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80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More

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Stop "Just Getting By" ... Master The 80/20 Principle And Make More Money Without More Work.

When you know how to walk into any situation and see the 80/20's, you can solve almost ANY marketing problem.

80/20 can demolish any sales and advertising problem.

"If you don't know who Perry Marshall is--unforgivable. Perry's an honest man in a field rife with charlatans."

- Dan Kennedy, Author, The Ultimate Marketing Plan

If you're a sales and marketing professional, you can save 80 percent of your time and money by zeroing in on the right 20 percent of your market. By page 5 you'll be applying 80/20² and 80/20³ to gain 10X, even 100X the success.

With powerful 80/20 software (online, included with the book), you'll apply the Pareto Principle to:
Created by direct marketing and sales consultant and best-selling author Perry Marshall, unique tools show you exactly how much money you're leaving on the table, and how to put it back in your pocket - then reinvest for even greater success.

You'll identify untapped markets (page 164), incremental improvements and high-profit opportunities, gaining time and greater income potential.

Easy Read

"It is an easy read...very accessible, shortchapters, and actually quite entertaining," says Susan Kruger, Master of Education & founder of SOAR Study Skills. This book is peppered with stories that demonstrate powerful sales principles.

Optimized for Speed Learning

Specially marked "Pareto Points" help you digest the most valuable 80/20 Principles in 1-5 minutes. Each chapter concludes with a Pareto Summary. The book features an online 1-page "80/20 Cheat Sheet."

80/20 = Law of Nature  The 80/20 Principle is an inviolable law of nature, which makes it  the  #1 organizing principle of every business. Perry shows how to laser focus the 80/20 Principle in outsourcing, hiring, publicity, controversy, market research, lead generation, and web traffic; online, offline and social media (page 82). He also shows you how to glean huge insights from tiny clues, not only in your own business but from competitors.

Online Marketing Tools Come with the Book  Supported by online services including The 80/20 Power Curve ,  which helps you find invisible money, and the Marketing DNA Test , a personal assessment that zeroes in on your natural selling assets, this timeless guide is a game-changer for seasoned and novice marketers and sellers.

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

602 people are currently reading
5384 people want to read

About the author

Perry Marshall

13 books123 followers
Perry Marshall is endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine and is one of the most expensive business consultants in the world. Clients in 300 industries value his capacity to integrate sales, technology, art and psychology.

He founded the $10 million Evolution 2.0 Prize, staffed by judges from Harvard, Oxford and MIT. He aims to solve the #1 mystery in Artificial Intelligence and the origin of life itself.

His 80/20 Curve is a productivity tool in NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs at the California Institute of Technology, and his Google AdWords book laid the foundations for the $100 billion Pay Per Click industry. He's served as an expert witness for search advertising litigation.

Marketing maverick Dan Kennedy says, “If you don’t know who Perry Marshall is — unforgivable. Perry’s an honest man in a field rife with charlatans.”

He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and lives with his family in Chicago.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 138 reviews
1 review
September 28, 2013
not sure why people rate it so high. i expected something different

here is a sum up :
80 % of your sales come from 20% of all your customers
80% of your results come from 20% of your work

for all the bs you dont wanna do get a assistant so you can concentrate on your high profit work

the good parts are where he actually talks about email marketing and google adwords but if you are interested in those topics get a diff book

he said it himself in the book 80% of his book is useless and can be skipped

i just saved you 10 bucks
Profile Image for Chad.
1,284 reviews1,040 followers
September 10, 2021
This book applies the 80/20 (Pareto) Principle to sales and marketing, showing how to exponentially amplify results by focusing your efforts on the most important 20%, iteratively. It's a good mix of theory and application. Read it if you want to do more with less in your business.

Google AdWords is mentioned frequently due to the author's experience, but the principles can be applied to many forms of online and offline marketing.

I read this because it was recommended on the Agency Advantage podcast.

Notes
How 80/20 Works and Why
Real power of 80/20 is that if you look at only the top 20%, the rule still applies. And so on if you keep taking the top 20%.

If you hire 10 people, 2 will generate 80% of results. Those 2 are 16x as effective as the others.

Averages almost never tell you what's really important; the extremes do.

"Everything that really matters in business isn't linear, it's exponential. 80/20 is about Power Laws - powers of 10. … Customers' ability to spend money is not in increments but multiples."

You Can Do Better
Most companies waste 80% of marketing money. If you put that money into the top 20%, ROI would improve 16x.

80/20 Traffic
Turn publicity into a sales funnel with white paper, diagnostic tool, or cheat sheet.

Focus on 1-3 forms of marketing and advertising, to get much better at them than competitors. Master 1 first.

How to Use the “Invisible Money” Finder at www.8020Curve.com
Scratch the unscratchable itch. Sports teams get 50% of revenue from 1% of fans by offering luxury options.

Simplify Your Life with the Power Triangle
Capitalize on the willingness of the top-shelf customer to spend money. Sell up-sells, cross-sells, additional products.

Sell results, not procedures. Sell complete packages that solve total problem, not a la carte parts.

80/20 Conversion Now That You’ve Racked the Shotgun, Make ’Em MOVE
To make big bucks, your product has to address one or both of following urgent things ("bleeding necks"):
1. Big pain: pain and great inconvenience, loss of money, threat of life
2. Big pleasure: craving for pleasure that borders on irrational.

A good headline should read like a classified ad that would move people to call.

B2B Sales Message
Headline: start with their bleeding neck, and offer a benefit statement.
Empathize. Show that a page of your diary looks like theirs.
Talk about pain and suffering. Throw in some pleasure.
Find pain point and hit with hammer.
Use headlines, italics, bold for skimmers.
Big promise, big benefit.
Charge a small amount (such as shipping) to eliminate tire-kickers.
Add a P.S. with more bleeding neck and hammering pain.
Call to action.

Your USP
Questions USP must answer
Why should I listen to you?
Why should I do business with you and not anyone else?
What can your product do for me that no other can?
What can you guarantee me that no one else can?

How to be unique
Service. Guaranteed friendliness, delivery, live person on phone, etc.
Unique market. E.g., businesses with under 10 employees.
Unique product. Guaranteed result, tailor-made, guaranteed experience.
Unique experience. Perks.
Unique price. Low, premium, or guaranteed add-ons others don't offer at your price.

It’s Not Failure. It’s Testing.
Google AdWords is the best place to test offers and headlines.

Scale Up-Massively
Before you redo your entire website, pick the single most important page and split test. Iteratively improve, and you'll get half the total benefit of redoing the entire site by redoing just one page. Optimize a handful of pages and maybe your overall template, to get almost all possible improvement benefits.

Expand marketing in this order:
1. AdWords
2. SEO
3. Other PPC (Bing, display, etc.)
4. Email marketing
5. Social media (but use http://isfbforme.com to determine your ranking)
6. Affiliates
7. Direct mail
8. Banner ads, ad networks
9. Press releases
10. Print, TV, radio

Expand, Diversify, and Conquer Planet Earth
Using methods 2-10 (from list above), you can generate 5-50x more sales than with AdWords alone.

After you refine your marketing, partner with resellers and affiliates to get more traffic than you can handle.

Make More From Every Customer
20% of customers will spend 4x the money. 4% of customers will spend 16x.

Of repeat buyers, 20% account for 80% of repeat sales. 20% of orders represent 80% of quantity. 20% of orders represent 80% of diversity (different types of products purchased at a time).

Power Guarantees
"If it doesn't make your stomach churn, it's probably not an awesome guarantee."

Power USP: If you are [qualifying type of customer] and if you [commit $X and follow steps Y and Z] then you will achieve [specific results] or else [penalty to me/vendor].

This USP removes uncertainty and doubt and delivers results, allowing you to charge more than competitors. It also attracts better customers (not those who want cheapest option).

To command higher prices than anyone, guarantee better results than anyone.

Make $1,000 Per Hour Doing What You Love
Find the selling environment that lets you harness your persuasive/sales gifts (writing, speaking, video, etc.) to maximum advantage.

80/20 Hiring and Outsourcing
Replace interviews with auditions (test projects).

When hiring from an online job board, look for the top 1%. Look for "top 100" lists.

Set an application fee (such as $25) to weed out applicants who don't think they can win.

80/20 Controversy
"When you take that position and beat the drum, you build a powerful publicity platform." "The fastest, easiest way to become famous is to pick a side that you're passionate about and start advocating." If you take a definite position, you're quotable, and will be quoted by magazines and invited to conferences.

You can achieve rapid attention and stardom by triggering panic in the top 1% of your opposition."

80/20 Market Research in a Single Afternoon
Survey questions for prospects and customers:
1. What's your single most important question about [your topic]?
2. Why would it make a difference in your life to get a good answer or solution? Details, please.
3. How difficult has it been to find a good answer or solution?

Pay attention to responses from those who said "very difficult" and gave long responses. Here you'll find most motivating language, needs, and your point of difference benefits.
Profile Image for Yernar J.
24 reviews
August 9, 2019
This book applies the Pareto principle to sales and marketing. It has good practical implications. Marketing takes up a bit of my time right now, so I have gathered note as follows:

* 80/20 applies to many many things, maybe not in the exact number 80/20, but the pattern is the same; most commonly, 80% of revenues come from 20% of customers.
* 80/20 is a fractal rule meaning that it can be applied over and over by “zooming in” on the top 20%, again & again:
* 80% of profits come from 20% of customers
* from that 20% of customers, again 80% of those profits, come from 20% of those customers (i.e. 80% x 80% of profits, comes from 20% of 20% of customers, 64% of profits comes from 4% of customers)
* apply exponents: (20/80)^n
* Best of all, 80/20 and 80/202 are true of almost anything you can measure in a business:
• Sources of incoming phone calls
• Effectiveness of salespeople
• Sales to customers
• Physical location of customers
• Popularity of products
• Types of product defects
• Problem employees
• Customer service problems
• Sources of conflict
• Shoplifters
• Activity patterns in a 24-hour day, or a week or month
• Performance of distributors, affiliates, and channel partners
• Sources of web traffic
• Advertising waste
• Advertising effectiveness
• Productivity of web pages
• Reasons customers buy

THE SEVEN CARDINAL RULES OF THE 80/20 SALES PRO
These are the seven cardinal rules of the 80/20 sales professional:
1. No cold calling. Ever. You should attempt to sell only to warm leads.
2. Before you try to sell anything, you must know how much you’re willing to pay to get a new customer.
3. A prospect who “finds” you first is more likely to buy from you than if you find him.
4. You will dramatically enhance your credibility as a salesperson by authoring, speaking, and publishing quality information.
5. Generate leads with information about solving problems, not information about the product itself.
6. You can attain the best negotiating position with customers only when your marketing generates “deal flow” that exceeds your capacity.
7. The most valuable asset you can own is a well-maintained customer database, because people who’ve already bought from you are way easier to sell to than strangers.”

The first step to getting anyone to listen to you is getting ears and eyeballs. There’s a huge range of media outlets you can use to get in front of people and/or acquire customers:
• Foot traffic and physical space in a retail store
• Radio: AM, FM, satellite
• Podcasts
• TV
• Google AdWords
• Ads in e-zines
• Endorsed email blasts from affiliates
• craigslist
• Pop-under and popup ads on other sites
• Postcard mailings
• Direct-mail letters
• Facebook ads
• Twitter
• Linkedln ads
• Magalogs-catalogs that look like magazines
• Spots in other peoples’ catalogs
• FedEx envelopes to highly targeted prospects from carefully selected mailing lists
• Banner ads
• YouTube videos
• Telemarketing
• Press releases
• Books
• eBay
• Yahoo! stores
• Amazon Kindle books
• Appearance as an “expert” on a talk show
• Exhibitions at trade shows
• Infomercials
• Free white papers
• Fliers distributed house to house or business to business
• A custom teleseminar for another person’s email list
• Guest blogging
• Reverse auction sites like Elance.com
• Ads in magazines
• Pinterest
• Remnant space in local newspapers, purchased at deep discount rates
• Presentions at seminars
• Magazine articles and e-zine articles
• Flier inserts in newspapers, magazines, or mail-order shipments (that’s called “insert media”)
• “Dimensional Mail”

Power Triangle
1. Traffic: eyes on website/ product
2. Conversion: convince viewer to take action
3. Economics: provide value in exchange for value

* 4 questions to ask of any new idea:
* Who would buy this? (T)
* What can we say to persuade purchase? (C)
* Can we reach them affordably? (E)
* Can they gives us money? (E)

Four Questions Your USP Can and Should Answer
1. Why should I listen to you?
WHAT CAN YOU “MAKE” UNIQUE ABOUT YOU?
* Service. Guaranteed friendliness. Guaranteed delivery. Guaranteed live person on the phone, etc.
* The market you serve is unique, e.g., your focus is businesses with 10 employees or fewer.
* Your product is unique. It has a guaranteed result It’s tailor-made for X kind of person. Using it is a guaranteed “experience.”
* Your whole “experience” is unique. A cab/limo driver promises hot Starbucks coffee and a morning newspaper waiting for you, and he’ll have you to the airport on time or you don’t pay.
* Your price is unique. It may be a low price. It may carry a premium price. There are guaranteed add-ons that other competitors don’t offer at your price (or which let you ask a higher price).
2. Why should I do business with you instead of anybody and everybody else?
3. What can your product do for me that no other product can do?
4. What can you guarantee me that nobody else can guarantee?

Test & optimize
Fixing a sales funnel requires it to be broken into its individual components and testing each piece
Serial split test your sales funnel:
2 adwords ads
2 landing (opt-in) pages
2 sales pages
2 order forms
Doubling each step results in 16x improvement (tripling results in 81x)

Expanding & diversifying
focus energy on the 80/20 graph from the highly profitable customers to the low end
build a solid, reliable sales funnel, then get to branding and exposure
test sales funnel with paid search traffic first
verify with email promotions
take it to affiliates and partners
once you establish the best sales funnel, you can buy traffic from others

Make more from each customer
20% of the people will spend 4x the money (you’re currently charging them)
4% of the people will spend 16x the money (you’re currently charging them)
Multi-dimensionality of the power curve:
Repeat buyers: 20% of repeat buyers are responsible for 80% of repeat purchases.
Money: 80% of overall revenue comes from 20% of buyers.
Quantity: 20% of the orders represent 80% of the quantity.
Diversity: 20% of the orders represent 80% of the diversity.
If your business does not have a range of product offerings (100:1), you’re missing out on opportunities to sell to existing customers
what problem can you solve that nobody else can?

Power Guarantees
If it doesn’t make your stomach churn (because it’s so crazy), it’s probably not an awesome guarantee.
If you won’t take the risk, why should your customer?
But make sure to establish some disqualifiers to attract the right customer:
They must follow all steps necessary to use product.
They must obey instructions and cooperate with you.
You must have a defined process for determining whether or not all steps were followed.
All steps must be laid out, simple, in black and white.
Determine whether the customer really is a fit before exchanging any money.
Master formula for a Power USP: If you are _________ (qualifying type of customer) and if you ___________ (commit X dollars and follow steps Y and Z), then you will achieve ____________ (specific results) or else ___________ (penalty to me, your vendor).
A power guarantee is pretty unusual in B2B sales, but when you do it, you should phrase it such that nobody can ignore it.
Customers who want the cheapest solution right now are usually the worst customers.
Sell results, not procedures.

Market Research in an Afternoon
Before you develop a product, you need to find out if people want what you’ve got
If you could advertise on only one keyword phrase online, what would that keyword be?
Describe your business in only 1 search phrase; what would it be?
You can’t become “king of the mountain” until you identify what mountain you’d like to climb
Once you know the keyword, visit the following sources and take notes in a document:
monitor twitter for tweets that meet the 3 points below:
represent frustration in the market
express direct benefits of a product or service
suggest a wish the customer may have
monitor Youtube for the same topics
use Google Blog Search and Technorati to find highest profile blogs on your keywords, read articles and pay attention to comments
go to google.com/alerts/ to monitor keyword alerts
Collect all info in documents, and highlight top 20% which seems longest, most engaged, or most passionate → this provides insight into market gaps
Notice patterns, or missing things in the market, or contrarian position that may be suggested by the data
Look for a critical need that might distinguish you from every other competitor; this becomes your “point of difference”
Additionally, seek out language from customer’s comments and posts to echo it back in your sales/ marketing material
Send the following survey to your customers or prospects:
WHAT’s your single most important questions about [keyword]?
WHY is it important for you to find a solution?
HOW DIFFICULT has it been for you to find a good solution until now?
With the responses, keep only the “very difficults”; discard short answers and focus on long answers. Now you know what problem to solve.

Focus on a few metrics
* A short list of things to focus on:
* money in, money out
* click thru rates of google ads
* conversions of specific keywords to sales
* opt-in and lead generation pages
* sales pages and order forms
* individual traffic sources (affiliates, banner ads, etc.)
* If your sales process doesn’t work, break it up and make the pieces work
* If you have 12 products and 12 keywords, you’ll have a 144-box matrix of metrics to measure - not possible
* Reduce your tracking dashboard down to only a few metrics that comprise the largest section of your matrix based on effect:
* top 2-3 keywords
* top product(s)
* top 3-4 pages on your website
* top sales funnel steps
* Figure out what the main thing is and keep the main thing the main thing
* Once you’ve optimized, move onto the next thing:
* a deluxe version of your product at 4x the price
* focus on an unmet need with pent up demand that nobody else in your market is addressing
* if you perform a service, sell a product that teaches them how to use it; if you sell a how-to product, perform the service
* if you’ve tapped out your existing market, take your skills into a new market
* repackage your product or combine it with another to create more dimension of value
* if you sell something on a one-time basis, turn it into repeat purchases with a membership

RFM: Recency, Frequency, Money
* Pay attention to customers who pay attention to you
* Recency: how recently has your customer purchased from you? e.g. who’s purchased something in the last 90 days?
* Frequency: How often has your customer purchased? e.g. repeat buys
* Money: how much has your customer spent? e.g. who’s spent the most?
* RFM is a 3-d model; each variable along one axis, forming a cube. Focus on the small fraction that provide the largest disproportionate results
* How to do it?
* rank customers from most recent to least recent
* most frequent to least frequent
* most money to least money
* score each customer for each parameter (R, F, M) from 1-10
* only focus on customers with a combined score of 20 (R + F + M ≥ 20)
* Have an expert analyze your customers; send your customer list to the list analyzing company, and they’ll provide you detailed demographic and psychographic data
* Segment your email lists according to those customer’s interests or purchasing habits, then formulate specific messages for each of those subsegments
Profile Image for DeAnna Knippling.
Author 177 books284 followers
December 7, 2019
How to start applying the 80/20 or Pareto principle to your business.

When this was useful, this was very very useful. And then there were entire sections that were infomercials for some other product or service, which--because the author had already explained how he likes to cause anxiety in his customers, then promise to solve their problems--were just kind of upsetting as the author toyed with my emotions to try draw me further in. The fact that the book ended with irrelevant discursions about religion, charity, and politics felt inappropriate and cult-like. But this is a book about reinforcing your most zealoutous followers, so...I guess?

Recommended for indie writers, but also recommended to kind of keep some perspective.


Profile Image for Ryan Klein.
61 reviews1 follower
August 17, 2020
The irony really is that 80% of this book is either off-based anecdotes, regurgitation from his Google Ads books (which he is insanely biased about being the most important form of internet advertising), or more like work/life balance instead of actual sales and marketing.
Profile Image for Cameron.
241 reviews8 followers
November 5, 2018
This book goes in deep detail about how to really generate the traffic or sales you need. It was a little too in-depth for me but it had great chapter synapses.
Profile Image for Nikhil Reddy.
6 reviews3 followers
March 28, 2024
This book is the definition of 80/20

Around 20 pages was amazing knowledge and the rest was a bit boring and repetitive for me…
5 reviews
December 29, 2024
If you know 80/20, don’t bother. I was new to the subject and found it interesting! If I could rate it 3.5, I would
Profile Image for Maris.
120 reviews2 followers
December 28, 2021
Makes a great solid point with 80 20, I will run through some exercises to solidify the concept for myself. But also a very aggressive marketing book in general:)
Profile Image for Pavel Annenkov.
443 reviews144 followers
November 17, 2019
Ставлю этой книге твердую пятерку за простоту. Автор на основе принципа Парето показывает нам, как надо управлять всеми маркетинговыми активностями в компании. Если бы все владельцы компаний и маркетологи применяли эти подходы, то вокруг меня было бы намного больше конкурентов и успешных компаний.
Заметил, что многие очень любят сложные книги, как будто сложность помогает больше зарабатывать в бизнесе. В этой книге все советы и предлагаемые методы работы очень простые. Не усложняйте себе жизнь. Берите и сразу внедряйте то, о чем пишет Перри Маршалл.
Profile Image for Mark Manderson.
620 reviews39 followers
May 23, 2015
Has a few great points such as racking the Shotgun which is extremely helpful. Shows how to split test and importance of one or two sentences can boost sales 80% and why it's important to focus on your top 20% of customers. The top thing I took from it is to offer an expensive product as a small percentage will pay a premium for high value. By adding that one additional service, dales increase by a large margin. Definitely will keep in my library for reference.
25 reviews11 followers
June 19, 2016

Distilled Concepts


Every system is governed by fractal power laws. Within any system, the majority of value (however defined) is not spread evenly across all members of that system. It is also fractal in nature, which means that it is scale-invariant and thus repeatable. Within each “most valuable” subset lies another, similarly proportioned disproportion of value.

This book demonstrates that when digging 2 or 3 (or more) layers deep into the “FPL” (Fractal Power Law) distribution, hyper-valuable outcomes can be created. The core of this book is how to advance marketing and advertising processes by using FPL distributions. This is accomplished by becoming finely attuned to customers and ensuring that you’re working towards them as much as possible.

By segmenting your audience before targeting them, you can identify which segments are most valuable, or under-served. You can locate areas of unexpected value by applying the mathematics of FPL curves to extrapolate the sum value of a marketplace or the maximum value of a user.

For example, FPL dictates that there are customers who are willing and able pay you a lot more money than you are currently charging them. Use FPL to calculate that dollar amount, match a corresponding finely-tuned product to a need they have, and use this math as a basis for your price tiers. In many cases, your best customer is already a customer.


Send out pings and see who turns their head. Those are your 20%. Look for other pings you can jump on. Social media is for listening. Selling to the right person is Step Zero. Sales is a disqualification process. If you encounter resistance, you're fighting against the law of nature. Offer solutions and results, and use these as the entrance to a funnel, like a white paper or cheat sheet. Step 1 is harvesting emails. The customer list is your most valuable asset. Then segment them like crazy. Agitate the problem once you learn it. Use their language then amplify it.

If you find other pain points, spin off other brands to solve them. Affiliate channels are worth pursuing and are often insanely valuable.

Facebook is suited for businesses that focus on identity, experience and escapism. Mtg is perfect. Search engine traffic is only a small portion even though it currently looks like the winner. Obsessive fans = big business. Use economics to drive traffic, then focus on conversion.


When your economics and conversion beat the industy, you can buy their traffic and win.




Tactics to Find and Apply FPL


*
* What's the one thing that needs to be perfect? Everything else can be good enough.



*
* Many great ideas die because the inventor is busy with menial tasks (they did not prioritize and delegate away their 80%)



*
* Split test everything until you find the one thing that massively outperforms.



*
* Judge value in terms of exponents, not linears. Top performers (in any sense of the word) are 100x average replacement value.



*
* At any given time, there are only three to four things you need to focus on to get your business to the next level




What’s Worth Tracking, Really?

• Money In, Money Out
Content Team, Software/Hosting, Exec Salary, FB Ads, Non-FB ads.


• Click-Thru Rates of ads
FB tracks this, currently around 10%, very strong.


• Conversions of specific keywords to sales
Have not tracked this yet, but should.


• Opt -in and lead -generation pages, Sales pages and order forms
We track MailChimp registrations, traffic to and from our Tour page (the main sales page) and every part of our funnel.


• Individual traffic sources (affiliates, banner ads)
MTGStocks is a great driver of sales and traffic. Facebook is a good source of traffic but not sales.


Can You Answer These Questions?

What does your product do that nobody else’s product does?
Break even on Magic. (use customer’s words here)


Why should I buy from you instead of anybody else?
We cover all your bases. List of services here, end-to-ends met. One stop shop.


What guarantee can you make that nobody else can make?
We’ll pay you money if you don’t find us useful (111%)





Selected Kindle Highlights

Always have something to sell to the customer with a ton of cash

Someone else can rack the shotgun—you just have to watch.

“Your best new customers are your existing customers.”

think in terms of extremes and multiples, exponential growth and powers of ten.

Top performers are not twice as good as average performers. They’re more like 100 times better.

Everything that really matters in business isn’t linear, it’s exponential.

You send one calculated signal that most ignore, but a few to respond to. You might not even have to make that move yourself. Someone else can rack the shotgun—you just have to watch.

Selling to the right person is more important than all the sales methods, copywriting techniques, and negotiation tactics in the world.

Almost every frustration you have in sales has something to do with ignoring 80/ 20.

At minimum, you need a mechanism for turning the publicity into a sales funnel, like an offer of a white paper or diagnostic tool

Great cheat sheets are a lot of work to write because there’s no room for filler.

Generate leads with information about solving problems, not information about the product itself.

(Most industries are very small when you get right down to it. Before long, people from coast to coast know your name.)

Wherever there are rabid, obsessive customers, there’s a great business.

The number-one function of your website is to collect an email address from your visitor before he leaves.

Three to four words in your ad swing most of the response. The most influential element is the offer made in your ad.

Sell results, not procedures. In other words, don’t just sell “pieces parts”and components and items on an a la carte menu. Sell complete packages that simply and elegantly solve the total problem with as little fuss as possible.

Sales is a disqualification process!

Traffic comes first, then conversion, then economics. But great marketers think backwards, which means starting with economics.

The most valuable asset you own is the customer list you build yourself.

The guy says to you, “It hurts really bad, right here.” You point to his elbow and say “You mean here?” and you smack his elbow with a hammer, hard. He yelps and sees stars for a moment. He nods and takes a big gulp, choking back tears.

Whatever you sell needs to harmonize with natural, existing forces—both on the inside and outside of your prospect’s world.

The surest way to with a emotionally connect with a customer is to empathize with them, show them that a page of your diary looks an awful lot like their diary.

Best sales formula ever: Problem— Agitate— Solve. Most people don’t spend nearly enough time on the “Agitate” part.

Don’t fall in love with bright shiny objects. Fall in love with mastery.

If you can’t sell a product, see if you can give it away. Or give part of it away. If they won’t take the free item, find out why.

when you can convert a visitor to a dollar better than everyone else in your niche, you can buy their traffic from them because they’ll make more money selling their visitors to you than they make by keeping the visitors to themselves.

Continuous split testing is key to the whole thing.

“Test 50 ads. One of them’s going to be a crazy winner.” You write 50 ads. Eventually, one of them’s gonna fetch as much traffic as the other 49 put together.

There will always be something in your success formula that demands perfection.

because you’re so effective at turning visitors into dollars, you can afford to pay more for your traffic than all your competitors. You’re becoming unstoppable.

High scores on Facebook are businesses that sell entertainment, tribal identity, experiences, and escapism


search engine traffic represents only a small percentage of the people who are potential customers for you.

Great affiliate relationships are extremely profitable. Brick-and-mortar sales channels and “feet on the street”likewise are a bankable asset. And more partners breed more partners. The snowball effect multiplies, and you get so much traffic you can’t make it stop.

Kaizen means “continuous improvement,” and the real power of kaizen is the compound interest of that improvement over time.

Unlimited traffic technique: When you have the best conversion rate in your niche, you can buy all the traffic from everybody.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage to spin off other brands and add new USPs to the marketplace.

Handy rule of thumb: 80/ 20 says that 20 percent of the people will spend 4 times the money. It also says that 4 percent of the people will spend 16 times the money. Memorize this— it’s one of the most powerful facts you could ever know about business.

If you are_______ (qualifying type of customer or company) and if you _______ (commit X dollars and follow steps Y and Z), then you will achieve _______ (specific results) or else _______ (penalty to me, your vendor).

Customers who want only the cheapest possible solution right this minute are usually terrible customers.

Sell results, not procedures.

“When something works in the marketplace, there’s almost certainly a prevailing wind or force that you’re cooperating with, that makes it possible. It’s a huge mistake to fight nature.”

Why sculpt sand dunes with your back and shovel when the wind is perfectly willing to do most of the work for you?

Tragically, so many million-dollar ideas don’t see the light of day because one person is so bogged down in $ 10- and $ 100-per-hour jobs that they just never finish.

Invest heavily in building your strongest skills, and 2. Find other people to do everything else. Someone else is great at what you’re bad at.

Fiverr is the fastest way in history to rack the shotgun.

most people’s “Quantum Leaps” in business are closely associated with making these kinds of changes— not just marketing breakthroughs but breakthroughs in delegation.

You can pull consumer language from social media around your keyword, and organize it in a FREE newsreader program

My research suggested potential buyers really wanted the DETAILS of the tax implications, and they wanted to hear them from experts.

The WHAT question: “What’s your single most important question about __? (Keyword)”•The WHY question: “Why would it make a difference in your life to get a good answer for this problem or find a solution for your need? (Details, please.)”•The HOW DIFFICULT question: “How difficult has it been for you to find a good answer for the above to date?”(Not at all difficult, somewhat difficult, very difficult.)

Social media is for listening more than it’s for talking.

The short list of things to test and track are: • Money In, Money Out • Click-Thru Rates of Google ads • Conversions of specific keywords to sales • Opt -in and lead -generation pages • Sales pages and order forms • Individual traffic sources (affiliates, banner ads,

A super-deluxe version of your product at four times the price. 2. An unmet need that nobody in your market is dealing with, and pent-up demand.

Most people take advantage of the “free” delivery of email the wrong way: send it just because it’s free. The right way is to build sublists.

I found a small, obscure feature in PaintShop Pro that PhotoShop did not have: change tracking. Each time any change was made— anything at all—PaintShop Pro recorded and stamped it with time, date, IP address, MAC address, and username if the person was logged in.

In business you MUST think in powers of 10 in order to see the world accurately ,






Profile Image for Adam.
541 reviews19 followers
June 2, 2020
Shout out to Brandon Turner from bigger pockets 4 randomly reccomemd this book on his you tube channel. Perry, a Christian failed his way to the top of the business food chain and in doing so learned from the 80 20 law and applied it to every angle of his life. You don't get rich cleaning your own toilet's you get rich because someone else cleans your toilets for you.

"Takeaways" my 👂 picked up on.... ⬇️

A fifth of our customers are responsible for 4/5 of our Profits
My mind lit on fire
8020 applies to everything
20% of the population enjoys 80% of the wild
Businesses is about power of 10
Always thinking powers of 10
Greedily absorbed
It's going to be tricky getting blood out of them stones
Sales is first and foremost a disqualification process not a convincing people process
Step pass the sick and the lame early in the game and deal only with a healthy ones left standing
Stupidity tax
Friends come and go but enemies accumulate
The world is accelerating
You're leaving buckets of money on the table
Sell results not procedures
What's the difference between a $500 suit at JCPenney and a $1,200 outfit at Nordstrom?..... confidence
Your gifts may be completely different from mine but whatever they are you need to find a selling environment that harnesses them to your maximum advantage
What is your unique capability?
What do you do naturally better than most people?
We've reviewed our accounts and it just doesn't make sense for us to do business anymore
You don't know how to paint the tone or mood of your advertising
You can grow your business 50% by optimizing the 1%
Giving has this funny way of giving back to you
You look like you just got the deed to all the real Estate in Manhattan what's up?
714 reviews11 followers
June 20, 2021
I’m going through various sales and marketing books, as I’ve found myself in such a role in order to grow the company. This book follows the theme of others I’ve come across: Interesting tidbits and a whole lot of selling of the author’s high priced products.

Here, the author, being an engineer, marvels at the application of the 80/20 rule. In human endeavors this rule is pretty consistent. The author then extends this to mean that its turtles all the way down. ie fractal. ie within the 20%, the 80/20 rule applies and so on. It means that the book also follows the 80/20 rule.

I gleaned from the book a page of notes, items for me to ponder. They may be worth the price of admission. Although the author says the package of docs he points to is ‘free,’ he is also using it as lead generation. 80/20 here is that only 20% of the book is worth it and the other 80% fluff.

One side note: The author has bought into the mindset that those that makes a ton of money know better about applying it to solve the problems of the world. That government isn’t the answer. He should read _Winners Take All_ by Anand Giridharadas. It pulls the curtain back to show it is all a sham. Plus charitable giving is used by the ultra rich as a way to distract from the disreputable methods used to gain such wealth.
Profile Image for Mitch Russo.
Author 10 books1 follower
December 13, 2017
This book is The Matrix for business owners

We all know with the 80/20 principle is, but we all got it wrong. Just like you I thought 80/20 was all about getting 80% of your business from 20% of your clients. Turns out I was only partially right. In less than an hour of studying this book, Perry Marshall explains the hologram and the fractal thinking behind the 80/20 curve.

Now that I finished my first pass through this book, I already understand how to generate 14% of my profits and 21% more revenue from my next sales campaign.

When you apply 80/22 pricing models, you’ll never priced things the same again. Why? Because you’ll understand that approximately 4% of the people who buy your product would gladly pay many times more than the asking price for a higher level of service. It’s mathematically guaranteed!

As I continue to let 80/20 expand inside my mind, I too can see multiple applications for many aspects of how to apply in my life.

Thanks Perry, the best book I’ve bought so far this year!
Profile Image for Tomas Liutvinas.
36 reviews7 followers
October 28, 2018
I've never written a negative review on a book before, but this fucking book is really inspirational.

To start off it's a well-written book with certain valuable concepts and information, it is definitely not useless. But the way it is written it should be free.

This is a ~200-page long advertisement written by a salesman to sell more products with some value content sprinkled in. This should be a free youtube video series at best.

"BUT THERE'S SO MUCH CONTENT, HOW COULD IT BE FREE?"
Well, the way I see it: when the customer pays money for something he or she should get a clean and complete product. If it's ridden with advertisements, the ability to have those advertisements seen is already a price of attention and time.

If you like PAYING to BE SOLD TO. This book is just for you. I know in my right mind I would never recommend this author to anyone ever.
Profile Image for Stan Skrabut.
Author 9 books27 followers
November 3, 2019
80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More is my continued exploration into the 80/20 principle also known as Pareto’s Principle. 80/20 Sales and Marketing is written by Perry Marshall who also wrote the  Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords . I was very pleased with that book and I was eager to read what he wrote on this topic because it touched on the 80/20 principle in the Adwords book. I have to say, I was not disappointed. Read more
Profile Image for T. Laane.
757 reviews95 followers
February 24, 2023
The old true proven 80/20 principle in another format, sales. Not the best book, yet I will round my rating up to 5. I did like the math behind this one - how to calculate the whole curve by one of the members… like if the 50th richest person has 1 billion, then the math of 80/20 curve will estimate quite correctly what the first players have - because it always goes up exponentially. And the book IS about that. When you get 50 paying customers out of 300 then it can calculate what the top people could afford to pay you for some exclusive premium bonus value. And how many new paying customers you will get when lowering the deal price. So it's all about exponentials and math. If the top 20% bring in 80% of the revenue, then top 4 will bring in 64% and top 0.8 will bring in 52%... Find the biggest players and know what value to provide to them. Clients are not the same!
And the book was also about premium service. When you go after the big guys, be ready to give them more.
Profile Image for Matt.
67 reviews4 followers
September 12, 2017
In my earlier review, I said that the 80/20 principle could be easily applied to a wide variety of functions. Probably the place that could most greatly benefit from 80/20 is sales effort. Almost all of sales effort, in my personal experience, is wasted time. Cold calling is an ancient practice that would benefit sales people and customers alike if it went away entirely.

The advertising optimization, customer segmentation, and business operation advice within is sound. If you're a salesperson, you should read the original 80/20 Principle and then consider this a specialty master class in how to apply it to your life.
Profile Image for Daniel.
10 reviews
January 1, 2018
Here’s my 80/20 review, 80% positive, 20% for improvements

Pros:
1. Emphasis on tactics with Google AdWords, Perry Marshall write the definitive guide to Google AdWords (definitely on my to read list)
2. More emphasis on business management and marketing, especially useful for entrepreneurs
3. Applies the 80/20 rule to life in general as opposed to just marketing and sales
4. Offers valuable tools such as Hoover’s and websites to successful apply to and curate your top customers and best practices

Improvements:
1. Obvious bias towards google AdWords, but does offer other marketing tools for suggestions


Overall, a must for entrepreneurs improving their marketing best practices!
92 reviews3 followers
February 14, 2021
I'm totally fascinated by the 80/20 rules after reading this book. I will definitely read this book again in the future.

Everyone should read this book. You don't have to be in sales or marketing to read because 80/20 applies to life too.

80/20 is every where. It is a universal law. 80% of X comes from 20% of Y.

20% of the road carries 80% of traffic.
20% of customers or products generates 80% of your revenue.
20% of your effort or time produces 80% of your results.

Find the 80/20 in life and business. Learn to use leverage and harness natural forces. You will work less and make more.
Profile Image for Dasha.
58 reviews
November 18, 2021
This is a very inconsistent book, after reading which I still have mixed feelings. It starts as a guide to marketers and sales but the only advice given was about becoming an expert in local circles instead of doing cold calling. Then the author suddenly starts talking about entrepreneurship, hiring help, firing employees, running ads...it's all such a random mess in a book. One small chapter with loud title changes another bringing no value at all. Conclusions and applications of Pareto principle are based on nothing; a lot of selling of author's other books. I was really disappointed and puzzled by the fact that the book has received such a high ranking.
Profile Image for Andrea Angella.
54 reviews18 followers
February 16, 2021
- Your product need to provide 10 times the cost you are charging for it.
- Sell results, not procedures. Guarantee better results.
- Paid Ads beat cold calling any day
- The most important thing to consider in marketing is thinking backward from your customer's point of view.
- Problem / Agitate / Solve formula
- Massive actions without a strategy only create more problems
- Fire the bottom 10%
- 20% of the people will spend 4 times the money
- 4% of the people will spend 16 times the money
- Tool: https://www.8020curve.com/
Profile Image for Frederico Carvalho.
26 reviews1 follower
April 21, 2021
Reconhecido como um dos grandes profissionais de marketing direto, da velha guarda, a obra de 2013, explica o princípio universal da lei de pareto, aplicado ao marketing & vendas.

O conceito reina com vários exemplos bem explicados no livro, boas ideias e materiais complementares em temas como:
Reduzir as perdas de tempo de vendas e marketing;
Localizar centros de lucro "invisíveis" na empresa;
As posições do "princípio de Pareto" nos motores de pesquisa;

Mais não revelo o conteúdo não perder a magia para eventuais interessados.
138 reviews
March 7, 2025
Vital principle to know, especially in my field. I do wonder if the book could have been more summarised, and also, that you can find 80/20 everywhere - if you try and find it. For example, there is 80/20 in the income of Forbes 500 top earners, but is there 80/20 in how many hairs they have on their head?

I start doubting the principle as being so accurate when at the end he writes "This one is like 60/40, and this one 75/25, and this one 99/1" - I mean, you are just saying that you can move the curve whenever it suits.
Profile Image for Justin Aquino.
43 reviews2 followers
July 27, 2017
Very usefull if you have the Challenge of teaching Statistics to your Sales Team and Employees. I come from an Emerging Market Company and Knowledge and Sciences are not valued so anything that helps sell basic education is appreciated.
The key take aways of this book is easy to grasp if you are already studying Sales and marketing management, this book is for the REST of your company who have no patience to understand and appreciate how Analysis will make their lives easier.
Profile Image for David Guzmán Ramos.
11 reviews
October 26, 2019
Excellent book about not only the way to optimize your marketing, but also powerful insights of how to use the 80/20 rule to all your life: hiring people, poverty, your business, time, etc. It teaches you the importance of a niche in a business and the importance of raising value of your time and leaving the rest for anyone else to do it. I recommended for everyone interested in optimizing time and learning about digital marketing.
25 reviews
November 24, 2019
Initially I rated this book 5 stars. It's a very useful collection of tools that marketers and business owners can use.

Upon reflection I have given it 4 stars. It comes across as a sales pitch and the book is being used as a 'racking of the shotgun'. Bit dirty to claim to include $75 worth of free tools and hide it behind an email wall.

You should expect to be bombarded with emails as well once you've 'signed up' to use any of the tools provided.
4 reviews
March 1, 2025
This book is 1/3 advertising for the authors various websites, 1/3 the author trying to be relatable in far too obvious fashion, and 1/3 content you can learn from. Although there are 1-2 chapters with really solid information on google adspace, click monitoring and keywords, overall it’s too much fluff and personal promotion to lay out a very popular concept in 80/20 which you could easily find articles online to explain in 10ish pages.
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