I can’t tell you how many times I see people, sales people, marketers and companies forget about the 80/20 rule. Could it be that they never heard of it? Come on everyone! It’s the 80/20 rule! It’s the best and easiest way to generate more, good, profitable business FAST.
First a history lesson. The 80/20 rule was really called the Pareto Principle. In 1906 Pareto figured out that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the people. And the concept quickly caught on as a general rule of thumb for business.
Recently MarketSmart was tasked with figuring out how to jumpstart sales for one of our newest clients. Of course, they wanted sales fast. …Before we even had a chance to write their comprehensive marketing and sales strategy.
So what did we recommend? Go with the 80/20 rule!
We just got their data this morning and sure enough $3.7 Million dollars out of $4.65 Million was generated by 20% of their clients. Go figure! So we wrote a quick sales plan for them to focus on those clients immediately. “Go to the well!” we told them.
The rest of the plan (which I wrote this morning) emphasized the following:
- Focus on the 20% who deliver 80% of your business (I call these people and clients “superstars”)
- THEN look at the next rung (“the players”) to see if you can move any of them up to superstar status
- Next look at “bench warmers” and customers who disengaged for one reason or another
- And finally, generate new leads
This strategy and plan should help you get focused quick too. Happy selling!!