirect their efforts toward more promising ventures, fostering agility and resilience.
Daniel concurs, sharing his own experience with the Marketing Millennials podcast's foray into TikTok. Realizing that the platform wasn't yielding desired growth despite multiple attempts, he made the strategic decision to pivot focus to more effective channels:
"Sometimes you have to pull it. [...] make sure you're not having your ego tied to a campaign, even if it was your idea."
— Daniel Murray [07:43]
This illustrates the practical application of failing fast to optimize marketing strategies continually.
Personal Anecdotes on Failure
The conversation takes a personal turn as Daniel Murray shares his attempts and failures with various diets, reflecting the universality of failure beyond the professional sphere:
"I tried, like, keto and, like, I felt, like, super sick on keto, and I tried, like, trying vegetarian for a little bit. Hated that. So it's, like, flopped a lot of."
— Daniel Murray [07:57]
Jay Schwedelson humorously acknowledges his own pattern of frequent failures, reinforcing the episode's central theme that failure is an inevitable and instructive part of growth:
"I fail all the time. I'm very. I'm actually the only thing I'm. I don't fail at is failing."
— Jay Schwedelson [08:27]
Conclusion
The episode wraps up with a reinforcement of the discussed principles, urging listeners to embrace failure as an essential element of successful marketing. By fostering a culture that accepts and learns from failure, implementing clear criteria for campaign evaluations, and adopting a fail-fast mentality, marketers can navigate challenges more effectively and drive sustained growth.
Key Takeaways:
- Embrace Failure: Accept failure as a natural part of growth in marketing and beyond.
- Document and Learn: Systematically record failed efforts to extract actionable insights.
- Create a Supportive Culture: Encourage openness about failures without assigning blame.
- Set Kill Criteria: Define clear metrics and timelines to evaluate and terminate underperforming campaigns.
- Fail Fast: Recognize when to pivot or discontinue initiatives to allocate resources efficiently.
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