AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT

“I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING.”DID HE FIRE SIX SHOTS OR ONLY FIVE?" WELL, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, IN ALL THIS EXCITEMENT I KIND OF LOST TRACK MYSELF. BUT BEING AS THIS IS A .44 MAGNUM, THE MOST POWERFUL HANDGUN IN THE WORLD, AND WOULD BLOW YOUR HEAD CLEAN OFF, YOU'VE GOT TO ASK YOURSELF ONE QUESTION: DO I FEEL LUCKY? WELL, DO YA, PUNK?” – Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry

This has to be one of the greatest quotes about luck ever spoken, but it isn’t the most common. The quote I hear the most is, “Did I ever LUCK OUT today”, and it is said by sales reps after they made a great sale.

I HATE THAT SAYING! Why would a sales rep give luck all the credit for making a sale? Was it luck that made the sales call? Was it luck that did the demo? Was it luck that asked the questions? Was it luck that closed the sale? Is luck going to do the follow-up?

Let me tell you how to tell if LUCK made the sale;

If you are driving down the road and get a blow out in one of your front tires while going 70 MPH and your car goes into an uncontrollable spin, your car spins across 4 lanes of traffic into oncoming traffic and you get hit by a bus, the bus skids off the road into the front of a restaurant, you aren’t hurt, no one is hurt in the bus or the restaurant. One of the restaurants customers walks over to your car looks at you and says, hey by some chance do you sell (and names your product or service) I have been looking to buy some of that for weeks! If this ever happens to you, then I will admit, YOU WERE LUCKY.

The problem is, the reps that say they are lucky are the reps that go into their territory every day, work hard, do whatever it takes to succeed and make sales. Then they give the credit for the sale to LUCK. I just don’t get it.

Dr. Dennis Waitley, the great motivational speaker says LUCK stands for:

Laboring

Under

Correct

Knowledge

In other words, LUCK is doing what you know to be right and doing it all the time. The reps that labor under correct knowledge always seem to be lucky!

We make our own luck by the way we conduct ourselves every day, we either help ourselves become lucky or prevent ourselves from being lucky. Either way, LUCK has nothing to do with it!

We work too darn hard to attribute our successes to chance. We aren’t LUCKY, we’re GOOD at what we do. We aren’t LUCKY, we are successful. We aren’t LUCKY, we are persistent, motivated, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic about the profession we have chosen.

Now I want everyone to listen closely, DO NOT START DRIVING AROUND ON BALD TIRES AT 70 MILES PER HOUR HOPING TO GET LUCKY, IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY! IT WAS A STORY, JUST A STORY, I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF IT HAPPENING, IT WON’T EVER HAPPEN… NEED I SAY MORE?

Lorin