Perry Marshall tells a story in his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing.
He was running an 80 person seminar in Chicago and got everyone to stand up.
How many own less than 4 pairs of shoes? 50 still standing.
Less than 8 pairs? 30 left.
What about 16 pairs? 13 standing.
32? Three left.
Ok. 64? There was one left.
How many pairs of shoes do you own? She answered: 80.
20% of the people owned 80% of the shoes.
Fractals are everywhere.
If you understand their power and learn to identify them you will have a simpler, more profitable business.
It may not be 80/20 – it could be 90/10, 60/40 or ratios in-between but they are always present.
The majority of your profit comes from a handful of customers.
The majority or your customer service headaches come from a handful of customers.
The Rule of One is the simplest iteration of this power law.
Businesses who are trying to grow try to grow everything at once but the fastest, simplest way to grow is to grow one thing.
Focus on:
One customer persona.
One lead source.
One qualification and sales process.
One method of delivery.
When you demonstrate this to someone for the first time it’s like the sun coming up after a long cold winter.
Great strategies are never easy (there is still real work involved) but they have to be simple.
As with most deceptively simple things it’s easy to dismiss but simple things scale.
If you want help uncovering your one thing book a time: http://go.jameskemp.co/aa-
