Want the secret to simplifying your life and achieving more of the stuff you like to do.
Then learn to see life wearing 80/20 glasses.
What do I mean?
For some reason the world seems to exist around the 80/20 principle (Paraeto’s principle)
Here are some examples:
- 80% of your fitness comes from 20% of the exercise you do.
- You spent 80% of your time in only 20% of your house.
- 20% of the emails you respond to will give you 80% of your results.
- You spend 80% of your time with 20% of your friends.
- 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients.
- In a room of people 20% of them will have 80% of the wealth.
- In a room of people, 20% of them will own 80% of the total shoes owned (we tested this recently at a seminar).
I’m sure that you get my drift. But in relation to your business it goes deeper. Of
There is the 20% of the 20%
What I’m saying that in your database there is a small group of people who have the ability and desire to spend VASTLY greater sums of money with you.
Here are some recent figures from a clients practice and I’ve included his comments because he has summed it up beautifully.
“Here’s our numbers for the 12 months to date – top 20% produced 73% of turnover, top 3.2% produced 43% of turnover (a lot of these are my production consultancy clients).
What an eye opener!!!!!
So now I am spending a lot of time thinking about strategies to add value to this client group specifically rather than thinking about my client database as a whole. And I have already come up with a number of things we can do to achieve this end.
The challenge is to discover a way to offer products / services / advice / VALUE to your top 20% that is worth multiples of what you currently offer. I think that is your challenge – to discover what it is they want from you and value enough to spend more than they currently do.
I don’t think this means you charge more for what you currently do – if you want them to spend multiples of their current spending with you, you need to offer things to them that are worth multiples of what you currently offer.”
I have a couple of challenges for you from this to really improve your life.
- Write down everything you do that fills your day. Work and home. Then ask yourself “Am I doing 20% tasks that give me 80% of my desired outcome.”
Chances are you are not so your challenge is to stop doing these things or get someone else to do them for you. That will free your time up.
- Identify your top clients in turnover with you. These have a vast ability to spend more money with you. What other services or opportunities can you offer them that they would value?
I’ll give you an example to help out. At a recent event I was running, I asked everyone to stand up if they owned a pair of shoes.
The whole room stood up.
Then I said “Sit down if you have 10 pairs or less”. About ½ the room sat down.
Then, “Sit down if you have 20 pairs or less.” About 80% of the room sits down.
We kept going until we got to about 70 pairs and there were still 2 people standing (out of 120 people).
Your job is to identify who these people are in your business and find other “shoes” to offer them.
Once you start thinking about how 80/20 applies to EVERYTHING, you will become aware of the power of leverage.
Stick to the 20%.
It’ll free your life.
