The Power of the Law of Averages

byRolandF1

224 followers

5 years ago

The Power of the Law of Averages

After a year here in WA as a premium member I have decided that it is high time for me to at least make an effort at doing some posts, in the hopes of encouraging others, as I have myself been encouraged and inspired by others in this wonderful community.

Over a lifetime of experience in the sales field, it has been my good fortune to run into and be able to apply a law of the universe which is truly as powerful and real as the Law of Gravity. It is called “The Law of Averages”. What is that you say? In short it can be defined as the law that comes into play when we as humans strive to accomplish anything positive in our lives. In fact it could apply to any living creature.

Anyone who has ever taken the time to read the biographies of any famous person in history will see that in most cases the road to becoming great was not accomplished easily or without many challenges and failures along the way. This is true whether they were in politics, industry, education, the arts, sports or any other field of endeavor.

My start in the field of sales began as a farm boy in rural Alberta. I set up my own business selling, to my county neighbors, greeting cards year around and drink powders in the summer. I did it by walking, skiing, or riding my bike around the community. When I became old enough to drive I had the luxury of using the family car.

But it was not until I was trying to supplement my college expenses that I first ran into the Law of Averages, even though at the time I did not recognize it for what it was. I was selling to families a library of religious records (yes, vinyl records were all we had back in the 1960’s) containing songs and scripture, and in the process would acquire leads from them, of their friends and relatives, in the hopes of selling to them also.

Of course, to continue making sales that meant many solicitation phone calls in the attempt to garner more sales appointments. This was, of course, not the most pleasant part of the work, but at the same time very essential.

At this time it was my good fortune to have a sales manager who not only understood how to motivate others but also understood the Law of Averages. What he did was to offer to pay me five dollars for each and every phone call I made whether or not it succeeded in a sales appointment. He would then subtract that amount from my commissions each time he paid me. Not only did that give me the reason to look forward to making the phone calls, but happy to say, in all the time I worked for him he always owed me at every commission deadline!

The moral of the story is that my sales manager was trying to teach me that as long as I made the phone calls I would also reap the benefits. That was a lesson I never forgot!

Following college I continued my sales career by first selling photocopy machines to businesses in our city, then later by selling another program to businesses throughout the province of Alberta. They could use it to collect on their customer’s debts to them before they would have to resort to some harsher means such as a collection agency, or the law. It was called a “pre collection” service. I was an independent contractor working on commission, and I worked five days a week cold calling on all the businesses in all the towns and cities in the province. The effort paid off to the tune of almost four thousand clients eventually, many of them very solid repeat customers over a period of forty-five years!

Because by now I understood the Law of Averages and so did my wife, if, on a particular day, I happened to come up with few or no sales,when I would phone my wife in the evening I would say, “Tomorrow is going to be a GREAT day! She would reply, “Oh, oh. Today was not a good day, right?” We both understood that as long as I kept working everyday doing the same things over and over again that the Law of Averages would protect me. And you know what? Almost every time, the next day would be very successful! In fact, I could hardly wait to get to work the next day just to experience it.

The key here is, when we walk down a proven path, every time we fail brings us one step closer to our next success.

Of course the Law of Averages is not restricted to day by day. It can sometimes be hour by hour, week by week, month by month or even year by year, but no matter the time frame, it never fails. Also, it does not always have to apply to just money, it can apply to relationships or any other part of our lives. We only have to understand it and keep on working with it in mind.

Does anyone see how this law also relates to WA?