How to get lucky, sales 101 masterclass, and studying the greats

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: How to Get Lucky

“‘Give yourself a lot of shots to get lucky’ is even better advice than it appears on the surface. Luck isn’t an independent variable but increases super-linearly with more surface area—you meet more people, make more connections between new ideas, learn patterns, etc.” — Sam Altman

“Ways to get lucky:

(1) Hope luck finds you.

(2) Hustle until you stumble into it.

(3) Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss.

(4) Become the best at what you do. Refine what you do until this is true. Opportunity will seek you out. Luck becomes your destiny.” — Naval Ravikant

2: Sales 101 Masterclass

“Yes, there are tons of resources but I’ll try to offer some simple tips:

1. Sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated as to be impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I’ve been leading and building sales orgs for almost 20 years and my advice is to walk up and hit the ball.

2. Sales is about people and it’s about problem solving. It is not about solutions or technology or chemicals or lines of codes or artichokes. It’s about people and it’s about solving problems.

3. People buy 4 things and 4 things only. Ever. Those 4 things are time, money, sex, and approval/peace of mind. If you try selling something other than those 4 things you will fail.

4. People buy aspirin always. They buy vitamins only occasionally and at unpredictable times. Sell aspirin.

5. I say in every talk I give: “all things being equal people buy from their friends. So make everything else equal then go make a lot of friends.”

6. Being valuable and useful is all you ever need to do to sell things. Help people out. Send interesting posts. Write birthday cards. Record videos sharing your ideas for growing their business. Introduce people who would benefit from knowing each other then get out of the way, expecting nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to give you money. I promise.

7. No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate, etc. No one. They care about the problem you are solving for them.

There is more than 100 trillion dollars in the global economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.” — goatherders

Source: How to Sell | YC

3: Kobe Bryant on Studying The Greats

“Don’t copy the what. Copy the how. No matter what discipline you are in, there’s a common denominator in how we approach our craft. The attention to detail. The level of commitment. Those things are the same across the board. That is my message: Don’t look at what I did but how I did it. The how. And then you can transfer that over to any profession and any discipline. That’s Mamba Mentality.”

Source: Kobe Bryant Interview

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- Jay + The Z Fellows Team

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