Gary Miller here, and let me tell you, sometimes in sales, all your meticulously planned prospecting, your perfectly crafted outreach sequences, and your deep dive into ideal customer profiles go right out the window. Because every now and then, you stumble onto a golden opportunity purely by accident. And for the Average Sales Guy, those moments feel like winning the lottery with a ticket you found on the street.
We’re constantly told about “strategic selling,” “account-based everything,” and “identifying pain points with surgical precision.” And yes, I try. I build my target lists. I research industries. I even attempt to personalize my emails beyond just using the prospect’s first name. But then, life happens.
Take, for instance, that time I was just trying to figure out why a specific feature on our oldest, legacy product was causing a minor hiccup for a small, non-strategic customer. I was poking around our internal systems, looking at usage logs, trying to isolate the problem. The kind of tedious, unglamorous work that typically leads to a support ticket, not a closed deal.
While I was digging through customer data, trying to find anyone else experiencing this obscure issue, my eyes landed on a company name. It was a big company. A whale. One we’d tried to get into for years, without any luck. Our VP of Sales had a permanent “Why aren’t we in there yet?” mark on their forehead just thinking about them.
Turns out, this tiny, almost irrelevant customer I was helping? They were a wholly owned subsidiary of that whale. And not just any subsidiary – one that was testing out our product, loved it, and was actually considering deploying it across the entire parent company.
My brain rebooted. The minor hiccup suddenly felt very, very important. I went from troubleshooting a minor bug for a forgotten customer to potentially uncovering a multi-million-dollar expansion opportunity. Not because of brilliant strategic planning. Not because of an amazing cold call. Not even because I’d researched them. Purely because I was doing some mundane detective work on a completely unrelated issue.
Another time, I was at a networking event. You know, the kind where you awkwardly stand around, trying to make eye contact without looking desperate, holding a lukewarm drink. I was mostly trying to avoid a particularly enthusiastic guy who kept trying to sell me on a multi-level marketing scheme. I ducked into a quiet corner, and there was someone else, looking equally overwhelmed, fiddling with their phone.
We started chatting about the terrible hors d’oeuvres. Then about the bland keynote speaker. And then, somehow, it drifted to work. Turns out, this person was the Head of IT at a massive organization that was actively looking for a solution exactly like ours. They weren’t at the event for solutions. They were just there because their boss made them go. They weren’t expecting to talk to a sales rep. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a perfect prospect while trying to avoid pyramid schemes.
These aren’t the stories you put on a “Win Wire.” You don’t tell management, “I found the deal because I was hiding from a crypto bro” or “I was just doing support work and stumbled across it.” You package it up as “proactive account mapping” or “deep customer engagement uncovered new strategic initiatives.” But the truth, for the Average Sales Guy, is that sometimes, you get lucky. Sometimes, the universe just drops a deal in your lap when you’re busy looking for your car keys.
And you know what? I’ll take it. Every single time. Because in a world of complex sales methodologies and cutting-edge AI tools, sometimes, the best strategy is just to be present and let serendipity do its thing.tomorrow.