How to expose Yourself to Luck and Leveraging Big Wins

In sales, you're not operating in a predictable, linear environment. You're operating in a sea of probability, where big wins come from randomness. Success in sales isn't about getting everything right all the time. It’s about surviving long enough to get exposed to big opportunities and events those moments where everything changes. And that’s what I want to dive into.

You don’t win every time, and that’s okay. Failure isn’t final it's just part of the process.

Patience, exposure to the right opportunities, and surviving the chaos long enough are the real keys to success. If you can get those elements right, the right opportunity will eventually show up.

When i first moved to Lagos in 2010, i got a job to do training for a lady round Nigeria. She was paying me N40,000 per talk and each talk lasted for 2-3 hours. Remember i have children and a wife so that money wasn’t working

Then one day i was giving a talk and the Head of training for GT Bank walked in {exposure to randomness} He heard me speak and gave me a sales training job for N350,000 and from that job i got more jobs from other banks.

Let's look at how these principles play out across different areas of sales, and how they align with concepts from evolutionary biology a framework that explains how high-leverage systems in sales work.

Batting .050 and Exposing Yourself to Opportunities

In venture capital, the model is built on failure. VC firms often lose 80-90% of their investments, but that’s part of their strategy. Why? Because every once in a while, they make a big bet on something like OpenAI, Instagram, or Facebook or Loveable, and that single win erases all the previous mistakes.

In sales, it’s the same principle. Maximizing your exposure to opportunities, even at the risk of failure, is key.

One big deal whether it's a corporate partnership, a high-ticket client, or a referral network can completely change your sales trajectory. Case in point my GT Bank PLC sales training in 2016

It’s about surviving long enough to land that big deal and make your previous mistakes irrelevant.

Scale and Reproduction: Amplifying What Works

Let's dive into how genetics and evolutionary biology can explain client acquisition. In biology, scale happens when you increase the input into a system, producing more output. In customer acquisition, if your system (whether it’s cold emails, LinkedIn outreach, or phone calls) is working, you can scale it up by increasing the input volume.

For example, let’s say you send 100 emails and book 5 meetings. If you increase that volume to 1,000 emails, you’re now more likely to book 50 meetings. This is how scaling works. You increase the inputs, and if your system is designed correctly, the output increases too.

Measuring What Works

Now, let’s talk about fitness. In evolutionary biology, fitness measures how well an organism is adapted to its environment. In sales, fitness measures how well your sales systems are performing against key metrics. This might include things like:

• Appointment booking rates

• Conversion rates

• Close rates

If your sales approach is hitting your KPIs (Key performance Indicators), it's considered "fit." The better your system performs against these metrics, the more "fit" it is to achieve your sales goals.

So, if your follow-up email sequence is consistently booking appointments or your cold call script is leading to more qualified meetings, your system is fit. And just like in nature, the more fitness your system has, the more likely you are to get the results you want.

Adaptability:

Just like organisms must adapt to their environment, in sales, your sales strategies must adapt to the conditions of your market. conditions refer to the unspoken needs or desires that exist in your target market. Now it is Ai.

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For example, if you’re selling a software tool like mine SURFPAGER, the condition could be a business’s need for efficiency or cost reduction but my prospects might not recognize it yet. The key to success is for me and my team to adapt our messaging to these latent needs, highlighting how our product or service solves a problem they weren’t even aware of like sales calls CRM.

In practical terms, this could mean adjusting your pitch, tweaking your content strategy, or refining your offer based on the real-time feedback you get from prospects. The more adaptable you are, the more likely you are to find success.

Client feedback is survival and adaptability

Positioning Yourself for LUCK

As we've seen, sales is PROBABILISTIC, not deterministic. Effort doesn’t guarantee reward, but you can increase your chances by exposing yourself to more opportunities and iterating based on feedback.

The goal isn’t to be perfect at everything it’s to survive or stay in the game long enough for one big event, one fat-cow opportunity, to rewrite your entire sales journey.

The structure of high-leverage sales success is simple:

1. Expose yourself to as many opportunities as possible (maximized input). Attend events, create content

2. Scale and reproduce your best-performing strategies. Repeat a content that works

3. Adapt to market needs and tailor your approach to the latent conditions of your niche.

4. Iterate based on feedback optimize your actions (email copy, sales scripts, etc.) to improve your results.

Conclusion: Let the Chaos Work for You

Success in sales doesn’t come from making everything perfect. It comes from staying exposed to the luck and randomness, maximizing your opportunities, and surviving long enough to capture that one big break that changes everything.

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