Nobody likes to fail. But when it comes to direct-mail efforts, lessons that arise from stunning failures often can lead to stunning success

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

So I asked my wife what to do. Not just because she’s a smart and creative person, but because she’s a nurse at a prestigious hospital with more than 15 years of experience in the pediatric intensive care unit. She’d dealt with many severe — as in life-threatening — asthma cases. “What was it like from the perspective of the patient and the patient’s family?” I asked.