Deals and sales are a lot like commercial crab fishing.  Everything I know about crabbing, I learned on Deadliest Catch, but that doesn’t seem like a good reason to dismiss an analogy that I find myself frequently resorting too.

The likelihood of any one deal or any one sale happening is extremely low.  This is not unlike crabbing, where the likelihood of crabs congregating in any one spot in the vast ocean is infinitesimal. This is why crab boats stack their decks high with traps (or “pots” as they are called in the industry) and drop them in long connected strings.  The pots are then left to “soak” for 24 to 72 hours. Captains often find specific areas to be “hot” through this process and then further concentrate strings in subsequent runs.

There are occasionally make or break deals or sales for a given company.  I believe these scenarios to be rare and are representative of industries or businesses I would prefer not to be in.

Luckily, for every Coke there is a Pepsi, and most industries are replete with substitutes.  If you do not get the business of Spacely Sprockets, there is always Cogswell Cogs.  And I, for one, think you should not only call on Cogswell and Spacely,  but as many people as possibly in the target sale or deal space. Not only will most players not buy the vast majority of products or sign the vast majority of deals that they see, the “soak” processes can often be long and at the discretion of the crabs.  It is the foolish fishmerman, who fishes in one spot on the timeline of one fish.

And so when I hear an entrepreneur say they must get a deal with Hudsucker Industries or are praying for the check from Carnegie, I feel agony for them.  There are many places to bet the company or put all your resources in one basket, but sales and deals are not the place.  

Additionally, David Olgilvy has some words of wisdom on this topic:

Handling accounts once you have got them is deadly serious business. You are spending other people’s money, and the fate of their company often rests in your hands. But I regard the hunt for new clients as a sport. If you play it grimly, you will die of ulcers. If you play it with lighthearted gusto, you will survive your failures without losing sleep. 

Also, it’s when you have lighthearted gusto that you crab at your best.