Motivation (The Brian Tracy Success Library)

The 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, was discovered by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, in 1895. After years of research, he concluded that society was made up of two groups of people, which he labeled the vital few (the top 20 percent) and the trivial many (the bottom 80 percent). Pareto observed that in each society, the top 20 percent of people and families controlled 80 percent or more of the wealth. The bottom 80 percent of people only controlled 20 percent of the wealth.

For more than 100 years, the 80/20 rule has been applied to virtually every area of human activity, and seems to apply to almost all business activities. Twenty percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales and profits. ...