As an expert based business owner and entrepreneur, knowing where to put your focus is not always as easy as it sounds. Since time always seems to be scarcer than money, it’s easy to put focus on short term urgent tasks that don’t really move you towards your bigger goals. What I’ve discovered after 22 years in business is there are five high payoff activities that highly successful entrepreneurs do consistently that amplify results — and are guaranteed to get you closer to your revenue and achievement goals.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). Economist Vilfredo Pareto observed a phenomenon that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. When it comes to business activities, typically 80% of your best results come from 20% of your effort.
In our day to day business operations, often we spend an enormous amount of time and energy on activities that produce very little results.
I once worked with a consultant named Beth who wanted to consistently generate $200k a year in her business. But she was trapped at $85,000. During our VIP Expansion Day, Beth laid out her program offerings, how much money each generated and the amount of time she invested in producing those programs.
Very quickly it was apparent that she was spending 50% of her time on a program that generated less than 10% of her total revenues.
This is a pretty common time trap — and if we don’t really understand what activities produce our best results, we can be busy with little to show for it.
To amplify results, your goal is to invest time into activities that propel you forward the fastest with the least amount of effort.
Here are five suggested activities that are the peak performers of “high payoff”. When you focus your time and energy on these types of activities you’ll be ecstatic with how quickly the results come in. Not just money but sanity and more time for what’s important too.
1. Strengthen Your Prospect Gateway
It’s not enough to generate a blizzard of new leads – you need the RIGHT ones who already know they need what you sell and have the money to pay for it. When you invest a little time into creating a system to strengthen your prospect gateway you will only let in the top 20% of the clients who willing pay you what you ask and are more fun to service too. If you don’t know how to identify and align your offerings with your ideal clients then be sure to listen to Amplify Your Success Podcast episode 20, How to Stop Wasting Time on the Wrong Clients.
2. Get Consistent with Lead Generation
Many entrepreneurs suffer with the feast or famine approach to business – you are either marketing your butt off or you are working your butt off taking care of your clients. By developing a drip marketing plan then automating and delegating routine lead generation activities, you’ll have an on-going flow of new opportunities that can be converted as you need them.
If you don’t know how to do this for your business or tend to forget, get a copy of the Profit Explosion Toolkit.
3. Cultivate Your COIs
A COI (Center of Influence) is a contact who is highly influential in your industry. By cultivating and nurturing relationships with the right COI’s, you’ll be able to generate higher quality leads and marketing exposure without a huge price tag. How you cultivate these relationships is key though – you can’t keep them on the back burner till you need them! These relationships must be maintained over time, have been provided generous examples of how you will serve their clients well and know who you are when they have an opportunity to refer you business!
Many busy entrepreneurs completely forget this one because they think it’s too time intensive. It’s a huge mistake! Sending a bunch of Facebook Messages or reaching out just because you want someone to promote is a big no-no. Dedicate at least 10% of your time each week to nurturing connections through social media, mastermind groups or even offering to help your COI’s by featuring them to your list first.
4. Instigate Repeat Business
Loyal clients who stay longer will not only spend more but they will also refer more business in the process. Consider how your offerings are set up. Do you:
- Have a one-time offer that doesn’t offer next steps?
- Do you have any offerings that require a monthly investment to continue access?
- Do you have other accessories, programs or products that solve other problems your ideal clients have?
- Could you align with other COIs to offer their products to solve new problems for your clients?
Remember, repeat business is five times more profitable than new business so creating a retention and repeat business strategy you’ll increase profits too.
5. Lead More by Weeding Less
Every time you land in the weeds putting out fires and solving problems, you lose sight of the big picture (I call it getting lost in the weeds.) Decisions become more difficult as your perspective shrinks to the challenge you are in front of. A little known high payoff activity for any entrepreneur with dreams of six figures and beyond is leading more (and weeding less.)
For example, how much time do you spend planning for next year versus running around trying to collect payments from past-due clients? Are you steering your team’s plans or jumping in to fix their mistakes daily? When was the last time you reviewed your financial reports and monthly marketing statistics? Leader activities position you for growth while “doing” activities keep you stuck where you are.
If you want to grow your income and impact it’s time to get radically selective about where you invest your time, money and energy. Get into a higher level of mastery today by implementing just ONE new activity from this list.
