Covid-19 has created a seismic shift in the way we do business. Locked in our homes for weeks at a time – society is on the internet. LinkedIn and Facebook usage have massively increased. It’s now even more competitive to get your business voice heard above the noise.
With all the extra marketing activity to wade through, how do you reach those people who want to hear your messages and buy from you? ‘80/20 Sales and Marketing’ shows you how to send a definitive signal into your marketplace, identify your ideal clients and then focus on nurturing them through to paying clients.
What’s Special about this month’s book?
‘80/20 Sales and Marketing – The definitive guide to working less and making more’ is a fantastic guide to reaching your ideal customers and focusing on those who are most interested in your business.
Of course, activity does not equal revenue. Perry Marshall clearly shows us that taking the right actions with the right people is the best way to grow your revenue. How do you identify those right people? By ‘racking the shotgun’ (see chapter two) to send a signal out into your market that gets your most responsive potential customers to self-select and identify themselves in a crowded market.
Book Details for ‘80/20 Sales and Marketing’
Book Title – ‘80/20 Sales and Marketing – The definitive guide to working less and making more’
Author – Perry Marshall
Publication Date – 2013
Publisher – Entrepreneur Media, Inc
Who is Perry Marshall?
Starting out with a degree in electrical engineering, Perry Marshall used his math genius to reinvent strategy for sales and marketing. Reinventing the incredible power in Pareto’s Principal of 80/20, Perry Marshall set about communicating this very technical concept in simple language that business leaders all over the world can understand and implement to grow their own business.
Perry Marshall has consulted in over 300 industries, and his reinvention of the Pareto Principle has been published in the Harvard Business Review.
In addition to writing ‘80/20 Sales and Marketing’, Perry Marshall’s Google book laid the foundations for the $100 billion Pay Per Click industry, and ‘Ultimate Guide to Google Ads’ is the world’s best-selling book on internet advertising.
Perry Marshall is now one of the most expensive business strategists in the world. He is endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine. He’s guided clients like FanDuel and InfusionSoft from startup to hundreds of millions of dollars.
What is the book’s premise?
That you can utilise the power of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto’s 80/20 Principle to drive exponentially better sales and marketing outcomes for your business.
The 80/20 Principle started when Vilfredo Pareto ‘noticed that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth’ (pg xxiii). So, it follows that ’80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your customers’ (pg xxiii).
Perry goes even further – ‘you can apply 80/20 to your reading of this book! You can read 20 percent of this book and get 80 percent of the benefit’ by watching for the special ‘Pareto Point’ logos that highlight extremely important information (pg xxv).
The real power in this principle is that ‘80/20 is fractal, which means it’s a repeating pattern where the smallest parts resemble the whole’ (pg 37).
This means you can accomplish far more in your business by focusing in on the top 20% of the original top 20% – who will be our biggest customers, our greatest landowners, our most highly qualified people. Whatever it is you’re measuring, you can find the key players using 80/20.
Does the book deliver on its premise?
Yes. Perry Marshall distils complex mathematical thinking into key principles that he explains very simply and clearly to readers who are here to learn about improving your sales and marketing. Readers who, quite possibly, have never studied Pareto’s 80/20 Principle in detail for themselves.
It’s a winning combination. Perry is passionate about sharing the 80/20 message to all those on ‘Planet Perry’ (pg xxv). This book shows you how to utilise 80/20 to create sales and marketing breakthrough in your business.
- 80 percent of the sales are made by 20 percent of the salespeople.
- A great album has 10 songs. Two of them make the pop charts, and one is a number-one hit.
- 80 percent of the customer service headaches come from 20 percent of the “problem children”.
- 80 percent of warranty claims come from 20 percent of the product defects.
- 80 percent of the foot traffic walks through 20 percent of your store.
- 80 percent of your productivity comes from 20 percent of the tasks on your to-do list.
- 80 percent of the persuasion happens on 20 percent of your webpages.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg, because 80 percent of the 80 percent comes from 20 percent of the 20 percent. It’s not just 80/20, but 80/20 squared and 80/20 cubed. 1000:1 leverage points are hiding all over the place. (pgs 21-22)
What is the author’s voice like?
Excited. Perry Marshall is completely excited about the never-ending possibilities that applying Pareto’s 80/20 Principle will open for your business.
Open and transparent. Perry Marshall struggled in his first sales role until he worked out a better way to do this.
Helpful. Perry is concerned about helping those at the bottom. It’s clear that Perry has a faith in God, and that he wants to use 80/20 to make life better for everyone.
When an economy is blessed with good-hearted wealthy people who sincerely wish to make the world a better place, it will prosper. When the wealthiest people are greedy and corrupt and self-centred, no amount of legislation will ever fix it.’ (pg 190).
Any memorable quotes?
This book is full of memorable quotes. See Chapter Two for the story about ‘racking the shotgun’ (synonymous with sending a signal into your market to identify your ideal customers), to understand the Magnify Memorable Quote in more detail.
‘Sales is a disqualification process! The more junk you can eliminate before you spend money and effort, the more effective you are.’ (pg 52)
MARKETING IS A POWERFUL GIFT, USE IT FOR GOOD
‘You are a builder, a developer, an improver, an alchemist. …
True Marketing Maniacs and Economic Alchemists generate powerful ideas everywhere they go. And you are an alchemist.
Create. Invent. Imagine.
Apply 80/20 in every way you can, and create wealth in such a way that the world is a better place because you have lived.’ (pgs 194-195)
GOD-GIVEN INSIGHTS ARE FOR REAL FOR YOUR BUSINESS
‘From that point forward, I understood two things: 1) You take care of the poorest of the poor and He’s gonna take care of you, and 2) when you need wisdom … ASK.’ (pg 207)
‘RACK THE SHOTGUN’ TO DISQUALIFY ‘NON-CUSTOMERS’
‘You send one calculated signal that most ignore, but a few respond to. You might not even have to make that move yourself. Someone else can rack the shotgun – you just have to watch. It separates the 80 percent from the 20 percent. 50 people in the club; 10 heard the shotgun sound, forty didn’t. Fastest way to separate the amateurs from the pros.
Before you bet your precious time or money on any sales, marketing, or business endeavour, you need to rack the shotgun.’ (pg 16)
KEEP EXPERIMENTING TO FIND SUCCESS
‘By the way, don’t feel bad if your very first salvo didn’t stand a chance. That’s normal. That’s 80/20. Don’t take it personally. Just try something else. In direct marketing, there is no failure. There are only tests that didn’t work the way you thought they would.’ (pg 74)
What are some insights I can get from reading this book?
APPLY 80/20 TO ALL PARTS OF YOUR BUSINESS
The incredible power of 80/20 is that you can apply this principle to streamline your whole business.
- Use your gifts and use 80/20 to ‘Focus on your Talent Zone’ – Chapter 16
- Use 80/20 to help you hire the best team members – Chapter 17
- Get a personal assistant to help with tasks you’re not good at – Chapter 18
PUT YOUR ENERGY WHERE YOU’LL GET THE BEST ROI
‘At any given time, there are only three to four things you need to focus on to get your business to the next level. … It’s not that the other stuff doesn’t matter, because it does. But it deserves the minority of your attention. Your job is to figure out what the main thing is and keep the main thing the main thing.’ (pg 177)
GROW SERIOUS MONEY BY SOLVING SERIOUS PROBLEMS
‘Do they have a bleeding neck? A bleeding neck is a dire sense of urgency, an immediate problem that demands to be solved. Right. Now. If you want to make the big bucks, your product has to deal with something that involves one or both of the following: a) Pain and great inconvenience, loss of money, threat of loss, and/or b) some craving for pleasure that borders on the irrational. Big pain, big pleasure. Stuff that hits really close to the jugular or pocketbook. Serious money is always found in those places. If you want the check tomorrow, the problem today needs to be u-r-g-e-n-t.’ (pg 57)
WORK TO YOUR STRENGTHS
‘When you put any of those people in the right role, they shine. Whatever it is that you hate to do, somebody else loves to do it. Define your Hate List, right now, and give somebody else a job. They will thank you for it.’ (pg 132)
PAY THE MOST ATTENTION BASED ON WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU
‘RFM is:
- Recency. How recently has your customer purchased? Which customers have bought something, say, in the last 90 days?
- Frequency. How often has your customer purchased? Which customers have repeatedly bought things from you?
- Money. How much has your customer spent? Which customers have spent the most with you?’ (pgs 179-180)
Check out Perry Marshall’s illustration to see how ‘Recency, Frequency, and Money all obey 80/20. The three combined together focus huge profits in a very small number of squares.’ (pg 181)
How relevant is this book right now?
With business leaders and builders looking for insight about the right levers to pull right now to release more revenue into your business – this is a very relevant book.
For businesses operating on reduced revenue levels, knowing what to focus on and when is a game-changer. Your path through all the sales and marketing noise could be simpler than you realised.
Did the book live up to expectations?
Yes. It is great that Magnify always keeps a copy of the books we review, as well as giving one away! This is a book to refer to as you work to optimise each part of your business.
In addition, buying the book gives you exclusive access to $75 worth of 80/20 software tools to help you apply Pareto’s Principle in your business.
Here’s a bonus: If you really enjoy understanding the maths behind Perry’s insights, check out the appendix – ‘The Power Curve and 80/20 for Math Geeks’, co-written by Perry Marshall and Brian Woodruff.
Who would you recommend this book to?
This is a book for all sales and business leaders
- Who want to understand your customer base more deeply to drive better sales and marketing actions.
- Who want to do more with less time, less money and less stress to reach your revenue goals.
- Who want to use your business superpowers with customers that want to hear from you.
Who should buy this book?
- Everyone who wants to benefit from the diversity in your team
- Revenue generators who need to find sales growth opportunities
- Business leaders who want to focus on doing what you love to get the joy back into your business
Where can I buy this book?
For less than $20 you can start ‘racking the shotgun’ to identify the best sales and marketing opportunities in your business.
Recommended snacks to accompany reading this book?
Strategic sales and marketing insights require good levels of focus. You will need snacks that help you stay alert and concentrate as you find the gold in your sales data.
Applying Pareto’s 80/20 Principle, this means that 80% of your energy needs will come from 20% of the food. How about a bowl of Frooze balls or your own home-made Bliss Balls, packed with dates, chia seeds, etc. If you have 10 of these in a bowl, you might only need a couple to kick-start your thinking. Stay hydrated with a pot of green tea.
For an extra treat, a chocolate cupcake, topped with chocolate icing and cherry. Applying 80/20 again – just eat the cherry!
Head over to the Magnify Sales Book Club to enter this month’s Sales Book of the Month draw.
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