The surface area of luck.
For all my talk of sales being about taking sales action;
making calls,
doing meetings,
sending messages,
posting content.
In reality, you have to be lucky.
But,
You can't get lucky if you don't take action.
There's a clear relationship between the two.
The famous phrase "the harder I work, the luckier I get"
It was super clear to me this week.
I was at the Singapore FinTech Festival, the biggest event in Singapore.
I watched salespeople in action,
At their booth, standing and smiling.
What they were hoping for was the right person
at the right time
to come past their booth,
and be able to talk to them,
and that, from what I understand, is luck.
You could stand all day in the right place,
with the right smile
and the right product,
but the right customer,
may just not walk past your booth at that time.
But this is what is clear to me:
If you're not at the event,
or if you're not posting on social media,
or if you're not doing cold calls,
or if you're not doing meetings,
or advertising your product.
You cannot have any luck.
People can't buy something they don't know about.
Sales is about luck,
but the amount of luck you get is defined by the amount of actions you take.
I don't know how to skew luck your way,
but I do know how to increase the odds.
That's what being great at sales is about.
Increasing the chances that somebody will see you at the right time and say,
"Hey, tell me about your product."
And when someone asks you to sell to them,
Bingo!
You got lucky.
You just increased the surface area of luck.
Ned.
Content of the week:
This week, we have Ted Merz on The Sell.
Over 30 years at Bloomberg. Now telling stories in a whole new way on LinkedIn, through video, and with a voice that’s as clear as ever.
This was such a good conversation.
We talked about visibility, storytelling, the future of CEOs as creators, and why holding a camera up might be one of the most valuable business skills today.
Ted calls it “committing journalism in the wild.”
You’ll love this one.
Ted Merz, everybody.