Is it Luck or Skill that helps you close the sale?
In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it would be interesting to see how much Luck plays a role in our business, especially if you’re in sales.
The Ole Luck of the Irish or Lady Luck!
Have you heard the famous phrase, “It’s better to be lucky than good?”
Or the ” The Harder I work, the luckier I get.”
How would you define Luck?
I believe it is the right opportunity at the right time!
To put yourself in that position takes more than Luck. You have to do the work, take action every day towards your goals, and be given the opportunity for Luck to become a factor.
I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review by Joel Le Bon about Why the Best Salespeople Get So Lucky.
The article discussed how Luck could play a role in sales success when combined with effort and skill:
Think about this. The greater the sales activities, the more opportunities for Luck! The greater a salesperson’s Belief that success is a combination of Luck and effort and the greater their sales activities, such as making phone calls, meeting prospects, qualifying prospects, and gathering intelligence about prospects and competitors.
Joel shared that Belief in the power of Luck seems to boost self-confidence. This mindset created a feeling of optimism in the face of setbacks, especially with inexperienced salespeople overcoming uncertainty and fear of failure. These factors are critical in helping salespeople to maintain motivation.
Yes, having a winning mindset helps you believe that Luck plays a role in your success. The real Luck begins with better-executed sales behaviors that set the stage to experience Luck.
Here are four behaviors that can improve your Luck!
Competitive intelligence. The more knowledge you have, the more intelligent and the luckier you become. We need to search for intel about customers, prospects, competitors, and the overall market. We have ” Google” to help us research everything from the people we meet with and the prospecting companies.
Set high goals. I’m not talking about quotas. I’m talking about ambitious goals, such as trying to surpass your past performance. Ambitious goals make salespeople more creative and strategic. We should be encouraged to adopt higher goals because they drive forward-looking behaviors.
Fail Forward. We will all face setbacks or what appears to be a failure. These failures, or what I call learning experiences, make us better. We need to remain positive in the face of failure. We should push ourselves to set failure goals, such as being told I am not interested by x number of customers in a day or month. It’s a numbers game, and the more you call, the luckier you will get. These setbacks lead to our success.
Change your circumstances. Salespeople should be encouraged to disrupt their habits, get out of their routines and comfort zones, and meet new people. They should do new things, expand their networks by going to unusual places, and build new alliances. In sales, opportunities are created not among the people you know but those you don’t.
Luck is meeting the right opportunity at the right time!
So, how important is Luck to your career success?
People usually say that when preparation meets opportunities, Luck is by your side. Luck has several definitions, and each individual has its versions.
Now, if you ask, does Luck lead to career success?
My answer would be 50% YES and 50% NO.
YES, because Luck is also an essential factor for success.
NO, because Luck is not the only factor. To achieve success, you need to have talent, skills, hard work, and the right strategies used at the right time.
Richard Wiseman, the author of The Luck Factor, states that people who believe they are lucky are more successful in life than people who think they’re unlucky.
The primary key here is that Luck will play its part when you put the work in, thus leading you to success.
The three principles of Luck.
People who feel lucky always create and work on opportunities
Never move back fearing failures and take more planned risks
Learn from their experiences and work hard to reap the benefits.
So put Luck on your side. Luck is a trait that resides with the one who is confident about themselves and willing to work hard to achieve success!
Stay on the Path of Luck by creating more opportunities for you!
Learn more about Simplifying Your sales meetings using 3-word topics at http://www.threewordmeetings.com .