What To Focus On To Develop Your Business

How should I prioritize business opportunities when there are too many options

“I think it's a good idea to maybe have 60% of your focus on strengthening and streamlining the current money-making systems that are running and bringing money in”

— Eben Pagan▶ 3:38

Use a three-tier approach: spend 60% of your time strengthening existing money-making systems, develop recent discoveries that show promise, and allocate 10% to testing future opportunities you believe in but can't prove yet.

What are money-making activities in a business

“moneymaking as those activities that are the things that ring the cash register and they're typically at the fringes or almost external to your business”

— Eben Pagan▶ 1:03

Money-making activities are processes at the fringes of your business that directly generate revenue - like automated marketing processes, converting ads, websites with working traffic systems, and upselling processes during transactions.

How do I streamline my business processes

“streamlining is removing some of the friction from the process if you're running and you've got barbs on you and it's catching on things like velcro you want to start pulling those off”

— Eben Pagan▶ 2:05

Look for friction points and sticking points where your process falls over. Identify where things don't happen consistently and create systems to ensure they occur every time, like the referral system that cost one business $2.2 million.

How do I identify future business opportunities

“what do you believe but you can't prove about the future then you can start working on it a little bit and that might be 10% of your time”

— Eben Pagan▶ 8:22

Ask yourself 'what do you believe but you can't prove' about the future. Look for trends that might intersect and position yourself to be ready when they converge. This is where breakthrough opportunities come from.

How do I protect my successful business systems from being damaged

“before you change any piece of copy that's going to go in front of customers from the brand that I created that's my voice just run it by me”

— Eben Pagan▶ 4:40

Create controls requiring approval before anyone changes customer-facing copy or critical processes. Make sure your entire team knows which systems are essential money-makers that shouldn't be modified without careful consideration.

The Three-Tier Business Focus Framework

Eben introduces a systematic approach to handling business opportunity overwhelm. He recommends allocating 60% of resources to strengthening existing money-making systems, developing promising discoveries, and testing future opportunities. This prevents entrepreneurs from abandoning what works while still pursuing growth.

Strengthening and Streamlining Money-Making Systems

Money-making activities exist at the fringes of your business - automated marketing processes, converting ads, and systematic upselling. Streamlining removes friction points, while strengthening builds industrial-grade systems. A plastic surgeon lost $2.2 million by not systematizing their referral requests.

Developing Discoveries and Creating Future Realities

Success involves both creating and discovering the future - you can only see the next step after taking your current one. Eben recommends asking 'what do you believe but you can't prove' to identify breakthrough opportunities worth testing with 10% of your resources.