Why mistakes proved to be business winner for one American typist

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘ask a simple question and you get a simple answer’.

It’s usually said in jest, or is addressed to someone who is asking something pointless as a sarcastic remark. 

But – here is the breath-taking breakthrough…

What if it’s true?

What if it is what’s needed to cut through the clutter of your daily working life?

What if a simple question and a simple answer are exactly what your business needs?

It worked for Edwin Land and Bette Nesmith Graham with profound results.  Sometimes the simple questions really are the best!

Edwin Land was an inventor who, while on holiday with his family, took some pictures of his 3-year-old daughter Jennifer, using his favourite camera.  In those days, you had to take your film to a darkroom or a lab to be developed, a fact that Land was aware of, but his daughter was not.

His daughter was impatient and wanted to see the pictures; she didn’t want to wait.  Her question was simple:  ‘Why can’t I see the picture you’ve just taken of me; why do I have to wait?’

This to Land, as an inventor, was a puzzle he simply had to solve and resulted in the first Polaroid Camera, launched in 1948.  In 1978, at its height, the business sold 14 million Polaroid Cameras and was valued in today’s money at £3.7 billion.  All of that from a simple question asked by an impatient 3-year-old!

Bette Nesmith Graham, a typist by day and a painter in her spare time, also asked a simple question:  ‘What if I could paint over my mistakes when typing, the way I do when painting my pictures?’

Bette decided to take a pot of paint and water to work with her to try it out.  Bette’s ‘miracle mixture’ made it easy to cover typing mistakes.  It was not long before she was selling her correction fluid to hundreds of secretaries, and in 1980 Bette sold her ‘Liquid Paper’ business for £39 million!

Few people take questions seriously enough, but your business depends on you doing so.