"You were lucky"
“You were lucky.” I hear that a lot when I'm working on business coaching - usually from someone who hasn’t seen the years of testing, learning, and failing behind the results. Talking recently about pre‑judgement in marketing reminded me of another common blocker I hear from new businesses: the idea that results come down to luck, timing, or circumstance. There’s often an unspoken assumption that my results would have happened anyway - because we digitised early, rode an emerging category, or caught a lockdown boom (the list goes on). Sure, timing helps. But the truth is, none of those things deliver results on their own. They work because I’ve spent 20 years applying a consistent marketing process - testing ideas quickly, taking small calculated risks, and acting on the evidence. I'm really conscious that when you start out as an ecommerce business, even a few million in annual sales looks like a big old hill to climb. And the sheer volume of potent...