You know the old 80/20 rule, right?
Technically, it’s called Pareto’s Law, named after an Italian economist who showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population, back in the early 20th Century.
Apparently, he offered further proof of the principle by showing that 20% of the peapods in his garden contained 80% of the peas (don’t tell me you don’t learn anything from the EC Circular!).
Of course, the principle applies to us as entrepreneurs.
Many a time I have realised while either actually doing the work or, more often, shortly after having completed it, that that last hour was when something meaningful happened. 80% of the results in our businesses really do come from 20% of the time we spend at work.
Which, of course, is why doing your 90 minutes makes such a difference.
But I’m not about to lecture you on your foolhardiness in neglecting, once again, to do your 90 minutes for five times last week (although, you are indeed foolhardy if that’s the case!).
No, no. This Final Word is to alert you to a wonderfully simple technique that will take you were minutes to implement and yet can create a dramatic, positive result.
Interested?
Okay, well here’s 80/20 at work. There’s a wonderful little email, the power of which I was reminded of at a recent Mastermind session.
It’s the simplest, easiest email in the world for you to send to any past prospects who have enquired about your services but not yet bought.
It really is only 9 words (don’t spoil it by trying to add a few more!).
Here it is:-
Hi, [FIRST NAME.]
Are you still interested in XXXXX?
[YOUR FIRST NAME]
The XXXXX is, of course, what you do.
In one Mastermind group, three of the members deployed this technique following our discussion about it at the previous meeting.
One got 12 new orders in with a combined value of over £30,000.
Another made sales of over £60,000 and a third had to turn off their Google Adwords account for four days because they had to deal with the response they got from this email. “It all went mental” was how he described it.
Now, these results may not be typical but unless you try it you’ll never know, and the amount of effort and time involved is teeny tiny.
If you’ve got a large list of people to send it to (and, by the way, you can go back many months or years into your database), you’ll be surprised at what a note like this unearths.
But, if the numbers you can send it to are large then don’t send them all at once. Stagger the send over a few days so you don’t cause the same problem that I described above with a massive influx of responses or inquiries. You want to be able to deal with whatever it yields.
So there you have it. A simple to use, widely applicable, practical technique to breathe life into your old enquiries.
It also has the effect of rebuilding your relationships with these people. And even those that don’t place orders or buy immediately on the back of the note can be put into your ongoing communication plan to receive your monthly newsletter, be popped into your autoresponder campaign or kept alive in other ways.
Either way, it’s a smart thing to do – and a great example of 80/20 at work.
And your 90 minutes is the perfect time in which to do it.
Could happen tomorrow, couldn’t it?
That’s the final word.
