How Studio Owners Are Multiplying Their Income And Minimizing Their Headaches Using The 80/20 Principle

Brian Hood (0:29)

What are you doing, buddy?

Chris (0:30)

I'm good, man. It's very hot in the great state of Ohio right now.

Brian Hood (0:37)

Kind of like a little heat sweep going on right now in the southeast, too.

Chris (0:39)

Yeah, it's like a jungle. How are you, sir? What's new in your life?

Brian Hood (0:43)

Well, I typically try to come to these sorts of questions with more than just weather updates.

Chris (0:48)

So shallow.

Brian Hood (0:49)

Yeah, for a reason, number one, it's the most shallow thing to talk about. Like, so what I talk about, like, to old people at the gym, if they talk to me.

Chris (0:55)

And that's today's lesson for The Six Figure Home Studio. Don't talk about the weather with your clients.

Brian Hood (0:59)

Reason number two is the fact that this podcast usually airs weeks after we record it, in which case the weather's completely changed, Chris, for the listeners. That's reason number two. But things that have changed.

Sean is actually leaving The Six Figure Home Studio. He's been with me for over a year now.

This is his last week as of the time we record this. By the time this episode comes out, Sean Barnes will no longer be working for The Six Figure Home Studio. That's the bad news. Good news is he's leaving because his studio has gotten way too busy for him to work two jobs. So it's one of those things that I can't blame him. You got to stick with your main business and he's been with me for every year. So kudos to Sean. Everyone listening right now, give him a round of applause for the year.

Chris (1:38)

Six Figure Home Studio salute to Sean Barnes, the guy who takes all this stupid stuff that we say and edits it out of the podcast.

Brian Hood (1:47)

Now we have a new guy editing stuff. He started on episode number 44 So if that episode was markedly worse in edits, it's because he's new. But this is our new guy named James. I have a lot of faith that he is going to be great at editing this podcast and also taking over some of the other duties that Sean has done for the past year. So welcome, James Cross, to the Six Figure Home Studio crew.

Anyways, let's get on to the topic of today's episode.

Chris (2:13)

It's a good one.

Brian Hood (2:14)

Yeah, this is a good one. And this is another one of those episodes that I'm like, I can't believe it. We're 45 episodes in, and this is the first time that we're talking about this, Chris, because this is something that affects us all in many different ways. It doesn't just affect us or our businesses. This affects the entire world.

This is like an unofficial law of the universe, or maybe it's official, I don't know. It's called many names, but we call it the 80-20 principle. Some people call it Pareto's principle.

There's maybe another couple other names besides that. What is the 80-20 principle, Chris?

Chris (2:44)

Well, quick story, as I define the 80-20 principle. Years ago, when I was more of a loser than I am now, my business was driving me crazy. This is 2007, and I was working ridiculous hours, making almost no money, and I met with a friend of mine, Matt Crumpton.

Matt and I were having lunch at the North Star Cafe in the short north of Columbus, Ohio, and I told him about how I was struggling in my business, and he said something that changed my life. He said, have you ever heard of a book called The Four Hour Workweek?

Brian Hood (3:22)

Which we've talked about many, many times on this podcast.

Chris (3:24)

Many, many times.

Brian Hood (3:25)

It'll be in the show notes if you haven't heard of it yet. There's a link to it.

Chris (3:28)

I said no, and he described it to me, and I went home and I told my wife later that day, and she picked it up at the library. I put it on the couch behind where I master. I used to have a couch back there, and it sat there for three months, unopened, accruing late fees. So my initial investment, I lost money when I got The Four Hour Workweek because of all the late fees. Three months later, I'm working, and I have way too many projects in front of me that are due that day. And I had a little tiny nervous breakdown, panic attack type thing. And I said, you know what? F this. Something needs to change. I turned around, I grabbed the book, and I left, and I went to Starbucks with the book. I sat down with it with a cup of coffee, and I said to myself, I don't have time to read this whole book. So I'm just going to look through the index and find something that sounds like it would apply and just read it right then. I turned to chapter 5, I remember this chapter 5 is about the 80-20 principle. I try not to cuss on the podcast because that's just my thing, but when I read the 80-20 principle, chapter 5 in the 4-Hour Work Week, it was a holy shit moment of epic proportions. What Tim Ferriss said, and he didn't invent the 80-20 principle, he's certainly championed it, but essentially the 20% of the things that you do create 80% of the desired outcomes that you want.