If you are involved in any small or home-based business, the secrets of success discovered over a century ago by an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, will skyrocket your sales and profits.
Winners and losers
Identify which of your products or services are winners and which are losers.
Start by looking at your profit figures for each of your products. Do not forget to build in all overhead costs.
When you have a full list of products and their profitability, you can then begin to compile a list in order of highest returns.
You can immediately identify which of your products are providing your greatest profits – normally, 20-30% of them are giving you 70-80% of your profits. It’s essential to concentrate most of your efforts on your winning products.
Spend the least time on those products that give you the least return on sales or, better still, cut them out altogether.
By adopting this strategy, all of your efforts will be concentrated on your best performing products and you will start to produce superior results.
Customers and their Purchases
Take a long look at all of your customers and their purchases. You’ll identify which ones are making the largest purchases and which ones are the least price sensitive.
Don’t forget that many larger customers may squeeze your profit margins and may not be as valuable as you think. Also remember, that smaller customers may cost you more to service.
When you have compiled a list of your most important customers – i.e. those that provide you with the greatest long-term profits – concentrate most of your resources on them and serve their every need. Build them into life-long clients and provide them with exceptional service.
If you establish close relationships with your best clients, and spend more time with them than your other lower profit customers, you will be adopting a winning strategy that will bring you wonderful success.
Distribution problems
The areas where you trade may also be producing good or bad results. If so, concentrate on those distribution areas that provide you with the greatest profits and again, serve their every need and build long-term close relationships with them.
What about your marketing strategy? Identify the areas that gives you the best response rates.
Research also indicates that simplifying your products will improve your results considerably. The reasoning behind this strategy is that complicated production processes increase your overheads. Simple products reduce complexity and therefore require less management.
Sit down and really think about the most important parts of your business and how they can be improved using the 80/20 Principle. You’ll save yourself lots of effort on promoting those areas of your business returning small profits.
Welcome to a rosy future.
Brian Li is head of the UK’s Business Growth Centre. Discover how to get virtually every job you apply for and a host of incredible secrets to skyrocket your sales: http://www.businessgrowthcentre.com Also discover the best overall program on the planet: Hits USA: http://www.hitsusa.com/go/00001083 Copyright (c) 2003 Brian Li