How To Accelerate Your Learning Curve Using Pareto's Principle
Starting a new job in Sales can be a daunting prospect.
The sheer volume of information that is presented to you can be overwhelming.
Worse, if you don’t have the right tools to help you curate all that content you will experience information overload.
Fortunately, there is a simple yet powerful concept that will set you up for success.
Becoming acquainted with Vilfredo Pareto and his famous principle will put you on a clear path to avoid the so-called steep learning curve.
Who is Vilfredo Pareto?
Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist in the nineteenth century.
He famously observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the population.
An avid gardener he also noticed that 20% of his peapods produced 80% of the peas.
These observations were later iterated upon in both economics and business.
Today it is commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule.
Pareto's Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs
-Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
Examples of Pareto’s law can be found everywhere.
How can you apply this principle to your new job?
When starting out in a new role don’t try to become an expert in everything.
You will spread yourself too thin and become overwhelmed.
Instead, focus on the key skills that you can leverage to quickly become sufficient.
Pro Tip: Invite some seasoned sales reps out for a coffee and pick their brain.
Find out the most common questions they get asked on sales calls?
What are the most common objections they encounter?
You will discover that the majority of deals (80%) are closed using the same set of skills and techniques (20%).
Now you can hyper-focus on a smaller set of skills and experience success earlier.
This is a great way to accelerate your learning curve.
Most people in life fail because they major in minor things — Tony Robbins