80/20 Sales & Marketing

My trusted friend Ken McCarthy recommended Richard Koch’s landmark book The 80/20 Principle. A few days later, it arrived in the mail. I took the book to my favorite hangout, Buzz Cafe.

I got to page 14, and my mind suddenly lit on fire. Yeah, I’d heard about 80/20 before. I knew the “Pareto Principle”: How the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. I knew that 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your customers. Up to that point I’d thought it was mildly interesting.

But suddenly I saw an entirely new and different dimension: 80/20 APPLIES TO EVERYTHING! A thousand new connections formed, connections I’d never made until that very instant. Recognizing that I had just stumbled upon something that was absolutely huge, I broke into a cold sweat.

I jumped in my car and raced home. Fifteen minutes later I was sprawled out on the living room floor with a calculator and papers scattered all over. The dots were connecting faster than I could write them down….