A marketer explains why throwing away bad ideas too fast is like putting pistachio shells back in the bowl. A failed idea in one situation might work somewhere else, so don't let your waste pile hide the good stuff.
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If you've got a big bowl of pistachios, you don't want to make the mistake of putting the shells back in the serving bowl, right? The more you do that and the longer you do it, the harder it becomes to find an unopened pistachio. A common solution is to have a waste pile, which means the chances of you getting a good one from the big bowl are pretty much 100%. So what does pistachios have to do with marketing? Well, if you're in the habit of putting marketing ideas that will never work in a waste pile, you're almost certainly missing great opportunities. There's a difference between "that didn't work that time under those particular conditions" and "that will never work." The moral of the story? Be careful with what you think is waste.