Back in 2012, my small press agency was getting some traction from its videos on Youtube. At a regular meeting, I declared that we would do whatever it took to become the number one channel in YouTube's news vertical.
What strikes me is that Cristiano is probably the world's most successful footballer ever. He has scored more international goals than any man in history. He has more Instagram followers than anyone on the planet. Yet he still feels nervous both before and during important game situations.
The truth is that running a business is like surfing. It's a lot about turning up consistently, making choices about what to try, carefully timing your efforts and learning from your mistakes. But, as long as you make it back to shore, you live to surf another day.
Buyers want new suppliers to offer them something that is high risk enough to also be high reward. Once I figured this out, I managed to get work with new customers time and again by offering them content that wasn't available via anybody else which also had breakthrough hit potential.
Before long, instead of avoiding me, buyers were contacting me to find out what we were working on. The confidence I displayed by not pitching them meant they were genuinely interested in what we might be doing.
