Building an Online Business | Finch Sells

How The 80/20 Rule Applies To You

Nov 16 2011

It’s not rare to find that 80% of your sales are generated by 20% of your customers, or that 80% of your time is spent handling 20% of your chores.

This skewed outlook on life and business was first observed by the great Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who lent his name to the theory.

Pareto established, in the early twentieth century, that 80% of Italian land was owned by just 20% of the population. He later famously observed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the pods. Spurred on by the unusual correlation, his work continued and the Pareto Principle became lodged not just in economic folklore, but in business minds alike.

By running a business that is effectively a one man show, I have become a great believer in the Pareto Principle.

I’m convinced it can be applied to productivity. The principle is a great marker for ensuring I don’t become bogged down in tasks that waste my limited time.

I don’t think I’m alone in confessing that when I look at my to-do list, I can easily find tasks that satisfy my need to appear busy; tasks that contribute very little to my bottom line.

As an Internet Marketer, I often find myself profiting from one particularly lucrative advertising campaign. On a good day, it makes my other efforts look like a complete waste of time. If the lucrative campaign earns more than the rest of my work combined, why would I insist on wasting 80% of my time chasing those dead ends?

Probably because seeing the skewed reality is one thing. Acting on it is completely another.

The desire to appear busy is something that has been ingrained in us since childhood. Can you imagine the uproar at school had you refused to go to 80% of your classes? Or the backlash from your employer if you only worked 2 hours of your contracted 8?

Where our productivity is concerned, we are highly trained animals. To stay busy is better than to look lazy, even if the results are not always as we’d expect in doing so.

Sometimes it’s a welcome relief to step back and analyse where your success is coming from. What work is bringing in the bacon? Which tasks are you splurging blood, sweat and tears over for little reward?

These may seem like stupid questions. But I believe there’s much more potential in becoming a specialist, somebody who plays to his strengths, than a jack of all trades who couldn’t see his skill-set if it slapped him in the tits.

Recommended This Week:

Check out Filthy Rich Mind, a brand new project I’m collaborating on with a couple of other writers in the self-improvement market. It’s a fun project so if you like off-the-wall advice for improving your lifestyle, subscribe here for updates.
Also don’t forget to subscribe to the FinchSells RSS feed. And if you don’t already follow me, add FinchSells to your Twitter. Merci beaucoup!

Small Business, Big Vision Review

Sep 13 2011

As a regular contributor over at Young Entrepreneur, I had heard about the brothers Adam and Matthew Toren long before a pre-release copy of their book Small Business, Big Vision landed on my desk.

Young Entrepreneur is a portal offering advice, tips, and some crucial direction to entrepreneurs both new and experienced. It’s a great resource that supports the most vital seeds of any economy – those passionate and driven individuals with ideas to build something big.

The brothers behind the site have now penned a book, which I think is going to make a very timely read for individuals with entrepreneurial blood running through the veins. It will particularly help those of you who have thought about making the jump in to a small business, but haven’t yet mustered the courage to tear through so many unknowns.

Small Business, Big Vision is very much a book for the twenty first century entrepreneur. It melds together practical advice covering the creation of your business plan, attracting investors, outsourcing vs. employing and some key tips for using social media.

The pages are littered with perspective from entrepreneurs that you will likely be familiar with. Guys like Mike Michalowicz, the famous Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Brent Oxley, who founded HostGator in his dorm, and Gary Vaynerchuk who is present just about bloody everywhere.

As a guy who makes his living solely online, the book resonates with me. I get the sense the authors are fighting back the temptation to scream that entrepreneurs have never had it so easy. And it’s true, we haven’t.

Since the rise of the Internet, the economy has shifted towards the web in such a way that there are opportunities for everyone. Forming a small business used to be about racking up the courage to go public with a bold idea, often in your local town or bravely on a national level. The web has made it possible to hide behind a screen and still reel in the dollar bills. There’s less risk of personal embarrassment, and much less start-up cost attached.

The book slants heavily towards this modern breed of online entrepreneur. While I’m sure the brothers have widened their goalposts in an attempt to make it relevant to all entrepreneurs, there’s definitely a strong spotlight placed on how multimillion enterprises can be formed from your bedroom if you have the vision.

As an online entrepreneur, that’s just what I like to hear.

However, striking the balance between appeasing this generation of Internet entrepreneurs, and opening up opportunities for those who aren’t so web-savvy is always going to be a stern task in book form.

If you’re the kind of entrepreneur who’s seeking guidance on how to find the right solutions for a brick and mortar business, a lot of the information packed in to these pages may not strike you as directly relevant to your needs. Most of the spotlighted entrepreneurs have stumbled across their success using the web as their main medium, rather than an optional market for growth.

Small Business, Big Vision is extremely well written and cuts like a knife through subjects that are notorious minefields to even think about it. The process of obtaining investment is very well addressed and you will likely exit the chapter with a greater deal of clarity than you started.

It also swiftly addresses the pros and cons of outsourcing for anybody caught between two minds. To take on staff or to send my expectations, hopes and dreams to a polite sounding chap in the Phillipines? It’s a tough one, but again, the Toren brothers have laid out both sides of the argument very objectively. They repeat this throughout the book across a variety of common issues for entrepreneurs, including the dreaded realisation that you need to make changes for your business to survive.

If I could advocate one feeling that you’re likely to take from the book, it would have to be clarity.

Clarity plus the jealous motivation of hearing what so many other successful entrepreneurs have done to grow their millions. It’s an intoxicating combination and a real kick up the arse if you’ve been waiting flat-footed for your big break to arrive.

You can find more information about Small Business, Big Vision on the book’s website, or go ahead and order your copy from Amazon when it’s released on September 13th (My blurry calendar tells me that the 13th is today, go fetch!).

Recommended This Week:

Subscribe to my new FinchSells RSS feed. And if you don’t already follow me, add Finch to your Twitter. Merci beaucoup!

Hire Good Cheap Workers With EasyOutsource

Sep 06 2011

Outsourcing to India is no longer as cheap as it used to be. The race to the bottom of bargain basement prices for skilled workers has shifted in a different direction, a little further east to be exact.

If you’re constantly on the hunt for cheap labour, you’ve probably already heard that Filipinos are doing it cheaper, and doing it better. Well, certainly if you’ve spoken to enough Filipinos.

I am a firm believer in outsource arbitrage. If somebody abroad is willing to do work cheaply and to a high standard, I have no problems in taking business away from my own country. This has become widespread not just on a small business level, but in worldwide corporations that are desperate to maximise profits.

In an economic sense, it’s a disaster. How can America and the UK continue to thrive if jobs are being sent off-shore? We hear a lot of media scaremongering about jobs not being created but everybody knows, this is bullshit. Jobs are being created. They’re just being filled with cheaper labour from a warmer climate. It’s tough to envision a situation where that trend will be reversed.

So it’s on that basis that I recommend EasyOutsource as a good stomping ground for those looking to hire labour without paying the premium.

EasyOutsource was recommended to me by a friend when I asked him who had been responsible for the swish custom coding job behind one of his sites. I was pretty stunned when he told me the wages he was paying his staff, and it was much more competitive than the rates you typically see on Elance and oDesk.

EasyOutsource is free to use, and is essentially no more than a portal bringing buyers and service providers together. There are zero hoops to jump through. Just register a profile and post a job, or cruise through the profiles of workers and message them directly if you so wish.

It’s very easy, though I can understand why serious project managers would have apprehension about dealing with workers in such an uncontrolled marketplace.

I say this time and time again, but it never loses relevance. Outsourcing is an art. You cannot expect to simply bagsy a foreign worker, throw them a brief and expect it delivered to spec without any hiccups along the way. This applies to EasyOutsource and every other freelancing site on the planet.

You really need to spend time weeding out the pretenders from the legitimate workers who can add to your business. Get them on Skype and ask to speak directly to the individuals who will be responsible for the work.

I once took on a highly skilled University graduate who wrote like a fluent subcontinental Shakespeare in her briefing. I was impressed, almost shamed by her writing. But that means very little if she delegates the actual work to her bumbling school children and their shaky grasp of ‘Indlish‘. Which is exactly what she did.

Also beware of the super talented programmers who tell you they’re capable of working full-time, but take 2 days to reply to the shortest email. (ie. “Hello, are you working, you cheeky little shit?“)

Outsourcing effectively is a skilled art. Outsourcing unwisely is a waste of time, energy and subsequently your will to live. If you’re going to do it, put some thought in to it.

Recommended This Week:

If you’re looking for a more professional outsourcing solution, definitely take a look at Pepper Virtual Assistants. They were featured on ProBlogger last week and stand out as reliable, if slightly pricier, proposition.
Subscribe to my new FinchSells RSS feed. And if you don’t already follow me, add FinchSells to your Twitter. Merci beaucoup!