Planned serendipity

Being business-minded entails possessing a mindset focused on business-related activities, including entrepreneurship, management, finance, and strategic planning. Individuals with this mindset demonstrate strategic thinking, analyzing situations to identify opportunities and develop plans to achieve business goals, while also being willing to take calculated risks. They possess financial acumen, able to manage budgets, forecasts, and financial reports effectively, and they excel in networking, building and maintaining relationships within the business world to foster new opportunities. Moreover, they exhibit strong problem-solving skills, addressing challenges that arise in business operations, and are receptive to innovation, embracing new ideas and technologies to enhance business processes and products. Overall, being business-minded encompasses a blend of skills, knowledge, and attitudes essential for navigating and succeeding in the dynamic landscape of business. - Jeepers

Do you ever find yourself saying “I understand this is how it works, but it’s just so dumb?”

I literally find myself doing this all the time. My wife and I often turn to each other and say “I get it, but it’s just dumb.”

We had a dishwasher repairman talk to us about how new dishwashers are way worse than they used to be, even as they get more energy efficient. He told us how to keep ours from stinking like it has since we got it.

When he left I said, “I get it, but it’s just very dumb.”

When I teach people how to succeed at this work, I often tell them “It is very dumb that the world works this way, but putting that aside, it is how it works, even though it makes no sense”.

In fact, I am starting to think that a lot of why people fail to succeed is that they can’t rationalize how dumb it all is and how stupid most of the things that work really are when you get down to it.

Even the things that make sense are usually pretty dumb. The same is true with entrepreneurship. If I’m not saying how dumb something is, then I’m wondering why everything is so hard all the time.

Enter the concept of planned serendipity: modern consumers often utilize technology to map out a general experience, while also leaving themselves flexible to unplanned whims. And in this way, can potentially open themselves up to the best of both worlds. -Neuroscience Of

Planned serendipity involves creating environments and processes that encourage unexpected discoveries and insights. Here are some main concepts for putting planned serendipity to work in your business:

By incorporating these concepts into your business practices, you can create an environment that is conducive to serendipity and increase the likelihood of discovering new ideas and opportunities.

The general idea of the Bell Curve is that if given enough of the correct data on almost any subject, then the data distribution will look like a bell with a big, fat middle that tapers off on the edges. You can really get into the weeds about whether this is the correct distribution for every population, but since I look at audience building and sales from the sociological perspective of how large groups behave, it is apt for this discussion.

Why is this important in sales?

Because almost everyone gives up on accumulating data before their distribution fits into a Bell Curve.

What do I mean by that?

Let us say that at a convention, every 100 people you talk to will lead to $100 in sales. Once you talk to 100 people, you can reliably predict you will make that amount of money almost every time.

The reason that is predictable is that you have found the normal distribution of your data.

However, if you give up and only talk to 50 people, you will not reliably make $50 in sales.

Why is that?

Because you have not spoken to enough people to normalize your curve.

You see, if you talk to 100 people, you might make that $100 from the first two people, or the last two people, or somewhere in the middle.

But by skewing your metrics, you no longer have a Bell Curve, which makes your curve more erratic and less reliable.

You might make $300 from talking to 10 people or $0 from talking to 70 people, but it's impossible to predict because you have not collected enough data.

The graph of data eventually normalizes into a Bell Curve because there is enough data, a robust data set, to create such a curve.

This can't be overstated enough. If you gather enough data, then your data will, 100% of the time, result in a curve that looks like a bell.

There are ways to correct for a less-than-normal distribution curve, but it's still partially a guess.

The Bell Curve is the foundational metric of statistics. It's how we can poll 1,000 people and make assertions about a whole population.

There is another factor working here, though, because to get a Bell Curve, you need your data collection to be random.

For instance, you can't pick and choose who you talk to at a convention because that is no longer random. I can’t tell you how many sales I’ve made from people outside my target demographic simply because I talked to them.

So, if you only look for people who look like your perfect customer, your standard distribution falls apart.

This doesn't mean you should go everywhere and talk to everyone, even at a supermarket or swap meet, unless they have a high propensity for being filled with your ideal clients.

For instance, if you want to study voting patterns in Texas, you wouldn't poll people in Oklahoma, right? So, you need to find the random distribution in whatever population you choose, like a specific convention. 

However, it does mean when you decide to do a marketing/sales push, you need to get a robust data set. Otherwise, your numbers will vary wildly.

This concept is a foundational component of all sales. It's how you can predict the ROI of your ad spend, choose what conventions to go to, and how much money you will make next year.

You won’t get your big break before your time. This is an unfortunate truth of being a creative. It doesn’t matter who you know—until you are good enough to create mind-blowing content, nobody is going to hire you.

So many creatives believe that meeting Stan Lee or Steven Spielberg will change their lives. The thing is that it just might. It might change your life, but not until you are ready for it. If you meet Steven Spielberg and hand him your piece of garbage short film, he’s not going to care.

If you meet Steven Spielberg with your earth-shattering movie, he might take notice. He might not, but he might if you catch him on just the right day. But that chance meeting is luck. You have no control over luck. What you have control over is your preparation.

If you prepare properly, opportunities will present themselves. If you put yourself in the right situations, opportunities will happen. If you are prepared, then you will be able to make the most of those opportunities. The right opportunities can take years to cultivate, like pulling on a rubber band. As you pull back, the tension grows and grows. The harder you pull on the band, the more force it has when you finally release it. 

The trick is to find these opportunities before you are prepared to utilize them and cultivate contacts until they will happily help to advance your career. This is possible even if you are at the beginning of your career and haven’t created anything of import yet.

 So, how do we do that? 

There’s an old saying among creatives: “Good, nice, and on time. You need two in order to succeed.” Being good means you have the talent required to do the job. Being nice means people think you are generally pleasant and affable. Being on time means you deliver on or before a deadline.

As the saying goes, you need two in order to succeed. If you are nice and on time, you don’t have to be that good. If you are good and nice, you don’t have to be on time. If you are good and on time, you don’t have to be that nice. It follows that if you want to find opportunities, you have to master two of those qualities.

At the beginning of your career, you aren’t very good—at least not compared to where you will be in the future (with hard work and dedication, and finished projects). The only two things you have control over are being nice and on time. If you can master those two, opportunities will present themselves if you put yourself in the right situations.

If you can just be nice and on time at first, even if you suck at your chosen profession, people will want to be around you. Over the years, you will build a massive rolodex of influential people who want to work with you. Eventually, with enough practice, you will learn to be really good at your job, too.

Possessing all three of these skills is what I call the holy trinity of success, and it’s critical to build your career. I’ve found it over and over in the top performers of every creative field. If you can start out just being on time and nice, people will want to help you. If you keep working at your craft, you will eventually get good. If you can be good, nice, and on time, there will be no stopping you.

It’s important to note that when you get your opportunities by being nice and on time, these will be lower-end opportunities. They won’t be hiring you into your dream career; they will be using you for grunt work.

If you can do that work with a smile, you will build up enough trust with people that they will assuredly want to help you at the opportune moment—but don’t ask for that help until you are ready. When you can create great content, it will be a no brainer for them to work with you.