I’m sure you’ve heard the term “80/20 rule” or “Pareto Principle” thrown around before. If so, you probably know that is was coined by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1896 as an expression of his observation that roughly 20% of land owners held 80% of the land. His observation has since been tested and found evident in many, many different aspects of life and business. And indeed, it applies to you too as a founder and CEO.
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to identify the 20% of activities in your day that will produce 80% of of your sales and marketing results.
You probably already have an instinctive feel for what these activities are. Why don’t you take a brief moment to think about what they are. Then we can compare lists and see how well you did.
You back with me? I didn’t lose you did I? Ok, great.
Here’s the list courtesy of master marketer Perry Marshall from his book “80/20 Sales and Marketing.”
These are the tasks that are worth approximately $10,000/hour to your business:
– Developing and improving your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
– Crafting new and better offers
– Positioning your message and offering in the marketplace
– Executing “bolt from the blue” brilliant ideas
– Negotiating major deals
– Identifying and selling to high-value customers and groups
– Selecting team members
– Crafting strategic communications (disciplined blogging, media appearances, etc)
– Establishing values and culture
Time applied in the disciplined pursuit of the tasks above are worth exponentially more (literally) than nearly anything else you can be doing in your business. But the day is long and your attention is shifting. Are there any other tasks you can do when you’re not working on the list above?
How about these $1,000/hour tasks:
– Planning and prioritizing your day
– Negotiating with a qualified prospect
– Building your sales funnel
– Judging marketing tests and experiment results
– Creating paid advertising campaigns
– Delegating complex tasks
– Writing sales copy
Virtually any other task not on either of the two above are worth (at best!) $10/hour to your business.
My advice for those tasks is to farm them out to someone else to complete and focus your efforts on the “big fish.”
My hope is that seeing these lists will help you better prioritize your efforts and earn the highest ROI possible for your business. Your time is your most valuable resource so choose accordingly!
To Your Success,
Steve