The game you only win when you stop trying to win
And why selling will never feel like begging again
I’m writing this in English. But I need one Spanish word to make this work.
Roneo.
Roneo: the game between peers who want to reach the same place, but enjoy the game so much that arriving is almost beside the point.
Like two chess players who keep rematching because the conversation across the board is better than checkmate.
There’s no translation. Flirting gets close but misses — flirting has a destination. Roneo lives in the journey.
Selling is roneo.
I’m a professional at roneo. No shame in that.
I enjoy every conversation that has weight — whether it closes or not. The closing was never the point. The point was the room. The exchange. Two people figuring out if they’re speaking the same language.
Sometimes they are. Sometimes they’re not. Both are fine.
What’s not fine is not showing up to the game at all.
There are two ways to get it wrong.
The first: the hard sell. The megaphone. Look at me, hire me, here are my credentials, here is my portfolio, here is my price. Technically correct. Completely dead.
The second: the non-sell. I don’t like to talk about myself. My work speaks for itself. I’m not good at this part.
Both miss the point.
The roneo happens in the middle. When you’re so present in the conversation that you stop thinking about closing — and even when the bar lights come on, the mood stays.
You know that moment. When something shifts. When the other person leans in.
That’s not technique. That can’t be taught. But it can be learned — if you’re willing to enjoy the game more than you fear losing it.
I’m lucky. I have a crew that grows every year. Professionals, most of them. The kind who share everything over a gin tonic at tardeo.
Tardeo: those plans you make for the afternoon, telling yourself you’ll be sensible. Knowing full well that gin tonics in good company are the devil’s work. You go out calm. It never ends calm.
And what I hear, over and over, from the smartest people I know:
It’s not the algorithm. Not the exposure. Not the system that still needs closing so the client flow becomes whatever X is supposed to be.
It’s the selling. The act of selling themselves.
And I find that genuinely curious.
