Most people have heard of 80/20. Such as 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. The concept of 60/30/10 is how one can allocate investments including time. Too many times if you ask anyone – what does a day in the life look like – it will turn into a laundry list of tasks and not extremely focused. With 60/30/10 it helps one articulate and prioritize work and can be applied in other areas. In fact – interior designers have been using this for color coordination. They pick three shades of a color and use them in that proportion.

1)    60 – This should be the primary focus. Let’s use an example of a Sales Executive with an installed base.  The primary work may be servicing the account, working to cross-sell and up-sell additional products, capacity, and services. Depending on how the sales team is organized, they may also handle renewals. Simply stated – 60% of the time is working with the installed base to grow and renew business.

2)    30  – Sales goals seldom go down. Typically, it is last year plus a growth factor. Maybe the 30% for this Sales Executive will use this time to recruit new prospects and working with partners for growth. Notice how we are not talking about every detail that goes into that. Rather we focus on the outcome. That is spending ~30% of the time finding and building new business.

3)    10 – My personal favorite for using the 10% in any role is learning. Lifelong learning keeps ones saw sharp and makes your team more valuable. Anything that makes one better in their trade is a good investment. In sales having competitive, product, and sales process knowledge, along with execution – usually separates those that attain and shatter goals from those that struggle.

Think through

Next time someone asks you – what do you do – can you give a crisp answer? What is your 60/30/10? Wouldn’t it be great to say something to the effect of “I spend the bulk of my time servicing my current customers, a smaller portion developing new business, and finally I invest in myself.  

Feel free to post comments or email them to me. Small Business, Big Lessons ® – What is your 60/30/10?

 

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About the Author:

Gregory Woloszczuk is an entrepreneur and experienced tech executive that helps small business owners grow their top and bottom line. Gregory believes in straight talk and helping others see things they need to see but may not want to with a focus on taking responsibly for one’s own business. He and his wife, Maureen, started GMW Carolina in 2006.

 

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