Are you lucky in business?
Do you consider yourself lucky or unlucky in your business efforts? Can people really control their luck or is it random happenings?
Professor Richard Wiseman of London England (visit www.luckfactor.co.uk)has conducted research on luck, and he thinks that you can influence how lucky you are. One of his findings is that you need to maximize chance opportunities. Here, he has found that lucky people are skilled at noticing, and creating these opportunities. Another finding is that lucky people tend to be optimistic about the future and this optimism tends to be somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My view is that good luck occurs when preparation meets opportunity.
Let’s talk about preparation. Are you always prepared? I have met business people that don’t always have a business card to give you. No business card? You should always have one. If you are swimming, have a plasticized one!
Although less subtle than a business card, small brochures should always be at the ready. These can be 8 ½ x 11-inch tri-fold or even a one-third-page description of your company, your product & services, and why they are great. You never know when and where this information gets passed on.
Another piece of your preparation is the 15-second description. This is a well-rehearsed, memorized, description of what you want to tell a prospective customer when you have only a few seconds. This used to be called an “elevator speech” but since nobody talks to people in elevators anymore, the name has lost its significance.
You need to work on your 15-second description for a long time until it is a succinct, complete story of what your business is all about. George Bernard Shaw, an expert in many things, was asked to give a presentation. He said that if it was a 4-hour presentation he was already to go. However, if it was a 5-minute presentation, he would need two weeks to prepare. So work on your 15-second description and use it.
How about opportunity?
The first issue with opportunity is recognizing that you are looking at it in the first place. This is where Wiseman’s research is useful. Optimistic, outgoing, positive people have a trait for recognizing opportunity. Some of this, according to the well-established axiom, is seeing the glass as half full, not half empty. It’s easy to be negative and invent reasons why something won’t work. Think of the dialogue you can have with your friends, employees and especially customers, when they make a suggestion or give you an idea. If you’re positive, they will keep giving you ideas (and hence opportunities). If you’re negative, your sources of opportunities will be gone. Sometimes there are problems with these suggestions. However, many times these problems can be solved, and indeed, are worth solving. Major breakthroughs can result.
The second issue is increasing your chances for opportunity. Are you constantly networking and making contacts? People with extroversion tendencies do this naturally, where as those with introversion tendencies have to work hard at this. Are you a member of some group or organization? This helps. Many successful business people set goals of making so many new contacts per day. All of this increases opportunity.
So go create opportunities, be prepared, and recognize when opportunity is knocking. You’ll be surprised at how lucky you will become.
This article was written by Seattle SCORE Chapter member Fred Parkinson for the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton.