Marshall has provided a method for examining sales and marketing through the lens of 80/20. Through this lens, one can see how successful a campaign will be.
80/20 Sales and Marketing is 230 pages long organized into 25 chapters. Marshall used a lot of storytelling to illustrate his point. At the end of the book, you are convinced of the power of the 80/20 principle. Here are some of the things that stood out to me:
- While explaining how 80/20 works, he used an example of how 80/20 applied to driving. Eighty percent of the traffic drives on 20% of the roads. If you take 80% of the 20%, this means that in total 64% of the drivers only drive on 4% of the roads. The power of the 80/20 principle is when you drill into the numbers.
- Marshall shared a tool to help calculate the 80/20 curve. Rather than focus on the average, this tool helps you focus on the elements that matter most.
- You need to put the tools and systems in place to create warm leads. Marshall recommends that you should not do cold calling. Create solutions that people are interested in.
- You need to get in front of people, therefore, you need to master at least one form of reaching out. Marshall provided ideas and options for doing this.
- Using the 80/20 Curve, you can figure out how much money is available based on those who purchased.
- Marshall also talked about the Power Triangle: Traffic, Conversion, and Economics. I equate this to Know, Like, and Trust or Awareness, Leads, and Sales.
- When generating leads, your sales copy will be essential. Marshall recommended a formula similar to what Ray Edwards shared in his P.A.S.T.O.R. method, focus on the problem, amplification, and solution.
- Fire the clients who give you 80% of your problems.
Perhaps the most important lesson in the book was the importance of testing and experimenting. Continue to do A/B testing until you find a winning solution and then start scaling.
Marshall also highlighted that the 80/20 principle applies to time for money. He used a wonderful example of earning $100,000 per year. As he calculated it, one would have to earn $50 per hour for 2,000 hours. Now, examine the tasks you are doing. Are these tasks that would generate you $50 or more? If you are doing $10 per hour tasks such as doing your expense reports or talking to unqualified prospects, you need to find someone else to do them. You need to focus on tasks that will make you more money such as designing sales funnels. I recently put this into practice. Rather than powerwash our house, I hired a company. In the time saved, which always takes longer, I was able to work on other priorities.
In line with doing the right tasks, Marshall advocated for hiring a virtual assistant or personal assistant. I have been very happy with what my VA has been able to do for my operations.
80/20 Sales and Marketing is also packed full of resources. Naturally, Marshall has applied his methods to these resources. In other words, you will be added to his list. Nonetheless, these are useful tools to help better understand the principles shared.
80/20 Sales and Marketing is another book that I will have to review again and again in order to squeeze all the essence out of it. It was useful in that it provided me with ideas on where I could improve operations. The 80/20 principle has been coming up quite a bit in conversation. It is definitely a book I would recommend to others.
Additional Reading
- Book Review: Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords: How to Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes
- Book Review: Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business
- Book Review: They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer
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