The main question that arises in sales in any market, including the sexual one, is where to find clients. Meanwhile, bookstores are filled with guides offering tips on effectively hunting for members of the opposite sex, as if they are some kind of prey. Professional sellers have long realized that the search for clients should not be associated with hunting. Hunting only provokes aggression. To understand both the process and the expected outcome, the process of acquiring clients should be compared to “quiet hunting,” like mushroom picking.
Mushrooms are something truly special: they are neither plants nor animals. To gather them, you need to know which areas are mushroom-rich and which are not. Of course, you can just follow the signs, but it’s much more useful to think about what mushrooms need for growth and reproduction. Unlike plants, mushrooms cannot exist independently. They, like animals, feed on the remains of other organisms. People often think that mushrooms need light, warmth, and moisture. Indeed, mushrooms often grow in places where these conditions are abundant. But that’s only because such areas provide enough food for mushrooms, which don’t really need light on their own. The search for clients is very much the same. It’s quite ineffective to wander through the forest, or rather the market, looking for clients. It’s much better to simply know the “mushroom” spots where clients are plentiful—just pick any and engage!
One way or another, there are places where members of the opposite sex are in the overwhelming majority. There are more guys on hiking trips. There are more girls at the foreign languages institute. Want to get married quickly? Get into hunting instead of nightclubs. Want to attract the attention of women? Spend your evenings in the philology department library, not at the bar. Do you need a mature woman who won’t burden you with attempts to marry her? Attend parent-teacher meetings at school. Do you need a colonel? Get a job at a military unit.
But before rushing out to search for mushrooms, people usually form an understanding of certain things in advance. Which mushrooms are edible and which are not. Whether to expect a basket full of honey mushrooms or if it’s still the season for the slippery jacks. What a porcini looks like and what a fly agaric is. Yes, that beautiful, bright mushroom that catches your eye. A mushroom? Yes. But, unfortunately, inedible. The same goes for searching for partners in the sexual market: before you go looking for them, you need to know exactly what they look like. And you must understand that among people, just like among mushrooms, there are beautiful, bright, eye-catching ones that are actually poisonous fly agarics.
Mushroom pickers can be divided into several categories depending on their experience:
- those who collect everything and anything;
- those who collect only a few familiar edible mushrooms;
- those who do not gather certain edible mushrooms, knowing about their “lack of convenience”: butter mushrooms need to be cleaned thoroughly, milk caps are too fragile, and honey mushrooms will crunch with sand;
- those who go on a “quiet hunt” with a specific goal — to gather certain mushrooms of a particular size.
An exercise that sellers must definitely practice is to describe their ideal customer for themselves. Not the one that the seller needs, but the one for whom the seller and their product are necessary. An experienced seller wouldn’t even think about meeting with every potential buyer in a row. It’s like gathering every mushroom you come across in the forest; such behavior risks poisoning. The same happens in inter-gender communication: there’s a risk of demotivating yourself by meeting people who don’t need you at all. Those who will “stand you up” or “use you and leave.” It’s very difficult to sell yourself in an environment where “everyone around” says you’re not needed. The secret to the enviable success of many Don Juans is that they never chase after every skirt. They prefer to pay attention to those who are attracted to them. And, of course, they almost always succeed with women. A Don Juan, like any experienced seller, when evaluating a potential client, will consider how much time he will spend negotiating and closing the deal, how much time will be needed for coordinating delivery, paperwork, and other bureaucracy. And if a more “accessible” buyer is available to this seller, he will prioritize the client who is more promising—both in terms of closing the deal and in terms of future sales development.
The “mushroom” model is very fruitful for modeling the process of finding partners in the sexual market. For example, consider a man’s wallet size or his “perfection.” Wealthy prince-like bachelors or men who are ideal in other respects, much like a prized porcini mushroom, are hard to come by. Similarly, women with “model looks” are also not easily accessible to most men. They are difficult to find; one has to spend a lot of time in the market to connect with the right people. It’s challenging to get to know them, competing for their attention is tough, and possessing an “ideal” is largely a matter of luck, independent of the will and efforts of the seeker. Yes, we know many stories of someone who eventually achieved their ideal. And, of course, the ideal will end up in the hands of one of those who aspired to it. However, we shouldn’t take such stories as examples to emulate. After all, these stories say nothing about the hundreds or even thousands of those who, starting with the same initial conditions, were unable to reach the final outcome.
In sales, there’s a saying: elephant hunters die of hunger. This reflects a common mistake that salespeople make: envisioning an ideal but unattainable client and spending an enormous amount of time chasing after them, or as such salespeople say, fighting for them. Yes, it’s a sweet dream to make a lot of money right away by closing just one deal. Why sign small contracts for modest amounts when you can do it all at once? But unfortunately, large clients, aside from being elusive, have other drawbacks as well. Just like oversized mushrooms, big companies can be rotten. Corruption, bureaucracy, unsatisfactory decision-making speed, and a lack of people genuinely interested in the success of the deal—all of this makes large companies “inedible” for most salespeople. In other words, even if a salesperson finds useful contacts among influential people in the organization, they may wait for years before a deal is finalized (if it ever happens). People in the sexual market can also be rotten. Here, it’s not corruption but greed, not bureaucracy but caution and closed-off behavior caused by excessive societal attention to one’s persona, not a lack of interest in the deal but disdain for those who excessively show interest.
The second significant drawback of working with a large client is the dependency on them. Just like mushroom pickers who find a big mushroom and, having no more space in their basket, decide to throw out the “uninteresting small ones” to make room for the big one, or carry it in their hand. But when both hands are occupied, they can’t pick any new mushrooms. Often, women who marry wealthy partners find themselves living in a “golden cage.” By marrying someone who provides a steady flow of money, they become accustomed to their new circumstances. They allow themselves much larger expenses. Over time, a woman may find herself in a situation where leaving such a husband means serious problems, if not the collapse of all her hopes. Naturally, she will do everything possible to keep her monopolistic “elephant.” Ultimately, the situation may reach a point where the woman is willing to “sell herself” to him without profit or even at a loss, as losing her husband would lead to even greater losses. Is such a marriage necessary?
But the problem of finding a client doesn’t actually exist. Instead, there is the issue of the quality of handling potential clients. If a seller’s quality is low, then to achieve good sales figures, they need to have many potential clients, manage a database of such clients, purchase CRM systems, and so on. However, in the sexual market, no “seller” can physically “service” more than one “client” at a specific time. So it turns out that having more than one client at any given second is unnecessary. The presence of a second, waiting client for a “sale” won’t increase anything; it will only add chaos, as you can’t pick multiple mushrooms at once. It’s like going to the movies every day with a different man, only to end up getting pregnant by just one of them. Therefore, the task of finding a partner should primarily be approached from the perspective of reducing the need for new ones, or in other words, improving the quality of your work as a seller. No magical knowledge or skills in mushroom hunting will be beneficial if you can’t distinguish edible mushrooms from poisonous ones or if you go on a “quiet hunt” with a leaky basket. You won’t have prospects in selling yourself in the sexual market if you waste time on “macho” types or “losers.” Similarly, you won’t succeed if you don’t brush your teeth, take care of your hairstyle, nails, clothing, figure, and personal scent. This applies to both women and men.
And yet, it’s necessary to seek out new sexual partners. Most reasonable men and women are engaged in this very pursuit. However, they approach this task as a problem and, as a result, only exacerbate it. They envision the world as a fortress, with desirable men or women beyond its walls, while competitors bustle around outside, ready to attack. In reality, if you rise above the problem, soaring above the battlefield and fortifications, you can see that if the fortress is not under siege, the “besieged” will be more than happy to come out. Every person is on a quest; everyone wants to gain something. For many guys, it will be a revelation that, all else being equal, a girl is more likely to agree to go on a date with them than to refuse. For many girls, it will also be eye-opening to realize that if a guy has a girlfriend, he is likely not going to deny himself the chance to interact with another woman. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. But knock gently. Remember that the speed of your approach should be slow enough not to provoke aggression, yet fast enough to be noticed. Think of mushrooms. You can’t gather them while zooming through the forest on a motorcycle, but if you walk too slowly, your basket will be empty.
If we continue to compare the search for a partner to mushroom picking, it’s important to remember that mushrooms don’t grow alone. Usually, you can find the next mushroom not far from the previous one. The mycelium or fungal network is a vast underground organism that, in order to reproduce, releases containers with spores—mushrooms—onto the surface. If we find one mushroom, it’s very likely that there will be a second and a third nearby. The same applies to finding clients in the sexual market: the social circle of someone who has already “bought” you will likely include other potential buyers. There’s no need to stray too far. If someone is attracted to you, there’s a good chance that you will also appeal to someone else who shares the interests and passions of the previous partner.
If you search for mushrooms where everyone else does, you might find that those well-known spots have already been picked clean before you arrived. The worst way to pursue a man or a woman is to follow the same approach as everyone else. By attracting potential partners in the same way as others, you won’t stand out and will end up in an “arms race” with your competitors. Women should consider what makes them different from the other dozen girls sitting in an expensive bar, sipping a glamorous-looking glass of water bought with the leftover money after paying off their iPhone and Prada shoes, waiting for someone to notice them and buy them a proper drink. Men should also think about what sets them apart from other “real men” who are trying to hit on the beauty at the club. Why should she pay attention to them? Look at the entire range of ways to attract the attention of women or men, read books on the subject. And if you find any method that is deemed reliable, tried-and-true, and effective, confidently cross it off your list. Remember, if you act “like everyone else,” you’ll get the same results as everyone else. But that’s not your goal; you need to be better than the rest. Maybe it’s worth starting by simply being different. Yes, it might even mean being a “different worse” instead of “different better.” But… if you don’t take a shot, you definitely won’t hit. Keep trying, improvise, just don’t get lost among the others.
As mentioned above, hunting is the worst strategy in the search for a partner. Game animals flee from the hunter, while domestic animals do not run away from their owners. While most people try to identify the “haunt” of potential clients and catch them there, it might be worth considering creating another equally comfortable haunt for them—exclusively yours. A cow began living with humans because, by choosing one predator, it gained protection from all other threats. A classification of mushroom foragers was provided earlier, but it did not mention the very last, highest category—those who cultivate mushrooms. Think about that.
In essence
• To find something, you need to know exactly what you need. There’s no need to create an extensive list of features and qualities. Focus on the most important aspects.
• When looking for someone, think not about why you need them, but why they need you.
• Remember that elephant hunters die of hunger. The success stories of others mean nothing.
• There’s no point in looking for mushrooms with a holey basket. The outfit you present should be impeccable.
• Don’t search where everyone else is looking. Search where there are no competitors.
• Where there is one, there is also a second.
• Create conditions in which people will naturally be drawn to you.