Episode 78: Strategy Sprints And Eight Steps To Repeatable Sales With Simon Severino
Simon Severino
Simon Severino is a LinkedIn Top Voice on sales leadership and sales prospecting. As a shrink-turned-CEO, he had to learn the importance of working ON the business more than IN it. Now, he helps business owners supercharge sales and reclaim 14 hours per week through his Strategy Sprints™ Method.
Author of "Strategy Sprints", inventor of the Strategy Sprints™ method. YouTuber, TEDx speaker, Forbes contributor, triathlete, has appeared on over 1300 podcasts. When he is not supercharging sales, you'll find him swimming, biking, running and tricking his 3 kids into outdoor activities so they can't escape his annoying shrinky questions.
Like everyone else, we get tired of the slow sales cycles and a demotivated team, but did you know you can double your sales in 9 days? Today’s guest will reveal his secret to supercharging your sales! In this episode, Simon Severino, the Author of Strategy Sprints, explains the role of the Strategy Sprints Method in doubling your sales, boosting rate, sales frequency, and closing price. He reveals the three key metrics you need to focus on to skyrocket your sales and how to keep your team energized and focused. Simon will also unveil actionable strategies to turn one-time sales into repeatable revenue streams. You better join Simon Severino because you don’t want to miss this game-changing opportunity with Strategy Sprints. This is your chance to learn from the best.
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Strategy Sprints And Eight Steps To Repeatable Sales With Simon Severino
Simon Severino has created $2 billion in additional Salesforce clients over the years. As an advisor who became CEO, he has had to learn the importance of working on the business as opposed to working in the business. Now, he shares his proven templates with high-tech entrepreneurs. They claimed fourteen hours per week using the Strategy Sprints™ Method and enjoyed sales that soared. Author of Strategy Sprints, show host ranking in the top 2.5%, TEDx Speaker, Forbes contributor, and triathlete. When Simon is not supercharging sales, you’re going to find him swimming, biking, running, and tricking his three kids into outdoor activities so they can escape his annoying and shrinky questions. Simon, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
I’m so happy to have you. You’re calling in from Austria, so we have not had an Italian-Austrian guest before, so welcome. I’d love to ask you right at the gate. Can you give us an overview of Strategy Sprints and what your business does?
We are sales coaches. Our superpower is to double sales in 90 days. The way we do this is by improving three things by 25% in a very specific order. It is increasing the win rate by 25%. The same amount of leads in the pipeline but a higher conversion rate. Increasing by 25% the sales frequency that is by shortening the sales time then increasing by 25% the price that they can charge for the same offer.
When you increase the three things by 25%, you get a plus 99% in revenue, which is basically doubling revenue. We can do this in 90 days. The things that we install keep on giving. That’s what I do. I’m a sales coach. I’m focusing many years on this. We started with the big brands and now bringing this to the solopreneurs and small teams who need it the most. This is what I do.
I love the term Strategy Sprints because it’s so literal. It gets you to the point very quickly. I like that you have those three hits that you focus on and you do it in a short amount of time. When you start to work with clients, are they uncomfortable at the speed or are they excited about it? What’s the reaction you get?
Ninety-eight percent of the planet is, “Oh my God, this is too intense.” Two percent of the planet, most of them live in Los Angeles. That’s funny. They go, “Let’s go. Rock and roll.” It’s only for 2% of the planet.
High sense of urgency. It’s funny, I’ve been in LA for a long time and what I like about it is everyone has a reason for being there and a drive. Even if you’re doing something that seems obscure, I don’t feel people are very judgmental because it’s like, “Go do it.” It’s a different type of energy.
The word sprint resonates with the tech world because they have been doing software in sprints. When they hear now, “Business growth in sprints sounds reasonable.”
From a strategic perspective, I like that you’re focusing on three things: win rate, frequency, and increasing the pricing. I’m imagining,that once you have more revenue, you can do more things. Is that the goal?
Yes, when you have no more cashflow coming in, you can relax a bit and focus on the higher tier activities. First, we make sure that there are multiple revenue streams coming in easily in a repeatable way. From sales to repeatable sales, from repeatable sales to recurring sales, and from recurring sales to even passive streams.
You can relax and focus on the higher-tier activities when no more cash flow is coming in.
I love how you laid it off that way because people hear those terms a lot and then get a little bit overwhelmed with how to execute. I would love to ask you since you’re a strategy expert. Do your clients struggle with strategic efforts versus tactical efforts?
Yes, one example of those steps. When you have sales, I ask you, can you repeat it three times this week? No, I don’t have it in a formula in a written-down way that I can replicate now with the next person. It was super personal and super customized. We have to move from sales to repeatable sales. What’s the strategy? It is writing down what you’re doing so that you can make it repeatable.
What are the tactics? The tactic is having an SOP, a standard operating procedure. When we have that, now it’s repeatable sales. For example, it means in introducing the eight steps of closing the deal, which is this yellow triangle. It’s eight steps on how to close a high ticket, a big deal. Everything that’s above 10,000 is a high ticket. If it’s 10,000 or 70,000 or 200,000, it’s the same process. You have to build trust and relationships. The very endpoint is the contract.
That will be the tactic on how to get from sales to repeatable sales. When you have repeatable sales, now you want the next strategy, which is recurring because repeatable, you still have to hunt it but that’s stressful. You want to have some parts that are like a subscription business. You win them once and it keeps on giving. That’s the next strategy going from repeatable sales to recurring sales. We build on those.
Now you have recurring sales. If you have a mastermind and a subscription, you have cashflow on repeat already, but still, you have to hunt them once. There’s still some stress in there and some effort. How can we make that then a passive income? For example, lending your IP or creating a method. We have the Strategy Sprints Method. It’s a franchise. Other people pay now per month to use brands and processes. It’s like McDonald’s. You have something but other people are now paying you to do the work.
That is very cool. I like how you broke it down to strategic tactical. What I also find very compelling about this, Simon, is I see this business model a lot with online coaches and B2C style processes, digital products, and how to improve your gut health. I wouldn’t necessarily call them high ticket offers in the same sense as the B2B world. I like that you’re bringing this to the B2B environment in such a strategic way because I feel like there are a lot of unique business models that can be built with your methods. It’s just a matter of how to see the vision and execute it.
The B2B needs it more because the sales times are getting longer. The US is rebounding a little bit. 2023 was so tough for everybody. If you used to close in two calls, now it takes you five calls. They have to talk it through with more people. They’re much more cautious in spending 70,000 or 20,000. They are on the cautious side of things.
Let’s see how the economy rebounds. Let me see supply chains. Europe is a bit still in recession. Some countries like Germany and others are still in slower growth or negative growth. They will rebound later. Now, they are all seeing big investments, and big buys being delayed, “Let’s do this in three months, folks. I’m going with you but give me three months.” The buyer is cautious. That makes long sales times even longer and this demotivates your team. If you have a sales team that’s sitting there waiting to close, but they stay at 90% for so long, that’s demotivating.
A lot of my background has been in sales but in commercial construction. The commercial construction pipelines were the ultimate definition of delayed gratification. It takes 3 to 5 years to build a building. A lot can happen in that time frame. I like the idea that if you diversify your income streams, then those long lead times and those delayed gratification processes aren’t as painful.
This ties to how you keep the people motivated and resilient. Otherwise, they will drop out. They either burn out or drop out.
Let’s talk about that for a little bit. In terms of keeping teams motivated and this concept of resilience, can you share some tactics that you’ve seen work well with your clients or the Strategy Sprints™ method?
The Sprint Method
We do with our clients. We do simplify their metrics. We simplify, “Who is this for? What is it for? How will you measure that you’re selling the right thing at the right price for the right people?” We select one platform and we optimize everything for 90 days for that platform. The first thing is to simplify the metrics. How do you know that you’re doing the right stuff at the right pace?
That’s not speed. It’s velocity. Are we going in the right direction at the right pace? It’s speed including the direction of the speed. When you have velocity, there is no resilience problem. It means everybody’s marching in the right direction. We feel that this is our true North and we are marching towards North. The pace of it is the right pace. I’m fine. I’m happy. I’m fulfilled. There is meaning. There is traction.
Now the problem is, what if it’s the right direction but those delays in closing the deal? The sales team will be very uncomfortable very soon. They will be the first team to get nervous. You see nervous by them clicking out, for example. Not being as quick in Slack as they usually are. Not putting in that little extra mile that they usually put in. they become a bit more relaxed. Usually, the sales team is not that relaxed. You go, “There’s a red flag. What’s going on there?”
First, we simplify the KPIs. Only three KPIs on a weekly basis. That’s the sprint part. There is one dashboard and it says, “One marketing KPI. One sales KPI. One operation KPI.” They’re always in real time there. This simplifies and gamifies but you reduce all this hand admin and hand manual entry of any documentation.
The second thing is to make the meetings more fun. We installed the pipeline meeting and the deal review meeting. Pipeline meeting creates a culture of opportunity creation. Everybody looks for opportunities, “We could try this. We could go there. That person said this on LinkedIn. Let’s follow up. This past client posted something on Facebook. Call them.”
This is more fun because it’s more creative.
It’s a culture of opportunity creation. You don’t have just one or two people being responsible for new business, but everybody’s responsible for seeing opportunities for new business. Even if you are just, let’s say, managing current clients. You’re just making them happy. You think you don’t have a sales job, but with that pipeline meeting now, everybody is into noticing opportunities from current clients, past clients, and prospects.
I have a couple of comments that I want to make. I appreciated the velocity versus speed. I feel like that was a big light bulb moment for me, the way that you described it. The title of the show is Prospecting on Purpose. I see0020a lot of sales professionals doing things that they think they should be doing. Almost in a spinning-your-wheels type of activity.
I would equate that to your speed metaphor. Versus, velocity is more on prospecting and selling with intention and a plan that goes alongside it. I thought that that was a cool way that you differentiated that. Would you mind, I understand simplifying the KPIs for the team? That’s brilliant because people get bogged down by admin and salespeople want to be with clients. They don’t want to be in the weeds on their sales force or their hub spot. One more time, is it the sales pipeline review and then the opportunity review? What were the two meetings?
Pipeline review and deal review. Pipeline review starts with every sales rep reporting, “Those are the opportunities I created this week.” That’s the first round, then the sales manager or usually founder or business owner, then the last two minutes just says, “This is the pipeline number.” That’s a $1 amount. That’s it.
The pipeline number comes from weighted probabilities across the 6 or 7 stages. We have them put a percentage in each stage. There is automatically, let’s say, you have something in stage four which is budgeting and that is with 50%. It takes automatically 50% of that deal size. It accumulates all deal sizes with the weighted probability. It says, “Our pipeline number is $2 million. We should be at $1.8 million, everything is fine.” It takes a minute, but it’s important. Now everybody knows what’s goal, current, and the gap.
It’s interesting how you talk about people who are maybe managing account managers versus business development professionals. What’s compelling to me about that is there’s a lot of opportunity for business to be had and the idea of bringing everyone together and seeing the whole business in a snapshot. You tell me, but I’m imagining, there’s more buy-in from the team members.
It’s more velocity versus speed or dropout. I also imagine that the business owners are finding more opportunities in those four different buckets that you laid out at the beginning, reoccurring revenue, repeatable revenue, and passive revenue. Can you talk a little bit about that? What are the outcomes of the team energy shifts?
The pipeline meeting creates a culture of opportunity creation and energizes me because now I’m part of the value of the overall value creation. Let’s say my job is to update the CRM entries. It’s a tiny job. I don’t see the meaning of it. I don’t see the impact of it but now I’m in the pipeline meeting. I am pointing towards opportunities because I am entering the data. I’m seeing stuff that other people are not seeing.
They are in the field. I am in the data. I’m pointing them to data that’s relevant for them, “Bob, you should call our past client because they’re doing this according to Twitter, or I went through all CRM correspondence and now those are the three highest probabilities of an upsell if you call them.” Now you have more value. You’re part of the sexy part of the business, which is business creation and independent of what your role is. You’re raising the energy of the single roles.
You pick two of those to be discussed in length in the deal review. At the end of the week, you have the deal review. You have picked two of those opportunities. Now, you take twenty minutes to discuss one opportunity. Can you go through the eight steps that we have for role play? What’s the opportunity? Why do they want to change now? What’s the change they want to initiate? What else can they do? What’s the cost of not doing anything?
You take twenty minutes to understand their world. You go also to their website. We have an AI that helps you understand their competitive situation, competitive risk, competitive opportunities, and advantages. You have taken twenty minutes to sales role play that you are ready. You know exactly when the call happens. This is what’s coming for them. Those are the risks, the opportunities and this is how you can help them be ready for what’s coming.
What is so cool to me about the way you laid that out, Simon, is I think about how are we differentiating ourselves from our competitors. That is like a bull’s eye in how you’re differentiating yourself because you’re aware of what’s going on in your client’s business. It’s not just pushing products. It’s bringing solutions to their specific business model and business needs.
If you’re a finance team, you have great finance products. Your competitor is a great finance product. If you’re building cars, high-end cars and you have great cars. The others have also great cars. If you are in the publishing business, you are making great books. The others are also making great books. What’s the differentiator? It’s only showing up better prepared in the conversation itself. Your only differentiator is the conversation itself because your product is not in there but you are in there. You can make a difference.
I always say that our true competitor isn’t the competing product or service. It’s the relationship that the competing product or service salesperson has with your ideal client. That’s where the relationship side’s super important. You mentioned a couple of times, your eight steps for sales success. Would you mind giving a rundown of those eight steps, please?
The Eight Steps For Sales Success
I have them always in front of me. I have an AI that coaches us and our clients in real-time and sees them. Step one is you visualize whatever they tell you. You have a whiteboard and you start visualizing. Either physical or an iPad or a doc. You write down their words. Why? It’s because people want first to be seen, heard, and understood. If you don’t do that, you cannot move to step two, which is what’s bothering them, what’s their frustration, their felt frustration, and their headache, “If I knew this, or if I could get rid of that.”
That’s the real frustration in the body. Not in the mind and in the body that’s going, “I hate this.” When you get the frustration, that’s step two. You can check off that it’s in their body. They’re not talking about it. They’re feeling it, then you can move to step three, which is important. How important is this for you in the context of all the things that you do? When you move there, step four, the cost of inaction. What happens if you do nothing? Everything stays the same. The world stops spinning. If you do nothing, it gets worse. Interesting, tell me more. You’re in step four now.
Step five is the deliverables. What’s the scope of work? Now you sum up what you have been visualizing all the time. You are now using their words. You are not pushing something onto them because people hate change that comes from the outside, but they love driving change. Now you are helping them drive their change. You form this partnership.
Step six, investment means what are you willing to invest in terms of time investment and monetary investment? We don’t talk about costs. We talk about investments because costs are gone. It’s wasted money. An investment is creating value and also, there is a time component that many forget. They think, “Buy or not buy.” They’re investing time into this and monetary sum into this. Step seven is the starting date and step eight is the statement of work, signing the contract. Many people say, “The price is far too early.” If you skip one step, it’s about the order of things. Most people are doing these things but if you get the order wrong in one step. You lose the deal.
It’s interesting that the first four are heavy on identifying the pain points. The second half is solving it. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I used to work for a man who was from Madrid. He would always joke that we’d be putting presentations together and I would always start with numbers. He’d say, “The Americans, you folks like to start with numbers. You need romance and ambiance. You have to tell the story.” His process of sales was so much more intriguing because he wooed the client first, then got into the solution and product. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that, but do people want to rush to step five, the scope of work right out the gate?
Make it more emotional. This is where I go with your colleague. On the other side, no, don’t tell stories. It’s forbidden in our method that you tell any story or cases or anything. You ask questions. You lead by asking questions. There is even the AI that live tracks. If we are talking more than 30%, it gets read. That you should never talk more than 30% of the sales call. We track all calls and we measure ourselves if we get better because we get lower than 30% on average talking time in those sales calls. Even in prospecting, you want them. The first two questions are when you try to break the ice, but then you want them to start talking then you book the meeting.
You lead by asking questions.
I like that. I’m like, “30%, Sara is guilty of breaking that rule.”
We all are. That’s why we need practice.
That’s cool.
In the practice sessions, you get to lower it to below 30%. How do you feel after a call where you were talking 30%?
You’re talked at the whole time. That’s fascinating. Simon, you’ve given us so many amazing nuggets in such a short amount of time. I want to thank you for laying down your eight steps and for giving the rundown on how to systematize the strategy versus tactic. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to leave our audience with?
These things are open source and available on StrategySprints.com. People can download many of these tactics that we were talking about. They’re open source. Click tools and you can download them. Enjoy. If you want to go much deeper, there is a book called Strategy Prints. Each chapter is those checklists and cases. Also, clients of this print who are talking from the inside, “I had to come up with the pricing. This was the challenge. I did this. This happened.” It’s also a practical book.
I will make sure to link everything. I’m going to download the AI talk tool because I’m a little bit nervous about my percentage ratio. Where can people connect with you online outside of the website?
We are on LinkedIn at Strategy Sprints and Simon Severino on LinkedIn. We are on YouTube, Simon Severino and Strategy Sprints. The main thing is StrategySprints.com.
I want to say grazie for your time.
Grazie, Sara. Keep rolling.
Take care and talk soon.
Important Links
Simon Severino - LinkedIn
Strategy Sprints – LinkedIn
Simon Severino – YouTube
Strategy Sprints – YouTube
