Join free

Law of 100: How Quantity Breeds Quality

March 3, 2024

Tyler Suomala

Founder of Growthitect

Quality not quantity, right?

Well, not always…

Have you heard the story about Jerry Uelsmann’s photography class at the University of Florida?

On the first day of class, he divided his class into two groups.

The first group, known as the “Quantity” group, would be graded based on the sheer amount of photos they produced. Want an A? Take 100 photos. Want a B? Take 90 photos. And so on.
The second group, known as the “Quality” group, would be graded based on the excellence of their photography. But instead of producing lots of photos, they were to spend the entire semester focusing on just one photo. To get an A, it would need to be nearly perfect.

Can you guess what happened? The quantity group won…with higher quality photos than the group that only had to produce one photograph.

The quantity group had spent the entire semester experimenting, making mistakes, and improving over time. The quality group had spent the entire semester theorizing about what a perfect photo could be.

This famous experiment exemplifies how quantity leads to quality.

The Law of 100

In his book, Million Dollar Weekend, Noah Kagan explains how this experiment lead to what he calls the Law of 100.

"It’s simple: Whatever you put yourself to, do it 100 times before you even THINK of stopping."

I’ve certainly found this to be true in my own experience with sales and marketing. Heck, I just shared this week about how I posted on LinkedIn for 424 consecutive days before ever earning $1 from my audience.

And in my own conversations and consultations with architects, I’ve generally found that they make evaluations very early. They say things like, “cold emailing doesn’t work.” When I ask about how many cold emails have been sent, I get responses like, “About 10 or 20. But I never got a response so...”

What if you instead consider the Law of 100 to be a new baseline. A minimum.

Here are a few reasons why this new baseline works well:

It’s significant. Not willing to try something 100 times? Then don’t try it at all. The number 100 is enough reps to get a sense for the effectiveness of an action. Plus, it’s the perfect number to evaluate conversion rates.
It’s realistic. Will 100 of anything take some time? Yes. Will it take forever? No. Depending on the action, it could fill the gaps of extra time within a couple of days or months.
It’s systematic. Guess what happens when you do 100 of anything? You develop a system that helps you to complete the task more effectively, which makes it easier to scale later on.
It’s more than your competitors. Others will stop at 5, 10, maybe 20 attempts. Little did they know that attempt number 21 was going to be a winner.
It’s fun. Don’t overthink it. Don’t focus on the outcomes. Don’t worry about mistakes or failures. Just focus completing 100 reps before evaluating anything. And have fun doing it!

Here are 6 ways you can apply the Law of 100 to your sales and marketing:

Considering starting a firm? Have at least 100 conversations with potential clients to get a sense for their top pain points and how your firm could solve them.
Need to fill your pipeline? Pick up the phone and use my proven script to call 100 businesses in your target market to drum up new projects.
Want to become a thought leader in your market? Post on LinkedIn for 100 consecutive days and adapt based on content your audience responds to most. (Use a content matrix to generate ideas)
Ready to explore paid ads? Create 100 different variations of the ad using different messaging and design assets.
Going to a networking event? Don’t stop introducing yourself until you’ve handed out at least 100 business cards.
Need to improve your client experience? Send out 100 satisfaction surveys to get a clear sense for what’s working and what needs to be improved.