The Right and Left Brain Blog

Many operations experts have long promoted that 80% of sales are with 20% of your products. Yet, suppliers continue to proliferate styles, colors, sizes, models and features to presumably serve more customers and provide more features. There is even a book that promotes the concept of The Long Tail, which explains a theory that the internet provides a great opportunity to offer consumers almost unlimited variety and flexibility.

The flexibility rule is a myth. We are nearly drowning in a sea of choice, and it’s killing us and the economy.

The 80-20 rule rocks in business, marketing and our personal lives. A Harvard Business Review article analyzed numerous business examples and found that virtually all products seldom increased profits by increasing offerings with little real impact. We waste time, money, inventory dollars and frequently add confusion by adding complexity. Nowhere is this more evident than the opportunity to custom build a computer. You have to make 10-15 decisions with 2-6 options and usually have no clue what you are answering.

It’s not just computers. This tough economy offers a great opportunity to reduce proliferation of products that just aren’t producing. The selection of brands, products and colors in cosmetics is simply nuts and confuses the customer more than it helps. It took crises for GM to realize Pontiac sales have been declining for over 20 years and should be eliminated. However, the auto industry has still not figured out that it doesn’t need all the models, companies or dealers because it is easier to ask for government money than face the reality of making the tough decisions. Have we really lost anything in the last few months without the endless proliferation of credit card offerings that no one needed? No one wants to admit that much of the success of Wal-Mart is eliminating thousands of inefficient retailers.

The rule even applies to government. Is more or less regulation really the issue? In contrast, it may be increasing the effectiveness and integration of the regulations we have. We added Sarbanes-Oxley in accounting, which costs billions of dollars in fees and clearly did nothing to prevent the recent financial fiascos. Imagine the savings of consolidating some of the local, county, township and state government activities rather than spending more money and more taxes.

Keep reading to learn how we can simplify the process.

We know we’re bombarded with different communication tools. More so today than ever before. Many of us receive some combination of more than 100 emails, 2-3 hours of TV, 3-5 hours of interaction on the computer, and we read numerous books, magazines and other papers. We talk 1-2 hours on the phone phone each day or week, spend 1-2 hours with the Blackberry, 1-2 hours blogging, listening to podcasts or surfing networking sites like Facebook, sit 2-3 hours in meetings, and even have a little social time with our family and friends.

Do we need it all, and how can we pay attention to what’s important? The “reply all” button or ignoring the “CC” button on emails is frequently more waste than useful. This simply proliferates the noise.

The best new solution to many of our problems may simply be to get rid of many of the poor efforts and make the best existing ones work. Food and restaurants are a great example. We seem obsessed with the latest new restaurant or food fad .The reality is we really love the old basic ones, and we always come back to them. Like Wal-Mart, McDonald’s is one of few restaurants showing increased sales Despite that fact, my kids call my wife at least once a month for some family recipe. Our only regret is we lost Grandma Sarah’s cookie recipe and my mother couldn’t cook.

In other words, in business and personal life, focus on what really works and what is really important and get rid of everything else. Simplify.

What are your suggestions for simplifying life and business?