How to Increase Your Return On Luck as a Business Leader

As a business leader, 80% of what happens is outside of your control. Monthly sales, supply chain efficiency, employee fluctuation–all of it is subject to a certain degree of chance. But our latest podcast guest has a strategy for making the most of that uncertainty.

Simon Severino is a TEDx speaker, Contributor to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and creator of the Strategy Sprints™ Method that doubles revenue in 90 days by getting business leaders out of the weeds and focused on sales growth.

Simon joined the Predictable Revenue podcast to discuss how to increase your return on luck as a business leader.

The framework for sales growth

Over the years, Simon has coached many business leaders on their go-to-market (GTM) strategy, all of them dependent on factors outside of their control. From supply chain issues to a volatile market, it’s easy to feel discouraged in these uncertain times. 

Simon’s advice is to focus on three areas that you can control: your daily, weekly, and monthly habits.

Daily habits

Smart business leaders track how they spend their time. Keep a record of what you do each day, and note down which tasks could be delegated, automated, or removed entirely. 

Simon recommends asking two key questions every day:

• Of all the things you did today, which one should you delegate tomorrow?
• What would you do differently if you were to live more freely and intentionally?

Weekly habits for sales growth

One of the most important habits a business leader can adopt is to stay on top of the company’s numbers. Marketing, sales, and operations metrics should be kept in a simple dashboard and monitored weekly. Without those numbers, you have no way to measure your success.

Every week, this dashboard should be reviewed by the entire team, including all three functions. This will keep sales, marketing, and operations aligned with the company’s overall goals. Reviewing these numbers will also help the entire team understand the outcome of their daily tasks and how their work contributes directly to sales growth.

Are you struggling with setting up your outbound sales machine? We can work with your leadership team to help implement processes from the top down. Click here to book a free assessment call with our coaching team!

Building a high performing team

Many of the conflicts between marketing, sales, and operations can be resolved through weekly meetings. Regular check-ins provide accountability and clarity around who owns which tasks and help each team see the results of their hard work.

The weekly meeting is meant to air out conflicts. When all three functions work together, it ensures those tough conversations happen in a positive and constructive way.

Monthly habits of successful business leaders

Every month, sit down with your team to evaluate whether you’re headed in the right direction. Ask yourself what the competition is doing, which features in the business are doing well, and which are doing poorly. If a feature (for example, a marketing strategy) is doing poorly, cut that feature and reinvest in what’s working well.

Successful business leaders know when to pivot. By checking in on your progress every month, you’ll start to see which strategies are most effective and which are the least. The fastest way to accelerate sales growth is to reallocate resources toward your most effective strategies. 

How to identify bottlenecks in your business

To troubleshoot different areas of the company, Simon recommends asking this simple question: If you suddenly woke up to 10 times your current number of clients, what would happen?

Map out the entire process of the customer journey and identify where things might go wrong. Once you’ve identified where the issues are, you can work to solve them proactively. Over time this will result in a more scalable business model.

Marketing, sales, and operations should work together to solve these problems. In larger companies, this may mean breaking the functions down into smaller team units. Ideally, each team will contain a business leader or decision-maker, along with someone from sales, marketing, and operations.

Sprinting for sales growth

Simon’s book, Strategy Sprints, focuses on three key areas for sales growth:

• Increasing your conversion rate by 25%
• Increasing your sales frequency by 25%
• Increasing prices by 25%

Over the course of 90 days, the Strategy Sprints™ Method covers a checklist for each area. Increasing conversion rates, for example, might require tweaking your sales script and helping reps learn from recorded sales calls.

The 25% price increase involves better positioning to increase the perceived value of the product. For example, updated messaging and using more testimonials as social proof. Together, increasing the conversion rate, frequency, and product price results in rapid sales growth. 

How to get started with Strategy Sprints

As a business or sales leader, there are many factors outside of your control. Your sales growth will accelerate when you focus on what you can control: your team and your habits.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Strategy Sprints™ Method, visit StrategySprints.com, where there are a number of open-access tools available. You can also connect with Simon on Youtube or check out the book on Amazon.

NO TIME TO READ?

Listen On: