Work Less, Earn More. Using the 80/20 Rule to Increase Productivity and Profit!

I don’t know about you, but for me as a child grow up I would look at successful businesses and think:

I would love to be the person who owns this business!

Notice that I didn’t want to work for the business, or even run the business. My whole goal was to own the business – because then I would be making a heap of money, and have everyone else doing all the work for me.

I’m not sure if that appeals to you, but to me as a young guy about the enter the workforce – this sounded like a dream!

That Was Over 10 Years Ago Now…

And I did go down the business road. I started out at University studying a ‘Bachelor of Business’ because I wanted to be that business owner, but found that they wanted to teach me how to work in one of those businesses (not run it) – so I quit after a year.

After that I decided that I needed to start building a big business if I was going to one day be able to live in my massive house and take one call a day to check how things were going (while living the dream).

That Started Long String Of Business Failures…

When I stopped to think of all the business ideas that I have had and the ones that I did and failed – I was surprised by the quantity.

Here is an abridged version:

• A Flyer Design Business
• Sourcing Properties for Real Estate Investors
• Website Design
• Online Golf Reservation Website
• Importing/Ebay Business
• Website Design (again)
• Product Marketing For A Architecture Firm
• Import/Distribution Of New Iced Tea Brand

I am sure there are a lot more, but that is enough to make me depressed at the bucket loads of potential that I let slip by.

Looking back, each one of these business could have been successful in their own right, but being the person I am – I gave up before the idea had the chance to flourish. You see, I am an ideas person. I thrive on creativity and find that processes and hard work seem to be incredibly large hurdles for me to pass.

Ideas Are A Dime A Dozen…

I remember frequently visiting entrepreneur forums discussing the latest ideas and seeing what everyone else was doing around the world, and every so often there would be one person who would say that they were ‘working on something that was going to be huge, but they didn’t want to say anything about it because people might steal their idea.’

This seemed logical to me until someone replied saying, ‘Everyone else is working on their own thing, and if anyone did copy you, the chances of them having the same drive and passion that you have for your project is incredibly small. It’s not the idea that counts – it is the effort that you put in to make that idea a reality!’

That is entirely true, and I knew that I couldn’t legitimately call myself an entrepreneur until I not only have a creative business idea, but I also followed it through to success.

I Turned My Attention To The Internet…

Now I know if you look through my list of business failures, you will see a lot of internet orientated ideas. However,  these were all targeted at bricks and mortar businesses and everyday golfers.

In my time scouring those entrepreneur forums I came across the concept of ‘making money online’. The whole idea was that you get people to visit your website, get people to click through to affiliate websites and then when they buy – you get paid. Seemed like a simple concept, so I decided to give it go!

I started blogging, had a great time and for once – stuck something out for long enough to see some success. In about 18 months, I was able to grow my blog from nothing to over 1,500 subscribers and was starting to gain a lot of influence withing my niche. The problem was, that I was working crazy hours (like most entrepreneurs) – but was not making very much money (I think my best month was just $400).

I spent all my time focusing on relationships and writing what I thought my readers wanted to hear – but my readers were not the ones that were making me any money. In fact it was the complete opposite. while my commentators were making my blog look incredibly active and successful, it was actually the older posts that were getting a little search engine traffic that were making the sales!

Then I Discovered The 80/20 Rule!

If you haven’t heard of the 80/20 rule before, it;s really just an incredibly simple productivity guide that states:

’80% of the results come from 20% of the effort’

So in my case, 80% (or more) of my profits, came from 20% (or less) of my efforts. You see, I wasn’t focusing on search engine optimization (SEO)  in the slightest. Yet it was what was making me money.

So, all I had to do to make more money, was to put more of my focus onto SEO.

What Is The 20% For You?

The 80/20 rule is evident in all aspects of life and all businesses and can be seen in countless different forms.

80% of the complaints, comes from 20% of the clients.

80% of your traffic, comes from 20% of your sources.

20% of your staff will do 80% of your work.

Once you start to realize this – and look out for it. You will be able to fine tune your business to a productivity machine.

You can either optimize you business so that the 20% is fine tuned and the 80% is maintained, or you can drop the 80% altogether and put 100% of your effort into the 20% that is getting all the results (and freeing up a whole heap of time!)

Over the last 6 months, I have been working on the second option, and really ‘trimming the fat’ so to speak and fine tuning my online assets. This has allowed me to systematize the process that is working for me, even to the degree where I am outsourcing a lot of the work  (making that dream I had as a kid of being the business owner – and not just the worker or boss, a much closer reality).

Tom is an Australian blogger that is currently researching and trialing the opportunity created by outsourcing jobs overseas. You can download his latest free ebook GEO Arbitrage, which explains it all in an easy to read format.