Successful Failure

Companies should be in the business of story doing not story telling. At least that's the mindset of the marketing director at Iron Horse Brewery, Jared Vallejo.

Jared is a professional unprofessional. Contradicting or genius? It's a fine line, but Jared and his team at Iron Horse Brewery work very hard to make it seem like they don't.

I say this with sincere admiration because it's not easy to do what they do. They're smart, they do their research, and they have their craft down to a science. However, the personality of the people behind the beer is emulated in every facet of the brand, which I love. They're sarcastic, raw, and unapologetically authentic. Their motto is fun over profit, but if there's one thing they take seriously it's their beer.

"We lack polish and that's on purpose," said Vallejo.

It takes effort to have a successful company that is run with such a unique approach.

When making decisions, especially from a marketing standpoint, if there is a huge potential to be an eff up, do it. "Fail often, it means you're trying. Don't fail because you're lazy, fail because you actually tried." It's an experience based process of trial and error. It's risky, but it works.

Things fail a lot and that's great. You just have to own it.

Yes, failure is embarrassing. It's also frustrating and scary. Nobody wants to fail, though most everyone has. In order to have success you're going to have to crash and burn.

What I ultimately learned from Jared is that experience is better than words. It's all a learning process. You can be a theater major and end up working in marketing for a brewery because things don't always turn out exactly as planned. As long as you are honest with people and have a passion for what you do, you can't go wrong.