Success on the second attempt

Many people are afraid to try something new. They are afraid of failure. They worry too much about what could go wrong and the consequence of failure. They are not willing to try. They prefer to have someone else to take the decision and the responsibility.

Sometimes, we have to fail before we can succeed. I wish to share this story. During the early 1980s, the insurance cooperative that I headed wanted to launch a new product, life annuity. We made detailed plans, trained the managers, employees and agents and set aside an advertising budget. They was a well publicised media launch for this product. A lot of effort was put in for two months. The sale of life annuity was NIL. It was a total failure.

There were many reasons for the failure. One key reason was the unwillingness of the public to buy a product where they can lose their capital on early death.

Three years later, we relaunched the life annuity product and modified it to provide a guaranteed period of payment. The payout was lower, compared to a life annuity that does not have any guarantee. On the relaunch, it was a big success and created a dominant market share of life annuity for the cooperative for two decades.

I am convinced that if we had not tried and failed on the first attempt, we would not have got the big sucess on the relaunch. I hope that this story will encourage you to be willing to take the plunge and try something new!

Tan Kin Lian