The Golden Pencil: The Freelance Writer’s Resource

My Beef with the 80-20 Rule - a Guest Post

by Anne Wayman on May 13th, 2008

As freelancers, we are also business people, striving to get the greatest return on our efforts. And I think most of us are familiar with the 80-20 rule. It’s another name for the Pareto Principle, which says 20 percent of our efforts result in 80 percent of the benefit received. It can be applied in all sorts of ways (20 percent of our clients provide 80 percent of our income, 20 percent of our marketing leads to 80 percent of our business), and it suggests that greater success can be achieved if we identify the 20 percent and put most of our efforts toward it.

I say, “Baloney.” (I could use a much worse word here, but I’m trying to keep this G-rated, so . . .)

Let’s take a look at this notion that all we have to do to succeed in business is focus on that high-return 20 percent of what we do. And I’ll start with the point that seems most obvious to me.

If the rule is correct, then the strategy is a mathematical impossibility. Think about it. I’m no mathematical genius or statistician, but if you spend more time on the 20 percent of what you were doing, won’t the percentages change? It won’t be 20 percent anymore. What happens to the 80-20 rule then? Do you just throw it out the window at that point?

I can’t help but be reminded of Zeno’s paradox, which says that movement is impossible since you have to cover an infinite number points to get anywhere. It sounds interesting in theory, but the reality is we do move. And reality is if you spend most of your time on the 20 percent that got you an 80 percent return—well, the percentages change and then where’s the 80-20 rule?

The rule assumes all of us are equally inefficient.What if you’re more efficient than most people? Let’s say, 50 percent of what you do brings in 80 percent of your work. If you applied the 80-20 rule, theoretically, you might end up worse off.

It’s impossible as a practical matter. One suggestion I’ve heard is that the 80 percent you do that provides so little return can be outsourced to others, so you really can just do the 20 percent. For instance, you could hire a virtual assistant to take care of your administrative work, and use the free time to focus on more productive things. I agree that many time-consuming tasks can be delegated. But there are many things that simply can’t be done by anyone except you and which it would be extremely difficult to translate into clients landed or income earned.

How much of a value do you place on attending workshops, conferences or networking events? How about free speaking engagements or conference panel appearances? Or exhibiting (at a cost, I might add) at a trade show? Now, can you match up the cost, effort and time you put into those personal appearances with what you get in return? How about blogs? Or guest posting like I’m doing right now? Networking, speaking, referring work to others—all these things can reap benefits for you. But trying to compute the dollar value directly gained from these activities, not to mention activity in online social networks and email lists, would be virtually impossible for me. Certainly, it would be more time-consuming than it’s worth.

We’re only human. The notion embedded in the idea of putting all your efforts into the 20 percent of what you do that pays off is that we’re capable of 100 percent efficiency. Uh-uh. They can’t even design a motor that’s 100 percent efficient. Can you really expect yourself to be? In fact, pushing for 100 percent efficiency is a really good way to burn out. Plus we have needs, desires and hopes that have absolutely nothing to do with efficiency and maximizing income. Part of the reason we become freelancers is to “pursue our passion.” If that passion doesn’t pay off immediately, the 80-20 rule would suggest we chuck it. Where’s the fun in that?

It ignores the benefits of diversification. If you’re going to focus like a laser beam on the clients, markets, etc., that are producing the most income for you now, what’s going to happen if some of those clients go out of business or decide they no longer need your services? What if that hot market you were tapping into cools down? You’re going to be wishing you looked beyond what was producing revenue for you at the time and had been thinking about ways to diversify your business, based on what may not be making you rich now, but could pay off in the long run. Things can change, and you need to stay flexible so you can change with them. And finally . . .

It doesn’t allow for the possibility that a worthy pursuit often requires time to pay off. If I see there’s a market for business bloggers, but have a hard time landing my first client, I’d be pretty discouraged by the 80-20 rule. Yet blogging does seem like a service worth offering—one in which the market is reputed to be growing. By writing my own blogs (for free—and with what I’m making from Google ads, by the time I get my first check, I’ll be signing it over to the nursing home), I’m 1) establishing a presence on the Web, 2) creating writing samples to show potential clients, 3) connecting with other bloggers and 4) becoming more experienced at it. These are benefits you can’t put a price on.

For instance, fiction writing is a career that would never happen if you based your strategy on the 80-20 rule. As it happens, I’m a mystery writer. I was talking recently to a business coach about how long and arduous the process of becoming a career novelist is. She said (and I quote), “So what can we do to make this happen faster?” It was all I could do to keep from falling down laughing. If I knew that, I could make a million dollars selling the book on how to become an overnight success as an author!

Becoming a published author takes time, effort, patience and the ability to handle rejection. Fiction writing, done through traditional publishing (and the arguments for going that route are too numerous for me to go into here), is a long-haul process. First, you have to write the dang novel. Then, you have to send out query after query after query to reputable agents and small publishers (and you have to do your homework to find out who they are—all-in-all, a time-consuming process). If you’re lucky (really lucky) a couple of the recipients will ask to see your story synopsis (in which you have reduced your 250-300 page book to a one- or two-page description—also time-consuming) and the first one to three chapters. After that, if you’re really, really lucky, they will ask to see the whole manuscript. (And, yes, you will need to finish the book before you try any of this.) And if you’re astronomically lucky, an agent will offer to represent your book. (Small presses are a trifle easier to sell to, but it’s still a highly competitive market. And there are pros and cons to going the small press route, where you don’t need an agent, versus the big publishers, where you do. But having an agent is a real plus for any fiction author.)

Becoming a published author involves more than just writing a book and sending out queries. While you’re doing all that, you will be joining writers’ groups and organizations in order to network with other authors who will introduce you to agents and editors. If these authors see your writing and like it, they may be kind enough to give their personal endorsement for your work to an agent or editor. After more than ten years of this type of networking, that’s exactly what happened to me at a recent conference. I was able to send the query, synopsis and first chapter of my latest novel directly to an agent, instead of her query submission email, because one of her good friends is in my writers’ group and gave her a glowing review of my work. And, after all that, her answer may still be “no.”

Becoming a successful published author is essentially a crap shoot. So, if your business strategy is governed strictly by the 80-20 rule, pursuing a fiction writing career amounts to insanity. But nothing short of death will stop me from pursuing a career as a fiction writer. And anyone in the publishing business will tell you, authors who achieve overnight success are the decided exception, not the rule. No one knows what the next bestseller will be, so there is no such thing as a “sure hit” in this business. Fiction writing is a field in which you have to persist despite the odds. You have to persist no matter how many times you hear the word “no.” You have to keep writing and keep meeting people, because the sad truth is that success in publishing is usually as much a function of who you know as how well you write. And just dumb luck.

So, go ahead. Reduce that to a formula. Just try.

Debbi Mack
http://www.debbimack.com/
http://writing4hire.blogspot.com/
http://bookspublishing.blogspot.com/
http://mackthewriter.wordpress.com/

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POSTED IN: Book Writing, Editing, Pubishing & Marketing, General Freelance Writing