Success Stopper
#5:
Lack of Focus
by Rosemary Davies-Janes |
It was the late Italian economist
Vilfredo Pareto who created the concept we know today as "The 80/20
Rule". In 1906 he observed that 80 percent of his native country's
wealth was owned by 20 percent of its population. This inspired him
to make other, theoretically aligned observations which led to the
creation of The 80/20 Rule which states that a small number of
causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a
ratio of about 20:80
Have you noticed that:
~ A handful of clients produce the bulk of your revenues.
~ A small number of products produce the bulk of your orders.
~ A select few contacts produce the majority of your new business
referrals.
How does the 80/20 rule relate to focus? Well, many business owners
have not taken the time to identify their "top 20" clients, products
or services. Entrepreneurs are as famous for their idea generation
abilities as they are infamous for their lack of "stick-to-it-ness".
Instead of investing time in trying to 'invent" new ideas or
"improve" what isn't working, just imagine how your businesses'
profitability could soar if you concentrated 80% of your energy on
enhancing what is already working well!
According to Mark Victor Hansen, the
well known "Chicken Soup" book series author and vision-to-action
thinker, the path to success lies in
finding a niche and "exploiting it's every nook and cranny". Stay
focused - go deep - leverage every aspect of your arena.
Think of others who have done this
well. From writing a single book, James Redfield, author of the
"Celestine Prophesy" has spun off at least 50 other products - the
original and related books in various different languages, e-books,
workbooks, guides, audio-books, meditation tapes, downloadable audio
files, gift sets, calendars, and several forwards/introductions in
other people books. In addition, James Redfield and his colleagues
have been conducting numerous speaking engagements and workshops
based on the "Celestine Prophesy". Now just think for a moment how
James Redfield's business would have been impacted if he'd decided
to move on to write about another topic once "Prophesy" took
off.... His readership would have been left feeling vastly
unfulfilled and he would have missed the niche-ing opportunity of a
lifetime!
What opportunity have you bypassed that could be 'dug into" and
leveraged?
What takes too much of your time and produces few if any results?
Balance the answers to these two questions and you will write you
own success formula!
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