Whatever the actual origin, the specific pairing of Friday and the 13th didn't fully crystallize into cultural anxiety until the late 19th century, but today it remains one of the most widely recognized superstitions...a day when people half-seriously brace for bad luck.
And that word...luck...is exactly what I want to talk about this morning. Because in 40+ years running companies, of consulting, of coaching sales teams, and of teaching entrepreneurship at Tufts, I've seen more revenue lost to the belief in luck than to any competitor, any market condition, or any bad quarter.
Luck is simply never a sales strategy...or a business or an investment strategy!
Every sales organization I've ever walked into has some version of the same problem. There are deals in the pipeline that have been there for 90, 120, sometimes 180 days. When you ask the rep what's happening, the answer...dressed up in polished CRM language or delivered with impressive confidence...almost always boils down to the same thing: "I'm hoping".
-Hoping the prospect comes back from vacation.
-Hoping the budget gets approved or Purchasing or Legal or others approve
-Hoping the competitor stumbles.
-Hoping the timing gets better.
Hope is not a pipeline. Hope is a wish dressed up in a dress shirt.
The most dangerous deals in your forecast are not the ones that say "No" since at least you then have clarity. The dangerous ones are the ones where nothing is happening, where no one is moving, and where your sales rep is essentially waiting for luck to show up and close the deal for them. They have "Happy Ears", and don't want to hear the "No".
What we practice religiously at the firm, and what I teach at Tufts is that the best sales organizations practice the discipline of sales as a science, not a performance. It's a sales religion built on: Process-Tools-Technology-Math and People.
It becomes "The Way"...the only way...that selling is done at your company:
Process over personality. The best salespeople aren't the ones with the most charm. They're the ones with the most rigorous qualification discipline. They know exactly who their buyer is, what problem they're solving, what the decision criteria are, and what the competitive landscape looks like. They don't hope a deal will close. They engineer it to close.
Metrics over mood. Sales productivity isn't about having a good week or a bad week. It's about knowing your numbers cold: conversion rates at every stage, average deal size, sales velocity, time-to-close, the metrics of ROI, CAC, LTV, and the formal language of Value Propositions by Persona.
When you manage to process and metrics, luck becomes irrelevant because the data tells you exactly where the system is breaking down and what to fix.
Qualification over volume. I'd rather have a rep with 10 tightly qualified opportunities than one with 40 that are half-baked. The discipline of saying "no" early, of walking away from deals that don't meet your criteria, is one of the highest-leverage skills in sales, and it has nothing to do with luck. I just turned down a potential deal this morning from a friend since it has a very low probability of being successful.
Consistent follow-through. The research on sales productivity is unambiguous: the majority of deals require multiple meaningful touches before they close, and most reps stop far too early. Not because they're lazy, but because they're hoping the buyer will do the work for them. The science says stay in it systematically, with value at every touch, not just a "just checking in" email that helps no one. We call it "The Law of 6 & 8": The "B" level reps give up after 6 follow up calls; the "A" reps close a deal on the 7th and 8th follow up calls.
They do exactly what they do on every other Friday. They review the pipeline with rigor. They ask the hard qualification questions. They coach their reps on where deals are stalling and why. They hold their teams accountable to activity metrics and stage advancement. They make sure every "open" opportunity has a defined next step with a date attached.
They don't check their horoscope or worry about Friday, the 13th. They check their forecast.
The irony of Friday the 13th is that it's actually a useful mirror for sales culture. If your team is superstitious...if they're waiting for the economy to turn, the prospect to "get ready," or the timing to feel right, you don't have a luck problem. You have a process problem.
Fix the process, and luck stops mattering.
The science of sales is fundamentally about one thing: reducing variance. When you have rigorous qualification, disciplined follow-through, clear metrics, and a culture of accountability, you don't need luck. You've engineered it out of the system.
Friday the 13th comes around a few times a year. This is actually the second this year. Bad quarters, bad pipelines and bad forecasts come around a lot more often, and almost none of them are bad luck. They're the predictable output of teams that are hoping instead of selling.
Build the science. Trust the process. Leave the superstitions for someone else.
Jack is Managing Partner of Derby Management and founder of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University, where he teaches sales and marketing. He has spent 40+ years helping companies build the systems that turn sales from an art form into a science.
Now's THE Time to dive into your Sales planning for what lies ahead in 2026!
Think about taking a full day in early April to commit to updating your Sales Playbook for the balance of 2026. Just connect with me at jack@derbymanagement.com, and we can discuss a few ideas.
"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
"Writing the Winning Business Plan"
www.derbymanagement.com
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.