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Bill Farquharson

When Bill Farquharson's young daughters wanted lottery tickets, he saw an opportunity to teach them a lesson about luck. However, like sales itself, luck is a fickle thing. Read more in this week's blog.

When my youngest two daughters were roughly 8, and 10, years old, they asked me to buy them a lottery ticket.

At that moment, my father’s voice rang in my ears: “The lottery is the fastest way to separate a fool from his money.” I repeated their grandfather’s words to the girls, but they persisted. So, I entered “dad mode” in an effort to teach them a lesson…

I bought 3 one-dollar lottery tickets—one for each of us—and we stood outside the convenience store scratching away.

Mine was a bust. Madeline also struck out. But Emma hit for a free ticket.

As we we walked back inside to get our prize, I commented, “See? We just lost $3” but that, too, fell on deaf ears.

I figured Emma’s free ticket would be a loser, but, to my surprise, it hit for a dollar.

Back inside we went. This time, I was sure we’d hit the inevitable dead end.

Wrong.

That one-dollar ticket hit for $15. The girls went nuts.

I screamed, too, but not in a happy way.

“Okay, girls. Here’s where we need to stop. Each of us gets $5 and we can go home.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO, DAD! We want to play again!” they said in unison.

Perfect! Now I really had them. Instead of quitting, they did exactly what the Massachusetts State Lottery wants them to do: Give all the winnings back.

So, once again heading back inside, we bought 15 one-dollar tickets from a now-laughing clerk.

One…loser. Two…loser. Three, four, five…ten, eleven, twelve…all losers. My smile widened.

Thirteen…loser.

Fourteen…loser.

Fifteen…lo….OMG NO! A $100 winner!

Madeline and Emma hugged and bounced up and down. I got them their winnings, we got in the car, and we drove home.

I was fully defeated.

Luck is a funny thing. You can work your ass off and sell nothing, then get in a fender bender on the way home and meet the Buyer at a humongous company.

Go figure.

What I know about luck in sales is this: The luckiest people I know are the hardest working people I know. That is not a coincidence.

Sell hard. Get lucky.

And don’t buy lottery tickets. Crypto. That’s the ticket!

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