E98: Mastering Business Decisions: The 80-20 Rule

Are you overthinking every little thing in your business? If so, this episode is for you. Today, we’re breaking down the 80/20 Rule for Business Decisions—where 80% of your results come from just 20% of your actions. The key to success? Stop wasting time on low-impact tasks and start focusing on the few decisions that actually move your business forward.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

✔️ How to identify whether you're making $10 decisions vs. million-dollar decisions
✔️ Why having a core offer matters more than tweaking your Instagram bio
✔️ The high-impact 20% tasks that drive business growth
✔️ The low-impact 80% distractions that keep you stuck
✔️ A simple decision-making filter to eliminate overwhelm
✔️ How to take one big action this week without overthinking it

If you’re tired of spinning your wheels, this is your sign to stop overthinking and start executing. Your big ideas deserve action!

Take Action:

• Write down the last five business decisions you spent 24+ hours on. Were they high-impact (20%) or low-impact (80%)?
• Take one big action this week—without overthinking it.
• Email me at info@teachmehowtobake.com with the subject "Big Decision" and tell me what you're committing to!

Want More Support?

• Apply for a hot seat coaching session on the podcast: KitchenTableDreams.com
• Follow me on Instagram: @KimberlyIHouston
• Visit the Show Notes
• Join the Kitchen Table Dreams community: kitchentabledreams.com/community

✔️ Like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes on business strategy, alignment, and decision-making without the overwhelm!

#KitchenTableDreams #Entrepreneurship #BusinessStrategy #MillionDollarDecisions #Overthinking #80_20Rule #SmallBusinessGrowth #FemaleEntrepreneurs #MindsetMatters #MakeBetterDecisions

Visit https://nutrimill.com/KTD for $20.00 off your next purchase of a Bosch mixer or Nutrigrain Flour Mill

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Overthinking in Business
• 3:42 Understanding the 80-20 Rule
• 6:31 Identifying High-Impact Decisions
• 9:45 Avoiding Low-Impact Distractions
• 13:16 Applying the 80-20 Rule in Real Scenarios
• 16:14 Taking Action on Big Ideas
• 25:30 Let me help you with accountability

Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:01.07)
Hey, hey friends, welcome back to the Kitchen Table Dreams podcast. I am your host, Kimberly Houston. And I got a question for you. Are you someone who overthinks things in your business? If you are, this episode is going to be for you. So here's what I want you to think about the next time you begin to overthink doing something in your business. So there is this principle of an 80-20 rule for business decisions, right?

80 % of your results come from 20 % of the action. And so what I don't want you to do is to continue to waste time on low impact decisions when you could very simply be focusing on a couple of decisions that will help drive your business growth. So here's what this could look like. If we were to say, these decisions cost money, are you spending your time doing $10 decisions

versus million dollar decisions. Now, if you guys know my coach is Rachel Rogers and we do a whole lot of conversation around million dollar ideas, million dollar principles, million dollar things. And so the more I sat with this, as I began researching the 80-20 rule, I was like, oh, this is just like if I'm gonna spend time on a $10 decision versus or a $10 task versus a task that could make me a million dollars, right?

So I'm gonna dig into this and hopefully this episode will be clear enough, succinct enough that we won't be here all day. right, so 20 % of decisions create 80 % of your success. These are big strategic choices. As a business strategist, whenever you come to me with a problem, you wanna have a one-on-one call. If you want to apply to be on the podcast live,

and I coach you through something, my decisions are not based on emotion, yours are, but my decisions are not going to be based on emotion, my decisions are going to be based on strategy. And so 80 % of the decisions that people are doing have absolutely nothing to do with bringing in money in the door. For example, if you don't have a core offer, one main offer that you could send people to in your target audience,

Kimberly Houston (02:27.266)
but you are tweaking your Instagram bio because you think that's where the money is gonna come from, that's not helpful. That's not gonna get you to the place where you want to be, right? And so when you're thinking about, well, if I were to be asked to speak on the panel or if you were to speak at a conference or if you were to come on a podcast, where's one place you're gonna send people that's already inside of your business that you don't need to create right now?

If you can't answer that question, nothing else you're doing in your business right now matters. Nothing else you're doing right now matters. Because if you can't tell me how to give you money, then we have a problem. So like for me, if you go to teachmehowtobake.com backslash classes or teachmehowtobake.com backslash membership, it's going to send you to the same thing. It's going to send you to my offer.

to the offer that can handle a wide variety of people, but it gets us all on one track. It helps you build the skillset you need to grow your business as a sweet entrepreneur. That is what my content is all about, right? And so I have a core offer that I can send people to. It doesn't matter where you are. You could make half a million dollars in your business.

But if you don't have a core offer, if you don't have a digital product, if you don't know how to create these things in order to diversify and grow your income, then that academy still applies to you just like it would the high school student that's trying to start their business, right? I teach people skill sets to help them diversify their income. And so that is what my academy does. Do I have other offerings? Yes, of course I do. I have.

coaching, right? I have group coaching and then I also have one-on-one coaching. That's a premium offer that is specifically reserved for people who are ready to take their baking business from, you know, upwards of 500K to a million dollars. Like how do you grow that with strategy and not emotion? I'm really good at that. And so that is a high ticket offer that I have, but that's not my main offer. My main offer is the academy that helps you build a skillset to diversify your income.

Kimberly Houston (04:50.03)
regardless to what your income level is. Let's talk about how we identify the difference between these 20 % versus the 80%. Ask yourself, what decisions have the biggest return on investment in my business? These are the things that belong in your 20%. Pricing your revenue. How are you going to hit your financial goals? Are you just waiting around and like,

Last year I made a lot of money in May, so I expect to make a lot of money in May this year. Why are you not making more money in January, February, March, April? Why not? Right? Have you dug into your pricing and revenue strategy? If the answer to that is no, you're not spending enough time there. What is your marketing strategy? How do people find you? Are people finding you because you're creating really funny TikToks or are people finding you because you have a very strategic plan? Have you mapped out

your sales for the year or do you just throw up flash sales because you need money? What is your marketing strategy? Another piece of your 20%. Are you positioned properly to get your ideal client? This is something I don't think enough people are paying attention to. Who are you helping and why? Your ideal client positioning literally boils down to

Who are you helping and why are you helping them? If you can answer those two questions and you can articulate to me how you're reaching the people that you're helping and how are you doing that, why? If you can't do that, you're not spending enough time in the 20%. And then lastly, boundaries and systems. What makes running your business easier? Are you still sending out every invoice or do you have this automated? Are you making sales calls?

Are you reaching out and connecting with people? Are you going to industry events? Are you growing your personal brand within the business? If the answer to that is no, you are not spending enough time in the 20 % of the decisions that will actually move the needle. Here's part of that 80%. Over researching every small idea or every small decision. If you're like, I feel like I should have a cupcake sale, but you got to go research how to get that done, don't do it.

Kimberly Houston (07:13.716)
If you were like, want to grow my Instagram following or my TikTok following, that's going to require me to take 15 classes, buy a new camera, get a new this, this, this, this, this. Don't do it. Constantly changing your branding, fonts or colors. Ma'am, sirs, nobody cares. Like they literally don't care because so what if it's cute? If it's not clear what you do. Clear is better than cute. Just because the brand is cute.

just because you drove past some place and you were like, I like that color teal better than I like this color blue. Ma'am and sirs, none of that matters and nobody cares. They do not care because I still don't know what you do. So if I don't know what you do, then the colors of your business don't matter to me, right? Right. Okay. Comparing yourself to competitors and doubting yourself. There's only one of you on the face of this earth and I understand it. There could be a hundred thousand more businesses just like yours, but none of them are run by you.

None of them will run by you. So that to me in itself lets me know that you are the unique sauce and what makes your sauce so delicious. Tell me that. Go put that into your 20%. Okay. Stop comparing yourself. It's not helpful. Taking on projects that don't align with your bigger goal. Last week we discussed what it looks like to put your business into alignment and how to make these decisions within alignment and how to make some strategic decisions,

If you take on things that have nothing to do with your bigger goal, that's not helpful. Let me make this one clear. After I retired and I closed the cookie Emporium and I was no longer doing it, I was presented with an offer to go on Food Network. Now, going on Food Network and competing on a baking show.

was not in alignment. I was retired. If I'm retired, meaning I, number one, no longer want to do this, and number two, at that time I was physically in able to do this, but other people were like, my God, Food Network called you, you should do it. I went through the process of doing it and made it up until the very last moment, right? But at the end of the day, it wasn't a hell yes for me.

Kimberly Houston (09:29.622)
It just wasn't. And then I wasn't selected and my feelings weren't hurt when I wasn't selected. And you want to know who they went with? They went with somebody else who was also a minority business owner. The one difference between me and that person they chose for that particular competition, she still had a business. She still had a bakery. That was the only difference. Our stories were so similar. They were so aligned. She still had a business.

That was in alignment with her business. Me going on Food Network and winning a championship, mean, okay, great ego boost, but how was that going to help me in real life when I no longer had a bakery? Right, right. All right. Do not take on projects that don't align with your bigger goal. If it's not a hell yes for you, the answer is no. I tell you all this all the time. If somebody asks you to do something, if you don't immediately say hell yes, the answer to that question is no. If you got to think about it, the answer to that question is no.

If you got to check your calendar, the answer to that question is what? No. Saying yes, this is the last one on that 80 % saying yes to every opportunity without evaluating its impacts. I can't tell you how much I did that when I had my bakery. I said yes to damn near everything. I said yes to last minute orders and regretted it. Even when I started charging people a rush fee, they paid it anyway.

But it wasn't worth it. It wasn't. That means that I was taking time away from my family. It meant that it was throwing me off my regular schedule. It meant that I didn't have as much time to be as creative as I normally would be most of the time. I wasn't as excited about the end product. They may have loved it, but I knew that I could do better. But I couldn't because you didn't give me enough time, right?

There wasn't enough time for me to get materials. And as we move through this particular administration with all the tariffs, y'all don't have the time. You don't have the time to be as creative as you would like because you can't get the stuff you need. Right? Right. So saying yes to every opportunity without evaluating the impact it's going to have on your business is an 80 % time waster when you could really be sitting down and thinking about your marketing strategy. All right.

Kimberly Houston (11:50.752)
Okay, so let's move forward. Using the 80-20 rule will help you simplify your decision making. Here's how. When you are looking at things, and if you need to write these down, please do so. These are the questions I want you to ask to create a filter that will prioritize what matters the most. Number one, does this decision impacts my income, my audience, or my business sustainability?

Are you going to have to come outside of the things that you built your business on in order to get it done? When I used to take those last minute orders, if that required me to drive an hour and a half to the closest cake store in Atlanta, sitting in Atlanta traffic on a Thursday or Friday afternoon because somebody waited to the last minute knowing that their child was turning 16 the next day and they decided to wait till the last minute, throw a party and order a cake. That decision impacted my income, my time,

the other people who paid on time, so my audience and my business sustainability. Something that small impacts at my business in a really big way. So I want you to think about that. Does this decision impacts my income, my audience or my business sustainability? Number two, is this decision, is this a decision I will still care about six months from now? Friends, friends.

I don't know how to stress the importance of this one. Is this going to be important to you six months from now? If the answer is no, don't you dare do it. Don't you dare. If this is one of those quick money grab, side hustles, whatever, whatever, but it's not going to make an impact six months from now, don't do it. Don't do it. Just don't do it.

Will making this decision now free up mental space for more important choices?

Kimberly Houston (13:53.998)
Will this decision now free up mental space for more important choices? This is you setting a boundary and saying no, okay? If you say no to something, let's go back to that other question. Is this decision, is this a decision I will still care about six months from now? If the answer to that question is yes, you're gonna care in a positive way about that decision six months from now.

The follow-up question to that, will making this decision now free up mental space for more important choices, those things six months from now, six years from now? If the answer is yes, please go do it. If the answer is no, I need you to let it go, right? So me being on Food Network, will that have made a difference in my life six months from the time that I did it? I don't know, it might have. Maybe I would have sold more of Teach Me How to textbooks. Maybe, maybe. But the reality of that is,

Because the answer was maybe and not yes, that wasn't a good decision for me. If I had taken on the opportunity to go on Food Network when it was presented to me, and let me point out something, this was about the sixth time they had reached out to me. It wasn't like it was the first time. We'd already done this. This is like the sixth time. And at this point I'm retired and I no longer do this. That decision was not going to free up mental space.

That decision will not free up mental space. As a matter of fact, when I do the reel for this particular podcast episode, I am going to make the profile picture. I'm going to make the picture on it. The 3D Easter bunny house that I had to pull together with less than 24 hours notice to be on that show. I'm going to...

That's one I'm going to use. If you listen into this and you want to go see what I had to create for them to still not to select me, and remember, I'm retired at this point, but I had to put this together in order to show them that I knew how to do this. I had less than 24 hours to do it, probably less than 12 hours to do it. They needed it the next day. That did not free up mental space for me, friends. It didn't. It actually stressed me out. It wasn't a good idea. It wasn't a good idea.

Kimberly Houston (16:14.55)
I know some opportunities look like good ideas, but when you ask yourself these questions, you'll realize they're not.

Let's talk about how you apply this 80-20 rule in real business scenarios. Instead of antagonizing over your course title for weeks, decide in 30 minutes and launch. Y'all, can pull together a course so quickly. I can drop a new website so quickly. I do not need to overthink this. Here's how I measure things. People are like, how do you know you're going to do this? Here's what I do. First, I go to Namecheap.com and I type it into the URL.

If the URL is available, that's my first check mark. Then I go to Instagram. If that Instagram handle isn't taken, second check mark. Then I go look at TikTok. If it's not taken on TikTok, boom, that's all I need to know. That means lovely. You can do this. Side note that I just do this today, I did. Kitchen fun with kids.com coming soon. That's all I can tell you, right? That's all I can tell you.

There's some shakeup happening within my business as I envisioned the million dollar brand of Teach Me How To Bake and what that's going to look like. There are multiple different things that happen within the business. And while I'm not quite ready to deal with this in the moment, I was like, well, it dropped in my spirit. So let me go see if it's available. All the things were available. Baby, when everything is available, that's yes. That's an immediate yes for me. All right. So example number two.

Instead of debating minor website tweaks, focus on getting people in front of your offer. Mams and sirs, going to update your website every week, but you don't have an offer for these people to come to? Not helpful. Not helpful. There are people who make a whole lot of money who don't even have a website. They will use a stand store. They will go build it on Thinkific and just drop that link. They don't even have a whole website. They just have ways for you to pay them.

Kimberly Houston (18:15.63)
Do you have ways for people to give you money? If the answer to that question is no, leave that website alone. Number three way how you can apply the 80-20 rule in real life business scenarios. Instead of worrying about every social media post, prioritize the platforms and content that actually bring in sales. Let me tell y'all something. I have over 10,000 followers on TikTok.

YouTube has a little bit over 500 subscribers. Instagram, we just toppled over 4,000. Pinterest, I have about, I want to say maybe 700 people who actually follow me. However, the biggest return on posting is on Pinterest.

The biggest return is in the place that I have one of the smallest followings. People will come, the most traffic, my organic traffic is coming from Pinterest. I need you to hear me and hear me well. I take really pretty pictures of food. Those people are on Pinterest. I am not getting, yes, a bunch of people follow me on TikTok, but maybe they're not getting off TikTok and coming to my website.

But the people on Pinterest going to click that link and they're come to my website. The biggest bang for my book according to the data is on Pinterest, not in the place where I have over 10,000 followers.

If it is not a part of the 20%, it is not worth your time. You do not need to create all this extravagant content when people aren't even engaging. Yeah, 4,000 people, a little bit more, follow me on Instagram. But y'all, when I post, it gets like five, six likes, maybe, unless I post my children. Now, if I post Marshall or Cherry, it's going to get hundreds, hundreds of likes.

Kimberly Houston (20:28.034)
I don't know, people love to see my children because I don't really post them anymore. We had that discussion a couple of years ago and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't post us on social media like that unless it's our birthday. And that is the agreement that we had. So during those one or two times a year that they are posted, the likes go through the roof. But outside of that, people are not engaging in the way that I would like for them to engage. But if I go make a cute little post on Pinterest, baby, hundreds, thousands, thousands of people.

thousands of people are coming to my websites, which turns into ad revenue, which means what money in my pocket. So why am I spending all of my time making videos for Instagram or TikTok when the reality is that I can put a picture of the final product on Pinterest and I will make money off of it. If it's not bringing in the money, it is not worth your time friends. Okay. Now let's talk about taking action.

with the 80-20 decision audit. I want you to make a list of the last five business decisions you spent more than 24 hours on. If you had an inspired idea, you were like, I should do such and such such. How many of those things did you actually execute within 24 hours?

Now, if I would have asked myself that question, I probably did four out of five because that's just how I am. That's how I'm wired now. I wasn't always wired like this, but I learned that inspiration will go somewhere else. You ever be like, man, I remember when I wanted to do such a such and now somebody else has done it. Baby, that's because inspiration is inspiring.

and it's meant to get out. The universe would bring it to you. It will drop it in your lap. And then if you don't do nothing with it, it's going to take it somewhere else. It's going to take it somewhere else. There's a viral video going around about Michael Jackson and how if Michael Jackson had something hit him at one, two in the morning, he would jump up and go to the studio and record it because he didn't want the idea to land over in Prince's lap. Let me tell you something. I have a kid that is obsessed with Prince, so I know a lot about Prince and Michael Jackson.

Kimberly Houston (22:41.678)
prints literally used to stay up for days creating. Days creating. They understood that just because this idea popped in my head, that doesn't mean it's the only head is popping into. And if I don't get my butt in that studio and record this in the way that I just heard it, somebody else gonna release that before I can.

I'm not sure why you feel like the inspiration will always be there because it won't, particularly if you see somebody else in your town or your city who does the same thing that you do. As soon as you see them do it, you're to be like, man, I had that idea six months ago. Then you should have released it six months ago. You should have released it six months ago. Okay. So when you make this list, you're making a list of the last five business decisions you spent more than 24 hours on. Next.

Ask yourself this question, were they a high impact 20 % or a low impact 80 % distraction? If all five things on that list are distractions, we got a problem. If all five things on that are high impact, you need to start executing. You don't have to execute all the things at once. The thing that I want you to do is commit to making one big decision this week without overthinking it.

If it's something that's still on that list of those five things and you're like, okay, this is the thing I'm going to do. Not only do I want you to execute it, I want you to send me an email because I'm real good at accountability. Ask the people in my circle. I'm real good at accountability. If there's something that popped into your brain and you're like, yeah, I need to do this. I want you to send an email to info.

at teachmehowtobake.com and I want you to use the tagline big idea. I want you to send it to me. I want you to tell me what your big idea is. I want you to tell me so I can cheer you on. Now, am I going to respond to you and be like, what's your timeframe for doing this? How quickly are we going to get this up? What do you need to know in order to make this happen? Who do you need to know in order to make this happen?

Kimberly Houston (25:03.01)
but I want you to get it done. Don't be scared. Send it to me. Send it to me. What's the worst that could happen? You make some money. Literally what's the worst that could happen if you actually act on a big idea, if you actually decided to focus on the 20 % instead of the 80%, what's the worst that could happen? You make some money. That's the worst that could happen for him.

I want you to understand that here on this podcast, The Kitchen Table Dreams, it is my job. It is my assignment to make sure that the dreams you have at your kitchen table are released into the world. That's the whole point of this podcast. I am giving you tips and strategy that will help you be aligned in business without the overwhelm. You don't need to overthink this.

I want you to write down five business decisions you spent more than 24 hours on. I want you to decide if it is a high impact 20 % decision or 80 % distraction. If it's an 80 % distraction, you're going to cross it off. don't even matter. Whatever is a 20 % high impact decision, I want you to take one big action this week without overthinking it that moves the needle. Even if that one big action is you actually pulling out your phone right now hitting send.

to me at info at teachmehowtobake.com with the caption, big decision, and telling me what that big decision is. I cannot wait to hear from you. And hey, listen, if you really, really want the accountability, you can also apply to be hot seat coach on the podcast. If you go to teachmehowtobake.com, you'll be able to see that. Also, if you go to kitchentabledreams.com, it'll take you directly to it. Then you can apply to be on the podcast. I will hot seat coach you. We'll work through the things.

and then you take big inspired action and make your dreams come true. Until next time, friends, stay sweet, have fun, and remember, you can make strong, big, big business decisions without the overwhelm. Until next time, stay sweet.