Podcast Summary: The Everyday Millionaire – Episode 211 with Simon Severino

Title: Strategy Sprints: Design Your Desirable Future
Host: Patrick Francie
Guest: Simon Severino
Release Date: January 21, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 211 of The Everyday Millionaire, host Patrick Francie welcomes Simon Severino, a renowned business strategist and the visionary founder and CEO of Strategy Sprints. With nearly two decades of entrepreneurial experience, Simon has specialized in assisting SaaS and service-based business owners to streamline their operations and significantly boost revenue growth. Throughout the episode, Simon shares his journey, strategies for doubling client revenues, investment philosophies, and insights into scaling a business beyond the founder's direct involvement.

Strategy Sprints Method

Simon introduces his unique Methodology, Strategy Sprints, designed to double the revenue of entrepreneurs within 90 days. This method focuses on alleviating business owners from daily operational challenges, allowing them to concentrate on growth strategies.

• Client Profile: Simon targets entrepreneurs running online businesses with predominantly remote teams who face complex, high-ticket sales situations (offers above $10,000). These businesses often grapple with establishing trust and demonstrating the value of their high-ticket offers.

• The 90-Day Sprint: During this period, Strategy Sprints assists clients in improving three critical business areas by 25% each. These areas include:

  • Positioning: Enhancing how clients present their services to increase perceived value and justify higher pricing.
  • Win Rates: Improving the success rate of sales pitches and client conversions.
  • Sales Velocity: Accelerating the speed at which sales are closed to boost revenue streams.

Notable Quote:

"In 90 days we help them improve three things by 25% each. And when we improve those three pieces by 25%, they effectively increase revenue by 99%. That's why we say we double your revenue in 90 days."
— Simon Severino [04:16]

Client Targeting and Industries

Simon elaborates on the types of clients Strategy Sprints engages with, primarily focusing on professional service providers such as consultants, marketers, IT agencies, and design firms. He also mentions ventures that sell high-tech products, like a startup developing a machine to predict process failures through sound analysis.

Key Insights:

• High-Ticket Focus: Emphasis on high-ticket B2B sales due to their complexity and higher revenue potential.
• Example Client: A company developing predictive machinery struggled with initiating conversations with large enterprises like Boeing. Strategy Sprints helped them establish effective sales strategies to engage with decision-makers.

Notable Quote:

"Typically it's professional services. So it's a team that does consulting or advisory or financial advisory. Sometimes it's a product. So recently it was a team that invented a machine that can detect, just by sound, it can detect which part of a process will break next."
— Simon Severino [07:16]

Marketing Strategies in a Social Media-Driven World

Simon discusses the importance of selecting the right social media channel to enhance marketing efforts. For B2B clients, LinkedIn is often the preferred platform due to its professional focus. Strategy Sprints encourages clients to intensely work on one chosen platform for 90 days, supported by amplifier groups—small, accountable communities that foster consistent content creation and engagement.

Key Points:

• Platform Selection: Clients typically choose LinkedIn, YouTube, or X (formerly Twitter) based on their industry and comfort.
• Community Support: Amplifier groups provide mutual accountability, making marketing efforts more enjoyable and sustainable.

Notable Quote:

"Our clients, they're great at what they do, but if they're not a marketing agency, they don't love marketing. So we help them enjoy it by putting them together with other people. It becomes a collective endeavor and it's much more fun."
— Simon Severino [09:41]

Economic Insights and Sales Strategies

Addressing the current economic climate, Simon observes that low-ticket products are harder to sell as disposable incomes shrink, particularly affecting the middle class. In contrast, high-ticket items remain resilient, catering to businesses and individuals with better liquidity.

Key Observations:

• Market Trends: Lower-income consumers are cutting back on non-essential purchases, leading to reduced sales for cheaper products.
• Strategic Shift: Entrepreneurs are advised to pivot towards high-ticket offers to maintain and grow revenue streams.

Notable Quote:

"Low ticket pipelines are drying up. High ticket pipelines are fine. So move to high ticket."
— Simon Severino [15:52]

Investment Philosophies and Portfolio Management

Simon shares his personal investment strategy, emphasizing diversification across real estate, stocks, and digital assets. He advocates for a disciplined approach, focusing on long-term growth and minimizing emotional decision-making.

Investment Breakdown:

• Real Estate (1/3): Focus on properties with high rentability and strategic locations.
• Stocks (1/3): Selection based on fundamental and technical analysis, prioritizing companies with strong pricing power and consistent growth metrics.
• Digital Assets (1/3): Investments in cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, employing strategies like staking to generate passive income.

Key Strategies:

• Long-Term Holding: Maintaining investments for extended periods to capitalize on compound growth.
• Risk Management: Position sizing and phased investments to mitigate potential losses.

Notable Quote:

"My personal portfolio is one third real estate, 1/3 stocks. I pick stocks, no ETFs, and 1/3 digital assets. And that portfolio is doing quite well. I have doubled the net asset value on average every 3.8 years."
— Simon Severino [20:28]

Scaling the Business: From Founder to CEO

Simon recounts his transition from being an operational bottleneck to delegating and systematizing his business. By documenting his strategies into the Strategy Sprints book and developing a certification and franchise model, he created a scalable business less dependent on his daily involvement.

Key Steps:

• Systematization: Translating personal strategies into replicable methods.
• Delegation: Hiring and empowering others to manage operational tasks.
• Scalability: Establishing a franchise model to expand the business globally without being the central operational hub.

Notable Quote:

"I was the bottleneck of my business. I had to fire myself from operations. I fired myself by getting the process out of my head into a book, the Strategy Sprints book. That became the Strategy Sprints method."
— Simon Severino [36:54]

Personal Development and Mindset

Throughout the conversation, Simon emphasizes the importance of financial literacy, consistent saving, and investing. He advocates for entrepreneurs to treat themselves as CEOs of their lives, ensuring they pay themselves a salary first to build financial stability and reduce stress.

Core Principles:

• Savings Rate: Establishing and maintaining a consistent savings rate to invest in assets.
• Asset Allocation: Diversifying investments to include both active and passive revenue streams.
• Mindset: Focusing on controllable factors and maintaining discipline to avoid emotional investment decisions.

Notable Quotes:

"If you are listening to this and if you don't pay yourself the first or second day of the month, your salary. You are not building any business. And you are also creating a very volatile, very stressful life."
— Simon Severino [34:40]

"Investing is a process and takes time. And this is why also I've created the 200k club, where we have a 247 Slack group around these things, every Monday we come together."
— Simon Severino [29:50]

Global Macro Perspectives

When discussing global economic factors, Simon emphasizes focusing on what entrepreneurs can control, such as their savings rate, investment choices, and portfolio management, rather than external macroeconomic events.

Strategic Focus:

• Control vs. Influence: Prioritizing actions within one's control to drive business and investment success.
• Long-Term Trends: Concentrating on secular trends like demographic shifts and technological advancements rather than short-term economic fluctuations.

Notable Quote:

"I look at what is in my control and what's not in my control... So I focus my research process on how I find the MSCIs and Lindes. That's signal, not noise."
— Simon Severino [47:51]

Conclusion and Final Advice

As the conversation wraps up, Simon offers actionable advice for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses and build wealth:

1. Adopt the Strategy Sprints Method: Utilize the daily habits and strategic frameworks provided by Strategy Sprints.
2. Pay Yourself First: Establish a consistent salary to ensure financial stability and reduce business-related stress.
3. Diversify Investments: Balance active and passive income streams to build a robust financial portfolio.
4. Join Supportive Communities: Engage with mastermind groups and accountability partners to stay disciplined and motivated.

Final Notable Quote:

"If you are a business owner. I will grab the book Strategy Sprints and I would start doing one thing that you can grab from our website right now@strategy sprints.com there is a tool there called the Daily Flow. You write down, how did I allocate my time today? What will I delegate tomorrow?"
— Simon Severino [58:19]

Key Takeaways

• Strategy Sprints: A proven system to double revenue in 90 days by enhancing positioning, win rates, and sales velocity.
• High-Ticket Focus: Prioritizing high-ticket B2B sales for better revenue stability, especially in challenging economic times.
• Investment Discipline: Diversifying across real estate, stocks, and digital assets with a long-term, data-driven approach.
• Business Scalability: Transitioning from operational roles to systematizing and delegating to build a scalable, less dependent business.
• Mindset and Habits: Emphasizing financial literacy, consistent savings, and disciplined investment to achieve financial freedom.

For more insights and tools shared by Simon Severino, visit [strategy sprints.com](https://strategy sprints.com) and explore resources like the Daily Flow tool and the Strategy Sprints book available on Amazon.

End of Summary