Have you been thinking about ways to increase revenue? Are you trying to navigate the current inflation and sorting out if and when you should raise your prices? If this sounds like you then this podcast episode is for you.
Our guest today is Simon Severino, who shares with us three of his 12 Strategy Sprints from his recent book to help increase revenue and profitability.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at: https://www.strategysprints.com/
- Get a copy of Simon’s book on Amazon: CLICK HERE.
- Connect with our guest:
- https://www.facebook.com/strategysprints/
- https://twitter.com/strategysprints
- https://www.instagram.com/strategysprints/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonseverino/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnSFgJd0CrsEdQdO21txR2A
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategy-sprints/id1299008831
- https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Sprints-Accelerate-Growth-Business/dp/139860349X
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Simon is trusted by Google, Roche, Consilience Ventures, Amgen, and AbbVie. He created the Strategy Sprints™ Method that doubles revenue in 90 days by getting owners out of the weeds. He is a TEDx speaker, Contributor to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and member of the SVBS Silicon Valley Blockchain Society.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:00):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success Podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I’m wondering if you’ve been thinking about ways to maybe increase revenue or maybe you’re trying to navigate the current inflation situation and sorting out if and when you should raise your own prices. And if this sounds like you, then this episode and this podcast is for you.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:35):
Our guest today is Simon Severino, and he shares with us three of his 12 strategy sprints from his recent book called Strategy Sprints to help increase your revenue and profitability immediately. Simon is trusted by companies like Google and Roche and many others, and he created the Strategy Sprints method that doubles revenue in 90 days by getting owners out of the weeds. He’s a TEDx speaker, a contributor to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and a member of the Silicon Valley Blockchain Society. You’re going to love this interview with Simon. It’s quick hitting and gets right to the point, so let’s go ahead and jump right into our interview.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (01:19):
Hello everybody. I’m Simon Severino. I run Strategies Sprints, which is a global consultancy. We help people scale their business faster via one-to-one coaching and blueprints for scaling businesses. That’s what we do.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:36):
Great. Well, thank you so much for being here. And in addition to the name of your company, you have a book called Strategy Sprints, and the subtitle is 12 Ways to Accelerate Growth for an Agile Business. So I would love just to kind of jump into what some of these 12 ways are to accelerate growth. As business leaders, we’re all looking to, “How can we accelerate growth?” So I’d love to hear some of your ways.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (02:05):
Absolutely. Let’s start directly with the three most important ones. One is increase conversion rates. The second one is increase the frequency of your sales, so shorten the sales time. And the third one is increase the price for your offer by 25%. If you increase those three things by 25% each: conversion rate, frequency, and price, you have now increased your revenue by 99%. And that’s something that’s pretty important in this kind of market with disruptions and bear markets and the world being a total mess right now in supply chains and volatility. So right now, the best thing you can do is you focus on those three things.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (02:58):
Now in the book I share even the blueprints and the checklists how to do it and there are case studies, but let’s go in there in the time that we have. So how do you increase the conversion rate? You increase conversion rate by improving the sales technique, that’s what you do during the sales call to close the deal. There are nine things that you need to do. I share them all in the book. And there is a script that you write for everybody. And now people go, “What? A script? It’s so nineties.” No, no. The script is really important. It never feels like a script. It will always be natural, the delivery will be very natural.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (03:41):
But how do you get to a natural delivery that converts by more than 25% from where you’re converting right now? Step one, you write the sales script. Step two, you do A, B, C role plays in your team. I play the client, you play the salesperson, the third person plays the observer, gives us feedback. And we do this 15 minutes every morning until we are super energized, we’re pumped, we can’t wait just to pick up the phone and sell something to somebody. That’s the end and then what’s happened on an energy level, and it becomes natural because you have just played it like children play, right?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (04:26):
And so, because you’ve played it now it doesn’t sound like a script. It should never sound like a scripted answer, obviously. But how do you get out of that? By playing with it, and the A, B, C saves… Role play is something that we do with our clients and they do even after we work with them because it gives energy and it makes everything natural and it increases the conversion rate. So now we have increased by 25% the conversion rate, so same amount of conversations that you have, no new leads, but you’re closing more.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (05:01):
Now, how can you close faster? How can we increase the frequency? Because sometimes in B2B it takes 13 months, 18 months. If you want to close Coca-Cola, it’s on average 13 to 15 months to close Coca-Cola, to close a large deal with Coca-Cola. So how can we do that in three weeks? That’s the challenge there with the frequency. And so, we have developed 17 blueprints to do that. Let’s unpack a couple of them.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (05:32):
So one is to create an educational email series. Whenever they download an opt-in, something from your website, you create an educational email series that makes you omnipresent. So for example, if you go to strategysprints.com and you subscribe to a newsletter or you download something, the next day you will get an email that says, “Hey, I have something more about this. Look, I made you a video. It’s on LinkedIn, click here if you want to see it.” And so, you will be on LinkedIn. And so, our first experience is on LinkedIn.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (06:06):
The next day, “Oh, and you know what? What I do every day, I created a pdf. Look, here is the pdf.” And I send them to the website. And so, for the next five days I will send them to YouTube, to LinkedIn, to Facebook, to Instagram. We will connect everywhere, and you will get the value, either a real checklist, a real blueprint, something that I really do. It will really solve a micro problem that you have right now.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (06:32):
So you have a positive feeling and then you say, “Okay, now let’s stop working. Let’s chill out, take my iPad, move to the couch. Let’s just YouTube stuff, right? Let’s see what Bitcoin is doing.” And then guess who pops up? “Hello.” And there’s a YouTube video. So this is how you can create… Some even call it, “Simon, you’re omnipresent.” I wouldn’t say that. But you create a full array of possible experiences so that if people like it, they will subscribe and they will stay. And so, you are top of mind.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (07:07):
Now, in the first three weeks now you have created eight times value. Now it’s fair to make an offer. Your ninth email may be, “By the way, I can also coach you. Here’s how you can get to me.” Fair enough. You have given eight times value, now the ninth time you offer work. That’s fair. That’s good practice. And you might do that in the ninth day.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (07:35):
Now on average, complex sales takes 12 to 18 contact points. So you might do that in 12 to 18 days with the right blueprints, right? And we help our clients create those educational email series, just as an example of one of the 274 tactics that you can deploy. And so, that’s how you shorten the sales time.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:00):
Oh and Simon, that’s fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. And as I’m listening to you describe this, one of the clients we service help working with franchisors. And the franchise sales process in it of itself is a very long sales cycle like you described. It can very easily be three months in most cases, tends to be pretty fast for a lot of franchisors. And it can easily take 12 months, 18 months for that person to finally move forward. So do you think or do you see structure like you described, or maybe I ask, how do you see a structure like you described to increase frequency or make it happen quicker? Something like what you’re proposing to work in franchising, how do you see that happening?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (08:48):
The first step would be to map out the decision making process. So let’s say I’m a person who decides to buy a franchise, right? How I take that decision? Where do I inform myself? Do they Google franchise opportunities? Sure. If so, I don’t know, but let’s say we go through three, four possibilities. We find that this is the most relevant one. Then I would say, “Okay, let’s crush it. We want to be number one on Google. Page one, rank one, that’s the goal for the next 90 days.”
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (09:27):
Now if you google Strategy Sprints, I bet whatever countries I get, 24 countries are probably listening right now. And let’s make this challenge. You just Google right now Strategy Sprints, and I bet whatever country you are in, and if not, I send you a book for free. Okay? But I bet with you, page one of Google, rank one will be us.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (09:52):
So just to show you that it’s possible, because I’m not a PR agency. I never spent $1 on PR. I never spent $1 on ads. So I can even tell you how we got there. It’s easy. You can do it in around six to nine months if you want. It’s just consistency. It’s focus and consistency. And it’s one of the tactics that we share with our clients. It’s really not that hard.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (10:18):
So if we would identify that that’s the most relevant place, first thing, be on top there. Second, from there, having a call to action, something of value. So we would brainstorm, “In that stage, what’s their biggest problem? What’s their biggest question mark?” It might be, “Let me find out if I should buy a franchise or build a franchise. I don’t know. Am I made to do that or that? Or am I more a manager or an entrepreneur?” For example, they might have this question in mind.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (10:58):
So you might have a quiz that in five minutes answers that question for them. And we’ve created a ton of quizzes, it’s fun and it’s a good way, and in the end they get their result and so they’re happy. And you got their email. Guess what happens next? The educational email series and the follow-up. And so, meanwhile we ask for the phone number and we just call them in the first two hours. That’s where you have the highest conversion rate. Afterwards it’s cold.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (11:32):
And we just spent five minutes now brainstorming that. But that would be the process how we find out where you want to win and then how you win it. And it’s basically finding out how they take their decision, being there at the right moment with a valuable offer, following up with more value, and then around the ninth to twelfth experience that was valuable offering work. “By the way, I have a database of franchisees. Do you want to get access to that?”
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:09):
Well, thank you for sharing that by the way. And I’m thinking about the third way to accelerate growth that you had mentioned, which was increasing your prices by 25%. And I’m sure folks who are going to end up listening to this are going to say, “Simon, you’re crazy. I cannot increase my prices by 25% right now.” Maybe, “I’m scared to do it, I’m worried I’m going to lose my customers, or boy, with the prices of just gas and all these other things, groceries going up, I’m concerned.” How do you respond back to that?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (12:55):
I hear that a lot and I feel you. I also have this concern every time I raise my price. But I never raise by 25%, I always raised by 100%. And there are eight things that you need to do and then you double it. It’s simple. And so, we do 25% because most people are a little bit more on the conservative side. But you can actually do 100% if you do these eight things right, without losing friends.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (13:25):
And so, I always double whatever I build. I build a mastermind, it had a price. After getting into the next maturity level, meaning the quality, the people, the network, the Rolodex, was double the value. I doubled the price, simple. And I doubled again two years later, and I will double again in December. Same thing with our main coaching program, 90 Days, was $12,000. We doubled it, and we will double it again as soon as the value doubles.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (13:57):
Now what is the value? The value is always perceived value. You have to remember, there is nothing like… You cannot measure value in kilograms or in something really solid. The value is always a perceived relationship, a perceived ratio of what they get and what they pay. So what they pay is clear, but what they get, you can influence. It’s about how you frame it.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (14:31):
I had a client who was selling very fast cars, and they were selling those cars on car events. But that car was so fast and so expensive that nobody would buy it in that car space. So because you have a cheap car beside that, you compare it to that, you don’t want to buy it. So we ran an experiment. We said, “What if you put that car in a plane show, in a plane event? Now it’s the cheapest thing that can give them those adrenaline that they want to have.” And it was just an experiment, but that car sold so well, just because it was beside a small plane, because the price was more similar to the other cars and it’s always just perceived value. It’s the same car, but the sales numbers were much higher in a specific context.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (15:49):
It’s the same thing if you look at, I don’t know, like an object that you have at home. But the moment when you bought it in the store, it was so much more beautiful because of the light, because of how they packaged it, because there was nothing around it, there was a ton of space around it. So you get the principle, right? It’s not the product itself, it’s how you package it and how you frame it. This is really important, so that’s one part. And that’s the positioning part. “What is it? can it do for you?” Make it very clear. For example, our offer, “We double your revenue in 90 days.” It’s time bound. You know what you get. You are as simple and as precise and as tangible as you can be. People can tell their kids what it is and they get it. That’s one part, positioning.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (16:53):
And the second part, de-risking, so, “It’s still risky for me. How can you de-risk the decision if I want to work with you? I don’t know. So how can you de-risk it?” And so, it’s worthwhile spending a couple hours and thinking about how to de-risk. Sometimes de-risking means client testimonials, something that you pop up like this or you push a button and say, “Look, this guy Sprinted, and that’s what happened for him.” Or, “This guy Sprinted, and this is what he says.”
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (17:28):
“But if you want that your business generates revenue while you are sleeping, you should talk to Chanel.” Right? This is an example of how you can de-risk. You show that it doubled sales many times. Now you are de-risking the decision making, because if you can show that it worked a hundred times now, and they don’t have to believe you because you are biased, but they can hear other people saying that it works, now you are de-risking the decision for them.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (17:59):
So you improve the positioning, you de-risk the decision. Maybe you have a guarantee or a risk reversal of some form, an exit option, they can give it back if it doesn’t work. Zalando, for example, is awesome at this. If you don’t like it, you just send it back. So that’s a risk reversal. So if you can improve the positioning and decrease the risk, now you can charge easily 25% more for the same thing.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:39):
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think the way you described it and how you showed it, if you’re providing that, showcasing the value, like you said, building the value, showing the value, it makes the sale much, much easier to the customer. Well, Simon, this is a great time in the show to make a transition here. We ask every guest before they go the same four questions. And the first question we ask every guest is, have you had a miss or two along your journey and something you learn from it?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (19:14):
I have a miss every day, every day. If I don’t have a failure, let’s call it a feign. If I don’t have a small failure every day, I did not explore the day enough. I did not live the day. So misses every day. I buy the wrong CRM, I hire the wrong supplier, I hire the wrong people. Every day, I have some misses, but I hope to learn from them. So I have loops a little after-action review, “Okay. What was the decision making error and what do we learn moving forward?” And I ask my team, we have a quick round on that. We write it down, we move on.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:00):
Yep. Well, let’s look at the other side of that, a make or two, something that stood out to you. You’ve achieved a lot in your career and have had a lot of success. Is there anything that stands out that you’d like to highlight?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (20:13):
Oh my God, yes. So you saw some of the client testimonies. We doubled their revenue in 90 days. They make sales while they sleep. They scale faster than ever. They have more time to play with their kids and to meet friends again. They have a life again. Even if they’re global entrepreneurs, they have a life again. So yes, we make and we are very grateful for amazing, amazing client results every week. And we write them down, we celebrate them. And yeah, we really get energy from that. That’s what we are here to do.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:50):
Well, let’s talk about a multiplier that you’ve used in growing your business or yourself. The name of the show is Multiply Your Success, so we always love asking this question.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (21:01):
Two main multipliers, one was to fire myself from operations. I moved from being the CEO to being the owner. And then, the second multiplier was to create a certification model. So now, my coaches are Certified Strategy Sprints coaches. They are in their own time zone, in their own industry, in their own vertical, in their own country, and they crush it there. And we are partners. Every Monday we come together and we go to the Sprint dashboard of all clients worldwide. So the marketing number is normally the ops number of every client. That’s the Monday session, and the rest of the week we are all entrepreneurs crushing our own country, our own time zone.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:49):
Great. And the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (21:57):
To me, success is when I do whatever I want the whole day, and in the end of the day I have more money left than I spent. That’s success. So it can be running a global business like I do right now, but it can be also just being an investor. And it can also be just being on the Mediterranean and enjoying life with my friends and with my kids. So it is only that ratio. I do whatever I want, and in the end of the day I made more than I spent.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:43):
Well Simon, this has been a great interview. And as we bring this to a close, I know you have just a bunch of phenomenal tools and resources on your website, so what’s the best way for someone who is maybe interested in learning more, getting a copy of your book. Talk about some of these resources you have available.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (23:03):
Yeah. So the book, Strategy Sprints, is available on Amazon, and it’s a very practical handbook that I use myself. I have it here on my desk, and if my marketing’s not working, I literally go to Chapter Three, Marketing, “What did I miss?” And I go it and I use it as a checklist. Same thing with sales. If my sales is not great in that month, Chapter Five, “What did I miss?” So the book is out on Amazon, it’s called Strategy Sprints.
Simon Severino, Strategy Sprints (23:29):
And people can download a ton of our tools for free at strategysprints.com. And I run two YouTube channels, one is called Strategy Sprints and one is called Simon Severino, because I have my newest thing. I’m learning how to grow money from money just by investing. And I’m learning and I’m making a ton of mistakes, and I have a ton of insights every week and I share them on YouTube.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:01):
Simon, thank you so much for a fantastic interview, and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Simon shared the three strategy sprints for us. And the first was to increase conversion rates. The second was to increase the frequency of sales. And the third was to increase your price of whatever product or service you’re offering by 25% right away. And he said he likes to double it.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:30):
Takeaway number two is to get a little deeper into that price increase of 25%. And he shared how to help owners get comfortable with it and business leaders get comfortable with it. So he said, “You’ve got to kind of create this perceived value or improve your perceived value.” And one of the highlights to me was to “de-risk” it that he said, so I thought that de-risking idea was a great takeaway.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (25:01):
And takeaway number three is when he shared his miss, and I thought it was great. I thought it was just a great reminder that he misses every day and I’m sure you miss every day. I know I miss every day. And I loved how he just talked about hiring the wrong vendor, choosing the wrong CRM, and so on. And I know I’ve been there. It seems like a thousand plus times or more. And I don’t know if you could relate with that, but that was just a great takeaway for me.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (25:29):
And now it’s time for today’s win/win. So today’s win/win is when Simon shared his multiplier, which is when he said he fired himself from operations. And I thought that was just a great little nugget to think about, because removing himself out of that situation actually helped this company.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (25:53):
So as the leader of your organization, what can you remove yourself out of or fire yourself from, whichever terminology you’d like to use, in your own business or in the organization you’re leading and running today to help it get better, to run smoother, to be more profitable or so on? And if you don’t know for sure, I bet there are a few folks at your company that might be able to give you some suggestions if you just asked. I think that’s my takeaway for today and my win/win as well.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:27):
That’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.
