Some people persuade best by writing. Others sell with pictures.
Some sell their ability to adhere best practices; others by astounding customers with originality and ingenuity.
Some pluck heartstrings; others deliver cold, hard facts.
It is exceedingly rare for one person to be able to successfully cover all marketing techniques or bases — even in a small company in a small niche.
That means you can DUMP the guilt of not doing everything. Not being on Pinterest AND doing webinars AND search engine optimization AND giving speeches AND shooting TV commercials and 19 other things.
Trying to do all that is a recipe for death by heart attack at age 43.
Whatever you’re good at, focus on it—and make sure if you’ve got gaping holes, that you have people who can fill them.
- Master ONE form of traffic and ONE form of closing sales before you do anything else.
- Invest heavily in your strongest skills, and
- Find other people to do everything else. Someone else is great at what you’re bad at.
Consider the different persuasion modes and master one. Then recruit others for maximum result. The “Marketing DNA Test” defines eight distinct persuasion types and tells you which ones come most naturally to YOU. The test is $37; there’s a free access code inside the 80/20 book.
(Excerpted from 80/20 Sales & Marketing by Perry Marshall)
Forbes Magazine says, “Perry Marshall has taken the Pareto Principle to the next level.” -Dave Lavinsky, Forbes, January 2014
“If you don’t know who Perry Marshall is, unforgivable.” -Dan Kennedy, author of No BS Sales Success
“One of the all-time top 10 business books to impact your bottom line.” –Bill Harrison, Bradley Communications
“I thought ‘Oh, I’ve heard this before. Another book about 80/20.’ Shame on me. It’s PHENOMENAL!” –Tony Rubleski, author of Mind Capture
“Perry Marshall is about to blow your mind!”–Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth
“Best marketing book I’ve read this decade.” –Bob Bly, author of The Copywriter’s Handbook
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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.
4 Comments on “Narrow Your Sales Focus & DITCH THE GUILT”
“The world conspires to UN-focus all of us 24/7.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Thank you Perry,
I have to agree with you from experience on this.
What you wrote above has saved my butt and helped us make a good bit of change.
“Whatever you’re good at, focus on it—and make sure if you’ve got gaping holes, that you have people who can fill them.
Master ONE form of traffic and ONE form of closing sales before you do anything else.
(We started with this approach and got our offer refined so that it runs like greased lightning. I suggest everyone mirror this based on my own positive experience.)
Invest heavily in your strongest skills, and
(This is huge, for me the 2 skills are get leads, win customers. Those 2 skills will help you fix a lot of other problems in my experience.)
Find other people to do everything else. Someone else is great at what you’re bad at.”
(YUP! & no you are NOT good at multitasking :- ) lol
Thanks again Perry! You rock!
Someone once told me – focus is key. Then they wrote it down on a piece of paper: focus is qui (chi/qui..) :-)
Thanks Perry – and totally loved the 80/20 book by the way. Exceptionally insightful, applicable, and therefore valuable.
Thank you Paul. The world conspires to UN-focus all of us 24/7. Stay the course.