Personal Development, Productivity, and Time Management Blog

Working On The Business Not Just In It

I’ve always been a massive fan of the 80-20 rule. If you’re not familiar with it, it states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. It’s obvious, but often not applied to business.

Simply put: if you focus on doing what you do best, you’ll get better results (and have more time for yourself). But how do you know what 20% is? Here are some tips:

Work ON the business, not just IN the business.

The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule is a useful law to remember. It states that 20% of your work results in 80% of your income.

So if you’re spending all day building Excel spreadsheets and data entry reports, but never actually talking with clients or lining up new business deals, then most likely you won’t be bringing in much cash in return for all that tedious labor.

Instead, focus on doing what you do best and delegate everything else to someone else who can do it better than you can (or at least cheaper).

Working ON your business means studying your competition carefully—what are they doing well? Where are they lacking? And how can YOU improve upon those areas in order to gain an advantage over them?

Study your competition, know their strengths and weaknesses

Understand your competitors. Who are they and what do they do?

What is their pricing structure? Do they have a different one? Is it better than yours or worse? This may require you to look at competitor websites, which should be done carefully. You don’t want to get in trouble for copying someone else’s site design or content.

How does their customer base compare to yours? Do both companies have similar demographics, or does one cater more towards men while another caters more towards women, etc.?

This will help you determine where your company might fit into the market as well as how to market yourself differently than other businesses in your industry.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each business when compared with one another? What makes one successful while another struggles or fails completely?

The 80%/20% rule

The 80%/20% rule is a simple way to prioritize the aspects of your business. It’s also a great way to get more out of each day, because it helps you focus on the 20% that will bring you 80% of your success.

The idea behind it is simple: if you want to be successful, make sure that whatever you’re doing right now is helping you get closer to your goal.

If you don’t know which 20% will bring most value at this moment, ask yourself these questions:

  • What are my goals? What do I want from my business?
  • Which tasks help me meet those goals? Which tasks don’t help me meet those goals?

Always do what you do best

In the early days of a startup, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks that need to be done. I remember working nights and weekends on Coffee Meets Bagel, not because I enjoyed it, but because there were so many things left undone.

As you grow your business and hire new people, you’ll find that your responsibilities are still plentiful and at times overwhelming—but don’t let that stop you from focusing on what matters most: building a great product and company culture.

Doing what you do best is easier said than done when there are so many things going on around you all day long. At the end of each week take some time for reflection about which parts of your job give you satisfaction (and which don’t).

Do this exercise every week until it becomes second nature; then continue doing it every few months as an exercise in staying grounded in reality and keeping priorities straight.

working on the business not just in it

One of the best ways to make sure that what you’re doing is working is by knowing your competition—and then doing something better than them. If a competitor has a better product or service, then find out what their customers love about their product/service and use that information to make yours even better!

The other side of this equation means always spending 80% of your time on what makes the business successful: marketing, sales and customer service. The other 20% should be used for things like improving internal processes and technology or creating new products or services (if possible).

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have found that working on the business not just in it is always a good idea. It can improve your overall performance and help you reach goals faster than ever before.

Meet the Author

Mo Fayez is an engineer by trade with more than 15 years of experience in management, passionate about Management coaching, self-help, and productivity. He has a passion for teaching and helping others become the best that they can be. He also enjoys training people to become more productive at work.Learn more about this blog that Mo has created in 2021, and why he decided to start this blog. If you want to send Mo a quick message, then visit his contact page here.

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