Page 19 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com

5 SO ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY?

‘Diligence is the mother of good luck,’ said Franklin. Gary Player, the
extraordinary golfer, put it differently. He was once told he was a
‘lucky’ player. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘and the more I practise the luckier I
get.’

DEFINING IDEA…
What we call luck is the inner man externalised. We make things
happen to us.
~ ROBERTSON DAVIES, CANADIAN WRITER AND NOVELIST

There will always be an element of luck when it comes to human affairs,
and business is no exception. That chance meeting that leads to a contract,
the stumbling across a new idea, or partner, or supplier—you can call it
serendipity, or you can call it plain jammy, but whatever you call it we all
think that luck has its part to play. The difference is that the seriously
successful believe that luck is something you make by working at it.

The simple soul turns up for a meeting or a deal with the belief that their
knowledge of their own company and goals, plus their individual bargaining
skills, should be enough to tip the balance in their direction. The more
savvy individuals dig a bit further to make some luck by researching the
other party, the market, the people involved, the other company’s culture,
the other company’s national culture and absolutely anything else that they
think could have a bearing on the hidden agenda or the triggers to
behaviour. If they then stumble on a shared interest with the other party,
one that smoothes the way to an agreement, do you call that luck or good
research?

In this day and age, with the availability of search engines, online
newspaper archives (both local and national) and social software such as
LinkedIn, there is no excuse for not putting in that little bit of extra effort
to find out more about someone. You don’t have to be a sad cyberstalker to
get the information you need. If your opposite number has a Facebook page