< I was having a look at a brochure that can be downloaded from my website last week, and noticed something odd. The content on page 7 was just a repeat of page 5. Word for word (although the testimonials down the side were different).

That’s strange, I thought to myself. So I emailed Mike, my designer extraordinaire, and said something must have got mixed up creating the most recent version (we’d recently made some minor changes to the offer on the last page). But no, the version previously had the same thing.

Ah, I know what’s happened. And with deductive powers that would put Sherlock himself to shame I deduced that the error must have occurred when we went from the print version to the pdf. So I pulled out one of the printed brochures. It’s a beautiful, 8 page saddle stapled brochure that’s been beautifully designed, carefully word smithed, filled with great testimonials and lovingly put together. And to my horror I saw that page 7 was the same as page 5.

This brochure that we’ve been using for the best part of a year, that we’ve put in front of 500 people (who have gone on to spend over half a million dollars) as had a repeated page right from day one. And no one noticed! Not us, not Mike, and not a single customer.

Which got me thinking. This brochure is good, but obviously not perfect. And it’s been doing the job. Now I’m certainly not advocating sloppy work, and putting out stuff that hurts your brand (and of course we’ve now corrected the error).

But I do think 100% done and out in the world is better than 100% perfect. I’d rather having something finished to a workable version and in people’s hands now than have it perfect and wait another 3 months. I’m fanatical about getting projects launched, and that’s much more important (and much more profitable) than having them perfect.

Love to hear your thoughts and experiences – where is perfection hurting your practice or business? You can leave your comments below.