In today’s blog I want to talk about the idea of working smart versus working hard, and what you actually need to do if you want to make progress in your business.

So, I know a lot of people in the industry and a lot of products, and a lot of coaching services, etc., that teach you to work smart instead of working hard. And in my opinion, it is extremely important to work smart in your business.

It is very important to be able to identify the 20% of activities in your business that will account for 80% of your result. This is known as the 80/20 rule….a very real…tried-and-true principal. And then you want to focus most all of your energy on those 20% activities that will yield the 80% of results…and that’s working smart.

But the truth is that if you really want to make progress in your business, if you want to go fast, if you want to do what every six, seven, and eight figure earners do in their businesses…what you need to do is work extremely hard on the smart activities in your business.

So, those 20% of activities in your business…generating leads, closing sales, following up with your leads, hosting webinars, etc., those are all part of the 20% of my own personal business. You’ll want to work extremely hard on those 20% of activities.

I remember when I first got started in this industry, I read a book called Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard. Probably a lot of you have read it, it really changed the whole industry and shifted everything towards attraction marketing. But one of the principals that he talks about in that book is working smart versus working hard.

Mike is an absolute genius when it comes to selling and influencing, and just creating a bond with his audience. And that book did an amazing job of making you want to become part of whatever Mike had going on…wanting to listen to Mike, etc., and he made it sound really sexy to work smart instead of hard.

Unfortunately, that led me to not doing certain things in my business that I didn’t want to…based on just buying into the concept of wanting to work smart instead of hard. That basically then led to me not

doing work…and me not doing the work ended up costing me nearly $12,750…which led me into a massive mound of debt. Basically, at that point, I was totally broke.

I had to humiliatingly ask my family for financial help just so I wouldn’t lose my house, which made me look like a complete failure as a new Internet Marketer. Slowly, I managed to get my feet back underneath me and build my business from the ground up and finally get moving in a positive direction again.

So, in reflecting on that experience…and so you can avoid making the same mistake I did…I think one of the most powerful things you need to focus on in your business is working smart. But, I also think that a lot of people literally get held back by the thought of only working smart…which may inevitably keep them from working hard.

A perfect example is this piece of content that I’m currently creating now, and how this will lead to my next activity for the day. So, instead of just being satisfied, feeling that I’ve worked smart enough for today, and then doing nothing…I will continue to focus on my business and tie this content into the first quarter of a webinar that I’ll present later this week for a new offer that I am promoting.

So, the highest leverage activities in your business will be things like offer creation, hosting webinars, emailing your list, etc. Those types of things are the highest leverage activities that you want to be putting the most effort and energy into.

Now, does that mean you don’t create content?…or that you don’t communicate with your list on a daily basis? No. You need to do all of it.

But you need to focus all your energy on working extremely hard and diligently on the 20% of activities…the smart activities for your business, in order to create the biggest result…and the most momentum possible in your business.