How Past Bad Experiences Can Deny Us of Good Things in Future

Is it possible to hate a certain niche, just because we had a bad experience with an individual or company representing that niche?

For example, say we had a horrible experience with a marketing professional who we think has swindled us of our money and not generated any return on investment.

Right off the bat, there's anger in our hearts. Of course we'll be angry. The money has been invested into the campaign, and we're not even getting the reach we expect, let along conversions.

And in our anger and disappointment, we would probably have fired the person or ceased engagement with the company. Chances are, we will not even be open to any negotiation, justification or rationalisation.

Truth is — there are a lot of bad marketers out there. But if the engagement is started without a clear understanding of what the expectations are — we can be sure it is off to a bad start.

So in the scenario where things did go south and we did get upset, we would think that the marketer is a no good scoundrel. 

In fact, the damage might be so severe it goes on to pollute our perception of the field of marketing itself or the specific method that was deployed by the failed marketer.

We simply had our belief in that approach shaken.

And no matter how many success stories we hear, or headlines that come into our social feeds, we actively block it out of our minds. 

"This is dead to me" or "It's just a scam" — we'd say.

It's unfortunate that this human reaction may cause us to miss out on great opportunities. 

We need to dig into the other side of our humanity, which is to give things a second shot... to learn from our mistakes... and probably the toughest one yet — even so far as to forgive. 

This ability can come about from an almost ritualistic practice of thinking objectively.

Once the emotions have subsided. Let's look at why we failed, and take blame out of the equation. Be in 'learning mode' or consider it as 'after action review'. We can talk to neutral experts about our experience. Talk to success stories about their experiences. Learn. And when we are clearer, give it another shot.

I used marketing here as our example because I've been on the short end of the stick too. Bad experiences in google advertising, Facebook marketing even consulting... and if I had stopped believing in these areas of business. If I started to deny myself of these things. I'm not sure our business would be where it is today. 

Don't discount something just because we've had a bad experience.