The Law of Large Numbers is a fundamental secret to success insofar as it says:

(1) Do enough and you will be successful;

(2) Do more and you will prosper, and you will exceed even that amount and

(3) You will become a legend.

We have seen how this works in all areas of life.

As with many successful principles, the LLN seems particularly apt in sports. Just yesterday, I read this quote from the great basketball player, Michael Jordan:

“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I have been entrusted to make the game winning shot and I have missed. I have missed over and over and over again in my life. And it’s because of that I am successful. “

If you don’t try, you can’t win. Try more and more and even more than that and you will become an artist whose exploits are celebrated forever.

With that being said, let me temper the Law of Large Numbers with this caveat:

ONLY ONE NEEDS TO BE SUCCESSFUL!

This is a fundamental corollary of the LLN. Yes, you have to try a lot, but if you make that final shot on the buzzer, ONLY ONE SHOT, you will come out with the winner of the game.

The key is to stay in contention long enough to be competitive, spot your opening when it occurs, and get sixteen chances – these things position you for victory.

Let’s say you’re a salesperson and you’ve gone days, weeks, or months without closing a deal. By the way, this happens more often than you think, especially over the course of long runs.

You are in a depression, period.

How do you look for the exit? You do it with repeated efforts, an LLN campaign, as I have pointed out elsewhere. But what do you tell yourself to overcome the inevitable obstacles and future rejections that you will encounter on the road to recovery?

Repeat this sentence:

ONLY ONE NEEDED!

Sure, you daydream about having so many offers that plague you with a shame of riches. Or you have a recurring nightmare that you’re so far down the hole that you have to step up to the plate and hit a non-stop succession of grand slam home runs, just to get back into the game.

These great images will only hamper your success. They will make it seem like you have to achieve gigantic, worldwide results just to qualify.

And that is absolutely false and destructive thinking.

All you need to do is get on the board one score at a time to get out of the hole.

I ran into a downdraft in my consulting and training business about seven years ago.

He had just published a series of books, six in a matter of four years, and none of them were instantly successful. The typical secondary market that I hope to write about, the people calling me to help them improve their trading results, was practically non-existent.

And then one day without any input from me, the co-owner of a successful East Coast business walked into her local bookstore and bought one of my current releases.

He read it, wondered if it could help his team improve, and contacted me.

We started with a very modest initial program, which consisted of just one day, but that beginning led to a relationship that found me flying back and forth from coast to coast every two weeks for two years, spending hundreds of billable days together.

In fact, I just got called to the firm to update their skills.

All it took to end that depression was ONE book reader among thousands who was impressed enough with its content to ask for help.

The practical challenge, of course, is to FIND or ATTRACT THE ONE.

Right in the middle of the darkest days of our national real estate crisis, he wanted to sell an office property he owned. So I did what any reasonably prudent person in my position would do.

I interviewed Realtor after Realtor, asking for proposals. And guess what I accumulated?

At the end of my research, I had several proposals that were so completely identical that they could have been photocopies of the one above. They all said that I should include my property in a very narrow dollar range.

How did they come up with such a uniform recipe? They did market analysis that showed the most recent properties of its kind that were sold in the city. As you know, they are called “comparable”.

But the “comps” are fundamentally flawed. Unless you have a HUGE NUMBER of them that were recently purchased, and there are even more available on the market now, you will not have an adequate supply to compare.

In addition, each property is unique. It will attract some buyers more than others. And where there is more desire, there is a greater demand and a higher price that people are willing to pay.

So the question is: “For which SINGLE BUYER, or type of buyer, is this property MOST valuable?” Then you need to inject most of your time and energy into marketing for that person or for that niche.

But if you look at the AVERAGES, which is where the comparisons will take you, the BEST type of buyer will not appear on your radar, only the TYPICAL ones, and they will only be willing to pay the same as the country with the lowest common denominator. .

IT JUST NEEDS ONE thought, or IOTO thinking, as I’ll call it, assures you that you will seek the best avenues to achieve your goals.

So what did I do?

I did my own analysis, believing that the sales prices they were urging me to use were too low, that my land and my building were worth much more.

From inside my building, I looked at my neighbor on the left. He had built his property to the limit and was unlikely to buy my plot.

But the guy on the right had room to grow. Combined, our two properties would allow him to exploit the commercial possibilities far more than any of us could do as individuals, so I decided that he was: THE ONLY ONE.

If he wanted a premium, it would have to come from him, because by virtue of his position, in theory at least, he could and would pay much more than the average buyer. So I put all the real estate agents on hold and came up with a personal marketing campaign aimed EXCLUSIVELY AT HIM.

I realized that I needed to have a LOT of contacts with him in a short time to motivate him to make a generous offer.

I found every excuse I could to bump into him and say hi to him, and one day I leaned into his car in the driveway and said, “You know, I’m thinking of selling. Before I post it to a real estate agent, let me know if you want to do it. an offer “.

Within 90 days, he was the proud owner of side-by-side properties and I had been charged.

Overall, I got a premium price:

(1) It was 25% to 33% higher than the proposals suggested the property list;

(2) I sold it myself, without a Realtor, saving another 6% of the purchase price;

(3) I sold it sooner than I would have if I had it on the open market;

(4) I got the price I wanted; Y

(5) I didn’t have to spend a penny on repairs or upgrades before transferring the title.

Exactly how much better did I do by combining a Law of Large Numbers approach with an It Only Takes One approach?

I think I got a minimum, 45% more than I would have gotten if I had gone the traditional route, and in real money terms, it was a lot more than I would have gotten otherwise.

Perhaps the most striking example of marrying the law of large numbers with the thought that it only takes one is dating and mating. Unless you’re a committed bachelor who absolutely loves playing the field, you’re going to settle down with one person, at least for a while.

As any matchmaker can attest, FINDING THE ONLY ONE is the challenge. This involves the Three E’s: getting exposure, encounters, and exclusivity.

The LLN gives you exposure, puts you in those situations where you will be “in play”, available to see and be seen. This could be through computer dating sites, volunteering, going to alumni events at the alma mater, or hosting barbecues.

To organize meetings, you must work on your “approach skills”, learn to attract the attention of the specific people you want to know better, and practice ways to start and hold conversations.

To gain exclusivity, you need to show your uniqueness and develop a plan to attract the people you care about to spend time together alone.

The LLN, almost without exception, leads to IOTO opportunities.

The two, working together, create symbiosis and the results that we all seek, by combining quantity and quality.

I am a firm believer in The Law of Large Numbers, and fortunately a large number of people who have purchased my audio seminar under this title agree with its premise.

But committing to HIGH-NUMBER CAMPAIGNS can seem overwhelming, because it’s easy to forget that success is inevitable with our massive ministries.

That is why it is so important to marry the LLN with It Only Takes One Thinking. Realizing that success can be just ONE smile, ONE sale, ONE phone call away, keeps us happy on the train, that it can, that it will, and that it is destined to be successful.