Here’s how I won Management Book of the Year (at thirty years old!) for my first book, then secured world rights deals with Penguin Random House for my second and third.
In 2010 I went to visit a friend who was home from military service in Afghanistan. His younger brother was there and we got chatting over a cup of tea.
I happened to mention that I wanted to write a book on the psychological principles behind great customer experiences, and it turned out — purely by chance — that he was interning at one of London’s top literary agents.
He said that if I had a proposal for the book he’d put it on the boss’s desk, gifting me the one in a thousand chance it would actually be read. But he was only working there another week.
I started work on the proposal that evening and toiled night and day until — four days later — I’d crafted the worst business book proposal you’ve ever seen. But I got it done, sent it to him, he gave it to the boss who read it, and invited me in to personally tell me how bad it was.
He did however see some merit in some of the ideas, gave me a ton of advice on how to improve it — which I followed — and I eventually crafted it into an acceptable proposal. Enter the kid brother / intern again, who then bullshitted his way into securing a publishing deal with the FT Press for what became The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences. It then won the CMI's Management Book of the Year.
Fast forward to 2016 and — having kept in touch with the bigwig agent — he agreed to represent my second book idea, helped me sculpt it into a really strong proposal, and sold it to Random House in a deal I’d never have got otherwise.
In summary, if I hadn’t blurted out my literary aspirations to my school mate’s kid brother over a cup of tea I wouldn’t have written three books, and you wouldn’t be reading this.
There’s a simple lesson here.
People can only help you or contribute to your success if they know what it is you’re working on, are passionate about or what goals you have. Sharing this information — whether in conversations or on social media — massively increases the potential for serendipitous encounters. It helps you create your own luck.
Other ingredients for success also feature: straight-forward coachability, managing relationships for the long-term, and a willingness to give something a go. Three things that, in my opinion at least, are massively underrated.
See this post on LinkedIn