Something in your business isn’t working. It’s small.

Maybe it’s a service you offer, or a client you work with, or an idea that isn’t taking off. And it’s causing disproportionate downside for you.

Maybe the downside is stress, or high time commitment with minimal reward, or nobody is buying. Whatever it is, it’s worth noticing and dealing with.

The flip side is also true.

Smaller parts of your business are working extraordinarily well.

Maybe it’s the type of clients you work with or a service you offer that you love selling and delivering.

And compared to everything else, it brings disproportionate returns. Whatever it is, it’s worth noticing and doubling down on. 

Of course, this is the 80/20 principal at play. 

The more you remove the 20% of things causing 80% of the downside, the more you free up your time and energy to do more productive things.

The more you do the few things that are causing disproportionate benefit, the more your business will grow and the happier you’ll be.

You know this already. I’m just here to remind you to actually evaluate any part of your business for this pattern and act on it.

Most of business and marketing can be reduced down to numbers.

It might be number of blog posts you published, number of leads you got, total revenue, cost per acquisition, or a whole range of other metrics.

You can then use statistics and analysis to make assumptions or give you an indication of directional success.

Running a business requires a combination of numbers and some degree of subjectivity and gut instinct.

But if you really want to improve your situation, the best way is to break things down into numbers.

Could be dollars, hours, inputs, profit, or even subjective things like quality score.

Our gut instinct is important, but it’s even better when you have numbers.

And without numbers, you’ll always be surprised. Usually, not in a good way.

Track, measure, and improve those numbers.

I like to ask people where they see themselves in 12-18 months. The answers I get are often surprisingly below their potential.

The reason for that is we all carry limiting beliefs about what’s possible. What’s possible for tomorrow feels contingent on what happened yesterday.

The best way to fix that is with outside perspective from someone who’s done what you’re trying to do. These people can tell you when you’re just plain wrong.

This happened to me today with someone I mentor.

I asked them where they wanted to be in the next year or so and they said they could imagine having three advisory clients at the most.

I said they could do more.

They recently starting using my consulting framework, which allows me to handle up to 10 clients at a time, plus some group coaching and membership programs.

Why not them, too?

You can serve more than three people as an advisor at one time if you’re doing it right. A little experience, belief in yourself, and the proper design of your services can go a long way.

So as you’re planning your 2021, I encourage you take a moonshot.

Ask yourself, if I could hit a higher target, what would need to happen in my business to do so?

And what am I making harder than it needs to be? How would I design my business in a way that makes even more profit AND more impact?

Those are questions of value. Ask them to yourself, talk to someone who’s done it before, and raise your targets.

You might surprise yourself.

Your business is a system.

Maybe it operates haphazardly, or maybe it runs like a swiss watch.

Either way, it’s a system.

And anything new you take on, whether it be a client, project, activity, or task, becomes a piece in that system.

The key is to assimilate things slowly so they fit into your system. And almost nothing fits by default.

You have to be intentional if you hope to run your business (and life) like a well-oiled machine. It means considering each new input and idea, scoping it out, and seeing if it will work in your machine before taking it on.

Too often we take on new responsibilities and assimilate things that don’t fit into our business. Which then creates a system breakdown.

Your goal is to keep your system running smoothly. Doing that means being judicious about what you let into it in the first place.

Guard your system, run it smoothly.

Toddlers are funny. You pretty much can’t make them eat food they don’t like or at times when they’re not hungry.

You can dance, since, cajole, and plead, but they ultimately do what they want.

Their minds are too young and stubborn to reason with. At least mine is.

Marketing is no different.

Instead of trying to convince someone to buy what you sell, the better way is to serve a hungry audience what it already wants. To tie your products and services to existing demand in whatever way possible.

They key is picking your ideal target market before you try to sell something. When you already know who you’re trying to serve, you can easily find out what they like and create something ideally suited for them.

The process should look something like this:

1. Know who you want to serve
2. Find out what they want
3. Offer things they want
4. Build trust and awareness for your offer
5. Be around when they’re ready to buy

Marketing isn’t about convincing people to buy your thing. It’s about knowing what they want, when they want it, and then delivering on it better than anyone else can.

I saw an ad today on YouTube for solar panels. I normally skip ads, but this one sucked me in.

The video had a guy talking about the problems with energy bills and how much money I could save with solar.

His pitch was interesting enough to have me listening to the end. I was moderately intrigued. I may even buy solar panels some day in the future.

But that’s the key word here: future.

I am nowhere near ready to buy (or even investigate) solar panels right now. And it’s the same with most people with whom your marketing lands on.

Every time you reach someone, they’re either interested in buying something or they’re not.

If you’re lucky, some number of people will buy immediately. But most people (98% or more) won’t be ready to buy on first encounter with your offer.

However, a much higher number may one day be interested in buying from you. And that’s why it’s so important to keep showing up.

Marketing is not about getting a sale today.

Some percent of your efforts should be focused there, but most of your activities will land on people unwilling to buy now (or ever).

Your job is to keep showing up, adding value in a way that educates and leaves a positive impression, and then be around long enough so when they’re ready to buy, they choose you.

If you do this with a longterm commitment and an offer people actually want, you can’t help but succeed.

When things aren’t working for you, it might be time to pair things back and refocus on what actually is working.

Almost always, something is working well but isn’t getting our appropriate attention. We usually need to cut back in order to give it room to grow.

In practical terms, it might mean reducing your services down to your core skill.

It might mean focusing on a single marketing channel, ignoring the rest for a while.

It might mean saying no to projects so you have more time to think.

Whatever you do, avoid spinning your wheels on things that don’t work.

See where you’re getting any results and start there. Do more of that.

Analyze what happened. Nurture and repeat. Cut the rest.