Morning all,
Here’s the time.
Ideally, I’d like to get to writing these blogs by 6 am – so let’s see how the next week goes.
I’ve just started listening to this book and it’s nice to be back listening to entrepreneurial content after taking something of a hiatus to read some other types of content.
Already this book has been revealing in terms of what I should focus upon – and I want to walk you through the high-level takeaway from getting 35 minutes into this book.
Here it is:
So the Pareto principle states that 80% of a result comes from 20% of the work you do.
This can be applied to rich lists, NHS statistics and just about anything.
I haven’t fact-checked stuff – but by looking at the results of my own team in terms of productivity, revenue generation, performance and many other factors – it’s clear to see this at play.
Now here’s where it gets even more interesting for me.
And this is where I believe it has massive implications for all of us in business and beyond.
This principle can be applied to absolutely every sector of your life.
So let me give you some examples –
When it comes to the clients that have stuck with us the longest – it’s much more in the SEO field as compared to lead generation.
There’s definitely an 80/20 here when it comes to the clients we retain.
Now I need to go one step further.
Amongst the clients we have – which TYPE of ‘SEO’ client have lasted the longest –
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We have an Israeli eCommerce company.
We’ve got an American real estate listings company
We have an American law firm
We have a UK property company.
We have a reputation management gig.
And we’ve had multiple eCommerce company clients
We’ve had multiple property clients.
With all of this in mind – I’d NOW say that the (and here’s the important part) –
The ‘80/20’ of the ‘80/20’ – is eCommerce and Property. I.e this 4% of clients generate 64% of our revenue.
So with this in mind, it makes sense to focus on these types of clients in terms of who we should really double down on building relationships with.
Now let’s apply this same logic to another part of the business –
In terms of email outreach to win new leads – we don’t seem to have much if any success right now (for ourselves internally).
However, when it comes to link-building using this methodology – we seem to get a solid return. So it makes sense to scale link-building and forget cold email outreach as through inbound we generate 300+ leads a month anyway.
Do you see what’s happening here – by chipping away at every element of what creates actual value and what doesn’t – you can start to identify what’s worth keeping and what’s worth getting rid of in general.
By continuously applying this – you can start to refine your actions against favourable outcomes explosively so.
Initially, it’ll come with a huge cull – because you’ll realise there are masses of dead weight when it comes to the activities that you’re involved in.
And this will give you back maybe 10 hours a week (once you identify activities that don’t generate any level of tangible return), and it’ll maybe lead you to reorganising your team (when you realise there are people that aren’t quite cutting the mustard).
It’s incredibly simple when you think about it – but my problem is that I don’t have a standard process in place to check up on this.
My whole mindset is geared towards expansion, expansion, expansion – when in actuality – the most valuable activity could be contraction, contraction, contraction.
Expand out when trying new activities – and give them a set amount of time to work. But if you don’t find the person/the activity to be effective fast – there’s a real chance it’ll never become effective – or rather the relative effectiveness of it is not worth the reward. Especially when you compare this to other activities.
A simple example of this – is that if you have underperforming team members – you can work with them to improve them up to a point…but beyond that, it makes more sense just to let them go and find new personnel.
By looking at this every quarter – you can whittle away at the ineffective work – and then allow the next quarter to look at what results come from focussing upon more of what is already working. Or, you can explore new initiatives that you’ve not yet experimented with.
This is the plan for this week – to run this gauntlet against the business – and try and make a couple of ruthless but logical decisions. Let’s see what happens!
