Many people bandy about the 80:20 rule, yet don’t know where it came from. As a proud Italian-American, I know that it comes from early 20th century Italian engineer and economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 20% of the land-owners in Italy owned 80% of the land.

The Pareto principle has been applied to many other situations–and although the math might sometimes lack rigor, it nonetheless holds up pretty well in principle. For example,  20% of clients yield 80% of sales, 20% of effort yields 80% of the results, and so on.

So if 80% of sales comes from 20% of effort, a likely explanation is that much of existing business comes from repeat business.

Which comes from satisfying your existing clients.

Therefore, if you do nothing else but provide stellar service on your existing projects, that effort alone, will generate new business. [Read more…]