Solve The Biggest Problem First
Summary
When working on multiple projects, focus on the one thing that can have the biggest impact. Prioritization means putting all efforts on that single task to achieve significant results.
In a case study with a portfolio company, increasing the show-up rate for prospects to an industry standard significantly impacted their revenue, boosting it by 35% and more than tripling the profit.
It's crucial to ask if there's any other action that could provide a similar return on investment with low risk. If the answer is no, focus all resources on the task with the highest potential impact.
Aligning everyone in the organization to focus on the top priority can lead to substantial growth, as seen when the company prioritized improving show-up rates.
Understand that by focusing on one major task, other tasks may fall behind, but the power of prioritization often makes these other tasks less relevant.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing a system of prioritization in your day-to-day operations. Start by identifying the one task or project that can have the biggest impact on your goals. This could mean choosing the area that would boost your revenue or improve efficiency the most. For example, focus on increasing customer engagement or improving a crucial metric within your business.
A good way of doing this is by aligning all your resources and team members towards that key priority. Make sure everyone understands the importance of this task and how it contributes to the overall success. This kind of focus can lead to significant growth, just like the case study where aligning efforts increased profits substantially.
If you're wondering what task to focus on, ask yourself: is there any other action that could yield the same return with minimal risk? If not, then you’ve found your priority. Remember, sometimes other tasks might lag, but that’s okay. Prioritizing can make those tasks less important in the grand scheme of things.
So, start by choosing your top priority and rally everyone around it. Keep it simple, keep it focused, and watch the transformation happen. It's a low-cost, high-impact approach that doesn’t need much time to set in motion but can bring tremendous returns.
Full Transcript
everything that you are currently working on is not as important as this thing we had a portfolio company they were getting a very low percentage of their prospects to show up and so we said okay if we only got the industry standard Benchmark to show up to this event we would increase the revenue of this business by 35% and given the margin of this business we would more than triple the profit of this business is there anything else we could do with the resources we have that would give us that kind of a return a trip of profit for no risk in the next 30 days since the answer was no then we said great everyone in this company the only priority that you have is to get this number to go up as a result of that Focus the business did grow by more than 35% because every single person in the company was aligned with it and guess what also happened other things fell by the wayside because prioritization is so powerful if you get the one thing right it makes the rest of it irrelevant
