When nature proves that selling isn’t intuition, but optimization.
In 2010, an experiment carried out in Tokyo left scientists and engineers astonished. An apparently simple organism — the slime mold Physarum polycephalum — was able to recreate a network almost identical to the city’s railway system. With no brain, no instructions and no conscious planning, the slime mold managed to design an efficient, optimized and functional network.
This finding not only surprised the scientific community: it also offers a powerful metaphor for understanding how to sell better and how to optimize a modern commercial strategy based on data, trial and error, and constant adaptation.
What did the Physarum experiment reveal?
The researchers placed food sources on a map representing Tokyo and its surrounding areas. Then they placed the slime mold at the point corresponding to the city itself. The incredible part came afterward:
the organism began to spread out, test paths, measure results and reinforce the most efficient routes, building a network very similar to the one designed by human engineers over decades.
It’s not that the slime mold is “intelligent,” but it does naturally optimize:
- It explores multiple paths
- It evaluates what works
- It reinforces what delivers results
- It abandons what doesn’t work
Exactly what a good sales team does.
Sales are not a staircase, they are a network
For a long time, selling was taught as a linear process: step 1 → step 2 → step 3.
But in the real world, customers do not follow a single path.
They come through events, referrals, webinars, LinkedIn, partners, content or recommendations.
That’s why selling is much closer to a dynamic network of possible routes, like the ones generated by Physarum, than to a straight road. The key is to identify where the “food” flows best — that is, where the customers with the highest interest and probability of conversion appear.
The slime mold logic applied to sales (4 key steps)
1. Test many short paths
A sales team needs to open multiple fronts:
different messages, webinars, strategic alliances, referrals, social media, email, and more.
Like an organism extending its tentacles in many directions.
2. Observe which routes bring results
Which channels generate more leads?
Where is progress faster?
Where is there less friction?
The slime mold “feels” where more food flows in; companies should do the same with data.
3. Reinforce what works
If one route generates more sales — for example, webinars + demo — it’s intensified and becomes the priority path.
Physarum thickens the “tubes” that work; a sales team does the same with its most effective channels.
4. Reduce or abandon what doesn’t work
Less energy goes into expensive or unproductive channels.
“The slime mold retracts the tiny tubes that don’t serve it”: smart selling stops insisting where there is no return.
The role of the pipeline in this metaphor
The sales pipeline is the representation of the different routes a buyer can take before deciding.
Not everyone follows the same journey: some arrive through direct interest, others need demos, others compare alternatives, others do more research.
Efficient selling, like the slime mold, does not cling to a single path.
It explores all possibilities, observes, measures and adapts.
The commercial lesson from Physarum
The experiment shows that optimizing paths is a natural law, not just a business technique.
If a brainless organism can do it, a sales team can leverage this logic with far greater precision:
- test without fear
- measure with data
- repeat what works
- abandon what doesn’t
- adjust continuously
In sales, improvisation without analysis is dead weight. Constant observation, on the other hand, turns customer behavior into a living, dynamic guide.
ChatGPT puede cometer errores. OpenAI no usa datos del área de trabajo de
