Work Smart Wednesday
đ Hey there!
Here is your fortnightly dose of Work Smart Wednesday.
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
1. đ Should you focus on your top customers?
Neiman Marcus makes 40% of itâs sales from the top 2% of itâs customers. It is like the Pareto Principle on steroids. If you look into your business, you will almost certainly find a similar pattern - often, a tiny proportion of people create an outsized proportion of results.
But would you be right to ignore the other 98%?
How can we best leverage this effect? Particularly across more aspects than just revenue.
The first question has a fairly simple answer: It depends what stage of business youâre at (check out the business hierarchy of needs). If youâre just starting out, you need to focus on revenue. If youâre established, we shift strategy to focus on profit. This need to shift strategies is something most entrepreneurs miss - they forever stick with the same strategy they started with, which leads to stagnation and misery. Your business evolves, you evolve, your strategy needs to evolve too.
If youâre optimising for revenue, then you usually want to continue to cater for the 98% at the moment. The 2% might not be big enough, or easy enough for you to find, to support the revenue goal you need at your stage. Besides, you will learn a lot of lessons from the 98% that will help you to move your business to the next stage.
If youâre optimising for profit, then you often want to focus on that 2%. That doesnât necessarily mean you reject the 98%, but it does mean you should be more ruthless when dealing with them and they are not your primary focus. Something many people neglect is that you can influence customers to become part of the 2%, which leads me to my next point.
How can you leverage this effect?
In my experience, people are too narrow in their focus when applying the pareto principle. People normally apply pareto to daily productivity (what 20% of tasks lead to outsized rewards) or offers (what 20% of my offers or customers lead to profit). There is a galaxy of options to usefully apply pareto in your life and business, here are some of my favourites:
Relationships: Who are the top 20% of people in my life that make me happy? Who are the bottom 20% who make me most sad? I analyse this every year from both a personal and professional point of view as part of my favourite end of year exercise.
Wellbeing: What are the top 20% of activities that lead me to feeling fulfilled, happy, sad, relaxed, energised? How can I do more or less of them?
Quality: What are the top 20% of things I do which signal quality in my offer? What things do I do that my customers most appreciate? How can we offer a 5 star experience most simply? Applying this one lesson with focus on quality is how I helped Ghayth go from $2k per month to $23k per month within 8 weeks.
Referrals: Who are my top 20% referrers (who sends me the most clients, or the best)? How can I help that top 20% to refer even more? How can I make the 80% act more like these top 20%?
In each case, I find it useful to analyse what makes that top 20% different from the rest. What characteristics separate them at a personal level? What did I do differently with them? What do they do differently than the others? Why was it different?
Then, we can look to implement the lessons: How can I help the 20% to become even better? What can I do to help the other 80% be more like the top 20%?
It is a simple question, with profound implications. I regularly go through this fairly quick exercise with clients, and it invariably leads to great insights and results.
Give it a go today, pick one âarenaâ to focus on (relationships, wellbeing, quality, referrals, or other), and identify the top 20%. It will be worth it.
đ Want to work together?
When youâre ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
đ Clarity Call - We will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact
𧩠Are we a good fit together? - See whether you and I are a good fit together by answering this short quiz. You will immediately see whether or not we are a good fit, and receive a personalised answer for what the next best step will be for you based on your answers.
2. đ·ïž High ticket options
Which one is worse than the other?
A) Making a $1000 offer to someone with a $100 budget
B) Making a $100 offer to someone with a $1000 budget.
The correct answer is "B" which is FAR worse.
In option "A" you lose $100.
In option "B" you lose $900.
I was reminded of this recently by Hormozi, but I learned this the hard way through experience within my own businesses - it is a bittersweet feeling when a customer tells you they would have paid 10x more.
I often recommend that clients have a high-price service. It provides an âanchorâ which helps them seem more credible, it provides a sales option for the serious leads, and it will increase sales of their core offer.
Additionally, ask your clients questions. Let the client lead you to what offer is right for them.
3. đĄÂ Quote I'm pondering
"The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive." - Coco Chanel
People correctly believe that the best things in life are free, but incorrectly believe that it means all good things should be free.
Often, they use the mantra to justify frugality beyond sense, to avoid investing in themselves, to hide away from a purchase decision they know they should take.
I have been guilty in the past of not investing in myself sufficiently, of hiding behind the phrase that the best things are free. Having the faith and confidence to invest in those âsecond bestâ things was a game-changer.
âBefore, I couldnât imagine investing this kind of money but now I am proud that I did this.â (16 seconds)
âI would never have considered paying that much for coaching, but now my mindset has changed and with my experiences it is absolutely a possibilityâ (1 min)
đ You can now earn my template âA checklist for making great offersâ.
đ Receive rewards for referring your friends đ
đ© A document outlining exactly what you need to include in your offer. Do you have a great offer? Is your offer preventing your sales?
This custom template is not sold anywhere, you can only get it by sending Work Smart Wednesday to your friend. I rotate these templates monthly. This template is only available in October.
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about itđ
Have a great week,
John
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