Roundtable Member Julius Park operates one of the nation’s largest and most successful independent martial arts schools in Baltimore. He prepares world class fighters for MMA (“Mixed Martial Arts”) matches. At our recent Roundtable meeting, Julius asks as question about “Ten thousand hours.”
I’ve often talked about how if you want to truly master something, you need to put in your “Ten thousand hours.” He asks: Can you use 80/20 to shortcut your 10,000 hours?
The discussion that followed was fascinating, ranging from martial arts to music to writing to business mastery. Eavesdrop on our most recent Roundtable meeting:
Download MP3 (29 minutes)
I am now taking applications for Roundtable for 2014. Fee is $19,900. If you’re interested email matt [at] perrymarshall.com.
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
9 Comments on “10,000 Hours vs. 80/20: Eavesdrop on Roundtable”
To continue the Peyton Manning analogy, the 80/20 would be when he is on the field. You can’t stimulate game speed, awareness, intensity, et cetera. But in order to get 2,000 hours on the field you have to put in 8,000 off the field. That’s life, and that’s where I feel like the 80/20 rule applies to the 10,000 hour rule. In theory, if we never sleep we would have much more time to be productive, but without sleep we would be much less productive. I think the 80/20 rule is more of an observation than a science. Because it’s just not realistic. A piano player cannont play 2,000 hours of constructive piano playing, on a learning curve where he is continuously growing as a musian, without at least 4 times that amount on music theory, physical recuperation, alloted time for muscle memory to build, et cetera.
PPS – its easy when you know how.
Its easy when you have the answer to questions.
Its easy when you have the infrastructure built upon 4 years or more of immersion and its easy when you have 4 years or more of reliable contacts who are also in their 4 years of immersion.
Food for thought >> “If father could pass to son, the wisdom and experience learned over a lifetime, better or for worse- what a different world we would have!”
Looking back, every 4 years something happens in my life. Its usually a significant change that occurs very slowly over a 4 year time frame.
15 years ago, in my first ‘career’ role, my boss back then was moving on to another company and at the time he mentioned a passing comment something I will always remember and that was along the lines of..
“Every 4 years you must move to stay at the top of your game”
10,000 available hours near enough, is 8hrs per day roughly (about 4 years)
Without understanding this, Ive moved on every 4 years since I was 2 years old.
I moved schools every 4 years as a child.
I moved companies every 4 years.
The general election for a new government take 4 years?
Personally I believe expertise is built upon 4 years of immersed experience, multiplied numerous times with different niches/categories/roles/etc
Wonderful Life, Enjoy! :o)
PS – Focusing the point of total experiences for an unlimited amount of time for purpose of a business, is a challenge. If its too much of a challenge, then maybe its the wrong focus point of YOUR experience.
At the highest levels, no, I don’t think u can speed it up. “A” players have coaches, mentors, constant practice, data analysis in place. But, in most cases, being an “A-” or “B+” can be speed up. Like 5000 hours. Ur roundtable speeds it up, as does 4 man, and mastermind. U get information a little faster than everybody else. U get access to people to experience. Those two factors really decrease the learning curve. I guess the real question is how great do u want to be: Local? Regional? National? World class? Also, what is the radius of your client base?
I hate you Perry Marshall!
Those are the words that came to my mind when I read Brian Kurtz’s endorsement on the inside page of “80/20 Sales & Marketing.”
It’s long been my goal to be the Eugene Schwartz of the 21st Century! How dare you beat me to it! In fact, the two books I have in my bag right are now are 80/20 Marketing & Sales and Breakthrough Advertising.
However, if the EVP of Boardroom says you’re it, then I have no choice but to cede victory. :)
Anyway, as soon as I started running pricing models through 8020curve.com, I was reminded of one of the bedrock marketing constructs I learned from Gene Schwartz:
“The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, not from the copy. Copy cannot create desire for a product.
It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product.
This is the copy writer’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it.” -Eugene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising, Chapter 1.
When I read that for the first time, I immediately thought of a water wheel and I realized that my entrepreneurial success was not based on how cool I am or how even how smart I am. But instead, it was based on how powerful the river was in which I chose to stick my water wheel.
I learned quickly that building a water wheel in a meandering river, while less intimidating, was in the end, stupid. I was told before jumping in to that franchise that it took as much time and energy to build and run a low-profit commodity business than to build and run a well-positioned business with healthy profit margins. I chose not to believe it because I was desperate. I told myself that I would be successful in a commodity business by being smarter than everyone else doing it. In the end, I paid a bitter stupidity tax.
Full story related here: http://www.perrymarshall.com/12736/black-wall-of-fear/#comment-33228
Anyway #2, running upsell pricing models through 8020curve.com, I immediately saw “the power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own” laid out visually on a curve.
Example:
One of my businesses has always sold a $497 product as the entry. Last webinar we ran had 360 people on and 40 bought – so 11% conversion. But, what if we changed it to a simpler product and sold it at $197? Would that work better?
The power curve estimates we’d up conversion to 33%! Revenue from 40 buyers at $ 497 = $19,880. Revenue from 117 buyers at $197 = $23,049. An extra $3K! Implement it and stop right there right? Wrong.
What if instead of switching to $197, I kept the webinar price at $497 and downsold the light version a couple of days later to non-buyers?
I.E. what if I still sold the $497 product to the 40 people who bought it and then downsold the $197 to the other 77 people who would have bought at $197? Total revenue $35,049!
Of course, I’ll miss on that number because I have to get them to open an email, and try again to get there attention, but I’m pretty confident I could make up the extra $3K difference and more.
And, I can also test leading with $197 and upselling to $497 and see which way works better. Either way, I’ve got a lot of curve to work with to beat $23,049.
Stop right there right? Wrong.
The business has always run the $497 offer as a self-liquidating lead generator. We make money by selling 10% of the $497 buyers an $8,000 coaching package. We’ve done that for years.
But, the power curve estimates that only 2.5% of $497 buyers will purchase at $8K? So, Perry’s wrong and I’m right! Right? Wrong.
Truth is it takes a dedicated phone selling process, a personal coach, and a 1 year make your money back guarantee to get that 10% close ratio.
In other words, we are knowingly and proudly manipulating the curve. Eugene Schwartz said you can’t create desire with copy. He’s right. But you can create it with a phone call.
We deliver on all of it 100%, so everyone can spare me the morality talk. But, that unnatural bending of nature’s envelope comes at a cost – literally. By the time sales commissions are paid, and coaches are paid, and phone calls are answered, and the occasional refund is given, the business nets 25% profit margin on the sale.
It’s still really profitable, but it creates an unnatural organizational environment – i.e. things get really high strung. So, what does the 80/20 curve say is natural? I.E. what does the existing force of the market already want?
Using the tool, take the same top 4 guys that we would have sold coaching to ($36,000 gross/$9,000 profit). What does the curve say is natural? Position #1 – $11,920, #2 – $6,561 #3 – 4,627, #4 – 3,612. Total $26,720.
So, I need a 34% profit margin off that $26,720 to have the same $9K net. Can I do that by creating multi-tiered membership and coaching levels? And can I do it in a way that causes less tension in delivering the coaching?
My bet is yes. Why? Because that’s the number they are already want so spend! I’m not manufacturing desire. I’m not screwing with nature. I’m just giving it what it wants.
Plus I already know it’s true because historically 1 or 2 of the guys who bought the $8K coaching package is always totally easy going and happy anyway. They may be demanding, but they’re not nervous about how much they’ve spent.
It’s the other 2 or 3 who’ve been bent in to the purchase that create the tension. They bought it and we’re delivering it. They have an ironclad refund policy and in the end they’re almost always happy. But, we pushed them out their envelope and it causes tension during the coaching process.
Long story short, I’m confident enough to interrupt a 15 year pattern of profitability to start implementing this ASAP.
Because as Eugene Schwartz and now Perry Marshall have told me, instead of trying really hard to sell a $497 product to as many people as I can, so I can turn around and try really hard to sell $8,000 coaching packages to as many of them as I can… I should design systems that sell multiple products to stair-stepped levels of a pre-existing and nature mandated demand curve.
And now, I have a nice design tool to help me architect those stairs.
Entrepreneurial Wisdom 101 from Aunt Claudia “Find out what people want and sell it to them.”
Anyway #3 –I’m definitely interested in licensing the 8020 curve formula. I’m not sure what that’s going to look like, but would like to have someone contact me to discuss.
Thanks
Nick
Swing on the spiral… Keep going…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlC7oG_2W4
Excellent! Mendocha will be in touch w/ you.
It’s funny. I picked up a couple things and still evaluating if the whole 29 minutes invested was worth it. However, my grandfather taught me to always listen because I might discover something that will save my life (literally, financially etc.). The key to this was that I needed to listen to whosoever no matter what they looked like, smelled like and so on. The big point to this was my cousin Woody who makes me smile even now. He was as they said retarded … nope … He was a blessing most to the time and had more wisdom than many of my college profs — even the famous ones. Thanks and I hope the comment is a blessing to others! Rick =)
Awesome discussion. I thought there were some very good insights. I especially liked the reference of the four levels of mastery and how it corelates to the 10000 hour rule.
Thanks for posting this Perry. Coincidentally, I was watching this related TED talk just yesterday. “The First 20 Hours – How to Learn Anything: Josh Kaufman at TED”. Exploring the idea of inverting the 10,000 hr learning curve, & some insights on accelerated learning through heavy prioritization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY