Shots on goal
You need to fail a lot to finally reach your destination. It's how I met my wife.
You need more of them.
This isn’t a platitude this is the truth. I was recently reading a book…not sure which one (I like to read multiple at a time and treat them like really long blogs to keep my interests up). In that book, the author spoke about the need for failure to succeed.
To me, it all breaks down to shots on goal. I was in the wealth management industry for almost a decade, very early on in my career, I read a book titled, Game of Numbers.
Awesome name. As a Bruce Lee fan, it immediately conjured up the “Game of Death” film that went unfinished.
I digress.
In that book, the author writes a lot about the concept of “shots on goal”, without actually calling it that. In financial services, it’s called prospecting.
Al Granum created a statistical model over decades that was called 10-3-1. It meant 10 prospects, 3 meetings, 1 client. What 10-3-1 left out was the Game of Numbers. That you need a lot of at-bats to get even close to the averages of that statistical model. If Granum determined these numbers over decades and after studying thousands (and thousands) of advisors cadence - then the numbers revert to the mean.
Outliers get squashed down and failures get enabled. Why do I mention this, you may wonder. Because running a business that will outpace competitors is like the Game of Numbers.
There were two examples in the book that always stood out to me:
The Casino
If you knew that everyone In a fictitious casino won a jackpot at the slots. You didn’t know how many times you had to pull the lever, but you knew that the first fact was 100% true. Everyone wins eventually. Would you play the slots? No?
What if you had to walk across a room for each penny and the slots were 25 cents per pull…would you then?
What if you had the quarters handed to you, you only needed to stand on your discipline and do the activities necessary. Would you then?
That is what the financial services business can be for a young advisor. The industry has been largely unassailable for over a century and looks like to continue on. So, if you have the playbook, the coaching/training, and the quarters…why wouldn’t you face rejection and pull on that slot handle?
The Mall
The author theorized that if you jumped out of the bushes at enough people at the mall, you will inevitable get one client for your advisory practice. If you’re at the Mall of America, you have an endless stream of prospects. If you are posted out there 24 hours, for six months…you’ll have a successful advisory business. That example wasn’t in the book - but you get where I’m going with this.
Shooting my shot
What I always hated about these two examples: they never talked about the psychological impact of rejection. I took all of these examples to heart and tried to sell insurance to all of my friends. They all stopped accepting my calls and I needed a brand new set of friends. I have dealt with A LOT of issues with that since.
There was a silver lining…
I had exhausted my friends list and burned all of the bridges I had trying to sell those services. So, I joined Meetup and made new friends (this time never. telling them what I actually did).
One of those new friends became really close. Now she’s my wife.
You have to understand that failure is a part of the game. You need shots on goal to end up on the freeway to your version of success.
It won’t be easy, but that thing that you are avoiding. Do that thing.
When you get a little antsy about it. Just remember - I had so many shots on goal for my financial services career that I ended up married.
I still read that book almost 11 years after first having it handed to me.
Conclusion
I still wonder how many shots I have left for KnowCap before I eventually hit the target I’m aiming for.
Consider the market the goalie. You get unlimited shots, but you may miss the first 300, make one, and then miss another 1,000.
But who knows what could happen? You could hit the next 1,000 shots.