Strategy Sprints

Strategy Sprints Plot Summary

Introduction

In today's fast-paced business world, entrepreneurs and leaders often find themselves drowning in endless tasks, struggling to determine which actions will truly move the needle. This constant state of overwhelm leads to missed opportunities, stagnant growth, and a profound sense of frustration. You know you have the potential to create something remarkable, yet the path forward seems obscured by complexity and daily firefighting. What if you could cut through this chaos with a streamlined approach that focuses only on what truly matters? The strategy sprint method presented in these pages offers exactly that—a powerful framework to transform how you operate your business. By implementing daily, weekly, and monthly habits that prioritize focus, freedom, and flow, you'll discover how to double your revenue in 90 days while working fewer hours. This isn't about working harder; it's about working smarter by eliminating what doesn't serve your growth and doubling down on what does.

Chapter 1: Define Your Category of One

At its core, becoming a category of one means strategically positioning yourself so that you have no direct competition. Rather than trying to be incrementally better than others in a crowded market, you create your own distinct space where you stand alone. This approach eliminates price competition and allows you to command premium rates for your unique combination of offerings. Simon shares a childhood story from playing football in Italy that perfectly illustrates why most businesses struggle to differentiate themselves. During one game, his coach called out to him, "Go, Simon! Shoot the ball! Score!" But instead of taking the shot, Simon froze. Fear of standing out and taking a risk paralyzed him. He calls this being "vanilla"—blending in with everyone else rather than taking the bold action needed to win. In business, being vanilla is a death sentence because it makes you interchangeable with competitors. This fear of standing out plagued many of Simon's consulting clients. One tech startup was struggling because their sales team couldn't answer a critical question from prospects: "Why shouldn't I just use your competitor?" The startup was positioning themselves as merely an alternative to the market leader rather than creating their unique category. This approach led to a cycle of failed sales calls and frustrated salespeople. The transformation began when a new sales representative joined the team. During his first presentation, he demonstrated a specific feature that made a logistics client literally jump up and down with excitement. The client immediately called colleagues into the meeting, and the deal closed on the spot. This pattern repeated with another global shipping company. The positioning strategist realized they should reposition from generic enterprise software to specialized global shipping software—creating their category of one. To define your own category of one, start by using what Simon calls the "Equalizer Spreadsheet." List the different tools, methods, and benefits both you and your competitors offer. Rate your performance from 1-10 on each criterion, identifying where you're winning (7-10), where you're average (4-6), and where you're losing (1-3). This analysis reveals what to eliminate, reduce, or double down on. The areas where you can be #1 become your definition and the basis for your unique market position. Remember, you don't need hundreds of clients—you need one perfect client, hundreds of times. By narrowing your focus to serve a specific audience exceptionally well, you'll attract clients who see you as the only solution to their problem, not just one option among many.

Chapter 2: Craft Your Irresistible Message

Your message is the bridge between your uniqueness and your ideal clients' understanding of it. Most websites fail to convert visitors into customers because they make a fundamental mistake: they position the company as the hero rather than the customer. This approach alienates potential clients who are looking for a guide to help them on their journey, not another hero competing with them. Steve Jobs experienced this lesson firsthand in 1983 when he published a nine-page promotion for Apple's Lisa computer in The New York Times. The advertisement focused entirely on features and technical specifications—it was boring, ugly, and ultimately ineffective. After this failure, Jobs sought to understand storytelling better, which led him to Pixar. There, he learned the five elements of a blockbuster story and returned to Apple in 1997 with a revolutionary new campaign: "Think different." The ads featured no product descriptions—just the Apple logo alongside images of visionary figures like Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. When Simon works with clients on their messaging, he shows them how to implement these same storytelling principles on their websites. The first critical step is defining the hero (your customer) and their mission. When visitors arrive at your website, they should immediately recognize themselves and their goals in your messaging. For example, if your ideal client is a busy teacher raising four children in Paris, your website should speak directly to their desire to be both an excellent educator and parent. Next, you must identify a single villain that prevents the hero from achieving their mission. Many businesses make the mistake of listing too many problems they solve, creating confusion. Choose one villain that resonates most with your audience—whether it's procrastination, overwhelm, or unrealistic expectations—and position your business as the guide with the perfect plan to overcome it. Your call to action should be clear and repeated at least four times throughout your website. Simon recommends creating a "warm-up" call to action that builds value before asking for the sale. This might be sending people to a free masterclass or offering a valuable audit. Only after building value should you make the second call to action to accept your offer. The final elements involve painting a vivid picture of both success and failure. Show what life will look like when they achieve their mission with your help, and what pain awaits if they don't solve their problem. Remember, people are more motivated to avoid loss than to gain something new, so don't overlook the power of describing what they want to avoid. By implementing these storytelling elements, you transform your website from a features snooze-fest into a compelling narrative that converts visitors into clients by speaking directly to their deepest desires and fears.

Chapter 3: Create Your 90-Day Growth Plan

Do you have reliable and predictable cash flow coming in every month? When the answer is no, you're never sure where the next client is coming from, which leads to accepting bad deals and potential burnout. Most business owners aren't even aware that revenue can and should be predictable. Instead, they get stuck in a culture of "the hustle," chasing dollars and implementing half-baked ideas out of fear or anxiety. What if, instead, you made all your decisions based on a strategic growth plan? Simon introduces four powerful growth levers that can transform your business when applied strategically. The first lever is price and packaging. Lara, a product design freelancer, was earning $8,000 per day but was burning out from the feast-and-famine cycle of client work. After a mastermind session with Simon, she shifted from one-to-one services to a membership site model. This simple change gave her consistent monthly revenue and allowed her to make key hires that completely transformed her business. The second lever involves improving your sales time and conversion rate. Tom, a copywriter with a large YouTube following, was frustrated because leads would watch his videos for 8-10 months before hiring him. Working with a Strategy Sprints coach, they improved his sales script and technique. His conversion rates jumped from 13% to 47%, and the timeframe from viewing to hiring dropped from 8-10 months to just three weeks. The third lever focuses on systematizing your business. Hasan was employed at a consulting firm making $120K monthly while trying to grow his online course side hustle with just two hours per night. By building systems and a team to handle the course, he eventually transitioned to full-time entrepreneurship, working fewer hours while earning more money. The fourth lever addresses your personal productivity. As Simon notes, "It's impossible to grow your business when you are exhausted." By implementing daily practices that maximize your energy and focus, you can achieve exponential results with less effort. To implement these growth levers effectively, create a 90-Day Growth Plan that includes your vision, three specific goals with key performance indicators (KPIs), and a clear positioning strategy. For each goal, track both the metrics you can control (calls per week, content published) and those you can't (revenue, new customers). Review your progress weekly and adjust as needed. This structured approach creates clarity and alignment across your team, enabling you to achieve your goals faster and with less stress than the chaotic hustle most entrepreneurs accept as normal.

Chapter 4: Implement Real-Time Decision Making

As a business owner, you face dozens of decisions every day that no MBA program prepares you for. Your team brings problems and ideas, expecting you to know whether to offer a lower-priced product, which role to hire next, or whether to run paid ads. Yet most business owners lack the data required to make such decisions confidently. Simon experienced this firsthand when his business was generating significant revenue but leaving him miserable and overworked. He was constantly traveling, rarely seeing his wife, and felt trapped. When his wife became pregnant, he knew something had to change. The irony wasn't lost on him—he had built Strategy Sprints to help business owners create meaningful work that doesn't feel like work, yet he had forgotten to do the same for himself. The transformation began when Simon implemented what he now calls the Strategy Sprints Compass—a model that gives you a quick glance of where your business is, who's around you, and where you're going. This compass features a center (operations) and two axes: the horizontal axis (marketing, sales) and the vertical axis (positioning, mindset). Using this model, he created three simple habits that replaced traditional strategic planning methods. The daily habit takes just 10 minutes and involves reviewing your operations with the Time Finder tool. This exercise helps you identify how you're really spending your time and which tasks should be cut, systematized, or delegated. Simon discovered he was spending too much time on fulfillment activities that could be handled by others. By creating systems around these tasks and certifying people in his method, he multiplied himself and removed the bottleneck. The weekly habit consists of a one-hour meeting focused on the horizontal axis of the compass: marketing numbers, sales numbers, and operations numbers. Instead of allowing people to bring problems to the meeting, Simon shifted to solutions only—prototypes or hypotheses to test. This transformed long, boring meetings into shorter, more productive sessions that "feel like friends playing basketball." The monthly habit examines the vertical axis—positioning and mindset—in a 90-minute meeting. This is where you check if you're "swimming in the right direction" and make course corrections as needed. Simon also measures the team's confidence level with a simple question: "How confident are we that we're the best solution to our client's problem?" If anyone responds with less than 100%, they investigate why and address the issue. Through these three habits, Simon transformed his business from a constant struggle to a calm, organized operation that provides both freedom and results. His team now makes decisions based on real-time data rather than lagging indicators or gut feelings, enabling them to adapt quickly to changes and consistently grow.

Chapter 5: Design Your Productive Daily Flow

If you don't run the business, the business will run you. This reality became painfully clear to one of Simon's clients when an angry customer called multiple times before receiving a return call. The regional manager was "stuck in stacked meetings" and couldn't respond promptly, resulting in a canceled membership. The COO shared this story, illustrating their team's struggles to prioritize effectively. For business owners, time is often the most valuable and scarce resource. Yet many end workdays without making significant progress on important goals because they respond to whatever seems urgent rather than what's truly important. Productivity isn't about doing more—it's about creating freedom by getting more done in less time. Simon maximizes his productivity with three powerful systems. The first is the Project List, a concept he learned from David Allen, creator of the "Getting Things Done" method. Instead of complicating your life with different flows and timelines, simply list your main projects and break them down. Each project should have an end date and a clear definition of "done" that your team understands. For example, one of Simon's current projects is "CEO out of sales and implement a sales team that is fully trained and performing by Q3." This creates a measurable outcome with a deadline. Interestingly, Simon includes both personal and professional projects on his list, following Allen's advice: "You don't have to separate your business and your life. It's just one thing." This approach reduces complexity and increases clarity. The second system is the Daily Flow, which organizes your day in 15-minute intervals based on your top three priorities for the week. Instead of creating a to-do list, which Nir Eyal calls "just dreaming that something happens," Simon schedules specific time blocks for important activities. His day includes personal time (workouts, family) balanced with focused work periods. At the end of each day, Simon reflects on two questions: "Which of today's activities could be done even better by somebody else?" and "If I lived more freely and intentionally, what would I do?" These questions help identify opportunities for delegation and create a vision of his ideal lifestyle. The third system involves Protection Systems that shield his focus from distractions. Simon uses tools like Momentum (a Chrome extension that displays priorities on new tabs), project management software, and a Gmail Blocker that prevents emails from arriving before noon. He also keeps his inbox ruthlessly organized with just three folders and turns off all notifications on his devices. With these systems in place, Simon eliminates time-wasting distractions and stays in his Daily Flow, making consistent progress on his most important projects while having the freedom to do what makes him happy.

Chapter 6: Build Predictable Sales Systems

Imagine waking up each morning with five sales calls on your calendar—all with ideal prospects who are 80% ready to buy. You have a proven sales script that consistently converts prospects to clients, and your sales engine works even when you're on vacation. How would that transform your business? During the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses that could accurately forecast their revenue fared best. They could make smart choices about hiring, development, and equipment needs despite market uncertainty. Without predictable sales, however, many businesses experience wild revenue swings—$65,000 one month, $15,000 the next—creating stress and preventing strategic investments. Simon's approach to predictable sales begins with tracking key metrics in a Sales Tracker. This tool monitors how leads move through different stages of your pipeline, from initial interest to becoming customers. The data reveals where leads are dropping off and which marketing channels are most effective, allowing you to make strategic improvements. The next piece is your Sales Estimation Number—a forecast of expected profits, costs, and revenue that enables you to predict your business's financial future. This number becomes more accurate over time as you regularly update it from your Sales Tracker, giving you confidence to make better decisions about investments and hiring. For the sales process itself, Simon divides it into two types of calls. The Discovery Call is a 15-minute conversation offered to qualified leads after they visit the "80% Ready Page" (a web page designed to warm up prospects). From these calls, Simon's team books a Demo Call, which is 45 minutes and includes asking for the sale. The effectiveness of these calls depends on having a well-crafted sales script with ten essential components. These include setting an agenda, qualifying and diagnosing the prospect's needs, creating contrast between their current and desired situation, discussing benefits, making trial closes, presenting deliverables, handling objections, and scheduling next steps. Simon recommends running through this script at least 35 times with different clients to refine your technique before delegating it to a sales team. Behind all these systems is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) process with seven stages that follow leads from awareness to continuity. At each stage, different actions and templates are appropriate to nurture the relationship and move prospects through your value ladder. The goal isn't just to reach more people but to "reach people more"—deepening relationships with existing leads rather than constantly chasing new ones. By implementing these systems, you create a sales engine that runs predictably and profitably, allowing you to sleep better at night and make confident decisions about your business's future.

Chapter 7: Develop World-Class Talent

Hiring the right people has a significant impact on the success of your business, yet many entrepreneurs approach it haphazardly. Simon learned this lesson the hard way when Giorgio, a perfect Strategy Sprints coach, left after just three months because there weren't clear processes in place. This painful experience led Simon to develop a comprehensive hiring system that not only attracts A-Players but retains them for the long haul. The process begins with creating a Job Scorecard before posting an open position. This scorecard includes a vision for the role with specific KPIs, an A-Player definition that outlines values and motivations, and a section for responsibilities categorized by department. The scorecard serves as a management tool for reviewing performance over time and sets clear expectations from the start. Next, develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the role. Simon emphasizes that creating these procedures is the CEO's responsibility, not something to delegate to new hires. "It wasn't for my employees to figure out how to perform their positions; as the CEO, I needed to lay that out for them," he explains. Without clear SOPs, new team members waste time figuring out processes through trial and error rather than following a proven playbook. With these foundations in place, build an inspiring landing page that conveys your company's culture and values. This page should focus on what matters most to your ideal candidate, using language that resonates with them. Include a compelling video where potential applicants can feel your energy, and create an application that asks targeted questions to identify those who share your values and mission. The hiring process continues with three strategic tests at different stages. The first is a demo task related to the actual job they'll perform, allowing you to see how candidates handle real work situations. Next is a behavior test that considers the business context rather than generic personality traits. Finally, successful interviewees complete a professional process test that demonstrates their ability to implement your systems. After these tests come two interviews—a 20-minute initial conversation and a 30-minute follow-up for top candidates. Those who excel are offered a 60-day trial period, during which they perform actual tasks aligned with their KPI goals. This trial allows both parties to ensure a good fit before making a permanent commitment. By implementing this systematic approach, Simon went from losing great team members to attracting and retaining world-class talent like Sunil, who had managed strategy at Ernst & Young for 25 years, and Zack from Uber Eats. The key insight: A-Players expect good processes and will leave if they don't find them. When your hiring processes express your core values and provide clear systems, you're positioned to build the dream team your business deserves.

Summary

Throughout this journey, we've explored how to transform chaos into clarity and convert scattered efforts into strategic success. The Strategy Sprints method provides a framework that liberates you from the endless hustle while accelerating your business growth. From defining your category of one to crafting irresistible messaging, from creating 90-day growth plans to implementing real-time decision making, each component builds upon the last to create a business that serves your life—not the other way around. As Simon powerfully states, "With freedom comes responsibility. You can never have one without the other." This philosophy underpins the entire Strategy Sprints approach. By taking responsibility for your business systems, you create the freedom to focus on what truly matters. The daily, weekly, and monthly habits provide structure without stifling creativity, allowing you to make decisions with confidence rather than fear. Today, take your first step toward breaking free from chaos. Choose one area from this book that resonated most with you—whether it's clarifying your unique positioning, implementing the Daily Flow system, or creating your first 90-Day Growth Plan. Start small, but start now. Remember that consistent action on the right priorities will create momentum that transforms your business and your life. The sprinter's path is clear: focus on what matters, eliminate what doesn't, and watch your business soar.

About Author

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Simon Severino

Simon Severino is a thought leader 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.

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