Simon Severino

Check out more of Simon

 Website: strategysprints.com/speaking

Show Notes

Robert Peterson 0:09
Welcome to the add value to entrepreneurs podcast, the place where we help entrepreneurs to not hate their boss. Our mission is to end entrepreneurial unhappiness. If you dream of changing the world, but you're not sure where to start, the add value entrepreneurs podcast will help you transform your life in business. This podcast is for entrepreneurs who want more freedom and fulfillment from their work so they can live the life that they desire. You deserve it, and it is possible. My name is Robert Peterson, Farmer passer turned CEO and the smiling coach. I believe that success without happiness is failing. But there is hope. Join us each week as we bring you an inspiring leader or message to help you. Thanks for investing time with us today. In today's guest is the father of three an expert scaler of businesses and our first guest from Austria. In 19 years of entrepreneurship he's executed hundreds of go to market strategies with business to business teams around the globe. Simon Severino scaled his own consultancy business and has retired from operations, he reached financial freedom and became an investor. Since then he's helped 1000s of entrepreneurs reach financial freedom, and build companies that run without being dependent on them. Robert and Simon Severino talk about scaling business first, you need to fall in love with the problem that you solve that drives every decision and how you take it to market. Simon shares his blueprints for growing businesses faster. And with more excitement, if you're an entrepreneur who started their business with a purpose and a passion that has been lost in the busyness of the daily grind, we get it. That is why we've opened up our free strategy calls. A lot of entrepreneurs, probably including you just want a sense of clarity on the barriers holding them back, that you need to overcome in order to accelerate your growth and achieve your dreams. These short 30 Minute Calls give you a chance to work with one of our coaches without any commitment or pressure. Scheduling is easy, just go to smiling call.com. Let's jump on a call and get you the help and clarity you need. Select a time and let's build your business. It's time for you to add value. Well Simon, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to have this conversation and looking forward to sharing your wisdom with our audience.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Robert Peterson 2:36
So typically just let each guest just share their own entrepreneurial journey and kind of use that as our jumping off point. Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 2:44
my journey started 21 years ago, when it clicked in terms of what people were asking me to do, were different things like, Hey, can you help us improve our performance? Can you help us improve our sales? Can you help us improve our culture? Different things that an executive team needs? And I was there serving executive teams? So I said, Yes, alright, let's go. And I was learning. And I had the opportunity, and the luck to be with very smart people, in teams of strategy advisors, and we would fly there, solve their problems fly back. And we would be very proud at the end of such a day. And they would really pay a lot but also expect a lot. So we were we were under pressure 20 hours a day when we were at the client, and then we would fly back home. And of all those topics. The one topic that I did fall in love with was the go to market, everything around how you enter a market, how you stay in the market. And so I stick with that one topic, because I did fall in love with this topic. There is never a solution. There is always a question, how do I enter this market? Should I do this first or that first? There is no standard answer. And that's why I love it intellectually and emotionally. I mean, if I get asked this big question, and I do not relax until I've solved it. So that has become my thing. Go to market and I started coaching people just on go to market sales and marketing. And this is what I did for 21 years everyday.

Robert Peterson 4:42
Nice. So you mentioned a couple a couple things in there that are intriguing. Falling in love with the problem versus the solution. Tell me a little bit more about about that idea.

Unknown Speaker 4:57
This is something that is probably really applicable to everybody listening right now you have a solution. And I'm sure you love it because you built it. So you're proud of it. Now be very, very, very careful step three steps back from that solution, because I want you to fall in love with the problem behind the solution. So if your solution is this b2b software, with this feature, what is the question behind the solution? So your b2b software, or your consultancy or your agency is an answer to actually which question. Okay, it's the best answer, but to which question, and that question, that is what I want you to fall in love with and to stay forever, you never change two things. The people you are here to serve. And the problem that you solve this, you will never change for next 25 years, you will not see Elon Musk jumping around all this time, it's about energy transition. And next time, it's about something else. No, it's always the same problem. helping accelerate energy transition. Okay, you never change that. Everything else, you change all the time, you change your employees, you can fire 50% of them in a week, no problem, your stock will go up. You can change product, you can change website, you can change everything. You can change CRM. But use you stuck with the problem. So let's go through steps back. Let's say you have an agency, and it's a UX agency. What's the problem behind the the problem behind me? How do I understand what my customer really needs? And which experience can I create. So if that's the problem, you stick with that problem, and your solutions will change. That's what we call technological innovation. better solutions will come up all the time, when I started doing my thing, the best solution was to fly there to stay five days in a room in a hotel room, and then to fly back. And to start creating a documentation of all the flip charts that you created. Now we are in 2022, that would be a horrible delivery. Horrible. The way I deliver now is nobody flies, we immediately connect on the phone. It's real time dashboards. So you see the technical side, I completely changed 360 degrees. But I didn't change the problem, I am here to help you find out how to enter a market how to crush the market and how to stay in the market. It's the same problem. And it's for the same people, the b2b entrepreneurs.

Robert Peterson 7:57
So the other word you used earlier, it was luck, that you were lucky to be around some certain smart people and, and, and and I think you consider luck and investment. Almost.

Unknown Speaker 8:14
Yeah, we look at people who did it. Like we had Elon Musk. Oh, he's so lucky. He's a billionaire. Well, if you look at him, he slept for three years, for three years. Under the desk, of his of one of his companies under the desk for three years. So when we say Oh, he's so lucky. We see the iceberg part that is outside, we don't see the the years and years of dedication and the risk taking that went into it. He went many, many times he was almost insolvent. With multiple companies. And so when we say luck, where does luck actually hit? And where does luck not hit? That's actually in our control. So I see people staying who are in the middle of the road, they get hit by a lack bus. And at some point, if you stay long enough in the middle of the road, right, you'll give the bus a chance to hit you. But I see so many people on the sidelines, just watch Oh, what is this guy doing? Those people will never get hit by the lack bus. And if the lack bus gets there, they don't know what to do. You know, I was one of those guys. I gave a TED talk. And it was out of luck, right? I landed a TED talk. I give this TED talk. I wasn't ready. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. I could have crushed it. Absolutely nothing happened. Why? I didn't know that after the attention is you need you need an engagement piece echo Conversion piece is a closing piece and the repayment piece I had, I had no machine that converts awareness into clients. And so when I did that, I got a lot of awareness and zero clients. So zero impact. Little bit is inspiring the world. But the world doesn't need inspiration. They weren't need solution, real solutions, not a little bit of entertainment. So, basically, I wasn't ready. So I was on the sidelines, I did not create a conversion machine. And then you, you get hit by a luck pass, or you're on the stage of tat bow. But nothing happens because you didn't do the work. The work is not just to be on a stage and to be smart, that doesn't change anything for anybody. The work is to create the machine that will convert that into something in the real stuff into real solutions, right. And so that would have been the work. And so we all have our work. And if you show up every day to do your work, whatever your work is right now. And you know exactly what your work is. If you do that, then yes, the luck bus can hit you. But if you stay on the sidelines, you just enjoy committees or whatever you're doing to waste time. Or watching YouTube, that's my favorite time wasting activity. Watching YouTube, I love it. But when I do that, I'm usually not doing the work.

Robert Peterson 11:44
So you, obviously now you understand, you know, creating awareness engaging. And, and YouTube's obviously a huge awareness place. It's a social media is a big, a big marketing space for many entrepreneurs. But they're challenged to create content.

Unknown Speaker 12:05
Yes, I gave myself a rule. Because I love watching YouTube, right? I have no Netflix, TV. It's 16 years that I have no TV, and I have three kids every day and I go wow, that why don't we buy a TV and I got no TV? No, really, you don't want it? You think you want it? But you don't really want it believe me? Know that? I got no no, no, no TV. So and myself, no Netflix. Actually nothing that can distract me. But YouTube, oh my god, YouTube. Because that's, it's quick, even while I work. I could check some stuff on the side. And I do it. So that's my Achilles heel and I know it. And so I gave myself a rule I said okay, Simon, you are allowed to watch YouTube. But the rule is for every two hours that you consume, you have to create one hour of content. Nice, that happens pretty quickly. I check stuff and then it's already an hour ago oh my god now I have to create half an hour. And so then create and then I watch an hour and a half to create half an hour. And that's it works for me. So whatever works for you find something you know yourself better find a system a habit that gets you into creating. So I also killed many other distractions. I don't consume the news. I don't consume I don't have newspapers anymore. Not even on my iPad. So find the right mix for you have signal and noise. Most of the things that you consume that you can consume aren't noise. define for yourself what is signal. Like if you're in the marketing business. Okay, maybe you want to watch Gary Vee. So you pick one thing that for you is signal and then Okay, enjoy that. If you're a comedian, follow a comedian. If you are an educator, maybe you follow Ted, I don't know pick one. And be aware that it gives you inspiration it gets you going it keeps you motivated alright that you studied as a benchmark, but then give yourself a rule okay. I will study it for an hour but then I create something for an hour because you should you should spend time creating not you know consuming

Robert Peterson 14:42
Alright, so So obviously, to challenge yourself to create an hour for every two hours you consume. Where do you get inspiration?

Unknown Speaker 14:53
Oh, there is so much inspiration out there right. So there are YouTubers podcasters that inspire me all audiobooks I go running. I listen to audiobooks. After this interview, I meet a friend we go sauna. We love sauna I do a couple times a week sauna, once alone once with friends. And when I'm alone, I listen to audiobooks, there are amazing audiobooks. And then I work out and I listen to audiobooks and listen to podcasts. The world is full of inspiration. I also like to be inspired by things that are outside my field. I did obsessively read most of the sales books and go to market books that were recommended. I did that. Okay, there is a limit of inspiration that I can get from that field after decades. So now I go into other fields. I study the disciplines of triathlon, and what they find out about nutrition, about training plans about progress tracking, I get so much inspiration from my own trial load trainer. And I come back and say, Oh, we have to create a dashboard like the triathletes have for the progress of my co cheese, different industry. For them. It's obvious. For coaches, it's not obvious, most of my consultants and of my colleagues and of my competitors don't have a real time dashboards for the progress of their coaches. So what is obvious in another industry might be a game changer if you do it in yours. I was walking around finding a way to scale my own businesses, it's a consultancy. So I was my own bottleneck. Because you know, as a as a single consultant, you can, how much can you do 300,000 400,000 per year, and then you find a plateau if you want to have a weekend. That's it. If you skip the weekends, you can do 500,000. But then you are at a plateau, you cannot be in Paris and in Singapore at the right at the same time. So that was my situation. And And my wife said, Hey, I would like to have you more around here. And I was like, Yeah, you're right, I have to find a way to get myself out of the weeds. And so my business coach tells me, Simon, we have to get you two levels of fulfillment. And I said, sounds great. I have no idea what you're talking about. But hey, if you have a plan, let's go and go, No, I don't have a plan. But let's create one. All right, let's create one. And so we did it. After half a year, I was two levels above fulfillment. And it started by firing myself from operations. And that is one very important step. Most of us when we start something because we're passionate, and then we become actually the main bottleneck for it to grow. That was a very important moment. For me, when I realized oof, I am I am the one holding this thing back. It can never go above 500,000 If everything has to go through me, I have to let go. I have to. And and again I was inspired by other industries, not by my own because if you look at consultancies, you will not find many that did it. I certainly did only see McKinsey and Boston Consulting, but that's a different size. In my size and maturity level. I didn't see anybody. And then I walk around here on the street, passing a McDonald's. And I go wait a moment. Every city has their McDonald's. They just get the brand and the process handbook. And they pay every month for just a logo and the process handbook. Can I create a logo in the process handbook? Sure I can. Let me try that. So go home, heads down, build these two things. And I say guys, I have a certification. Boom, I had a franchise model. Two months later, I had a franchise model. So I found a way. Again, you stick with the problem, right? The problem is how can I scale my business by removing myself as the main blocker? I don't know the answer. But I walk around with the question. I hold space for the question. And then inspired by another industry, food industry. Completely different from mine. But it's up for us there if you're a restaurant it's up to you Use, you create a logo and menu and then you let other people pay to do that in their city? Why don't I do that? It would be the direct path. If this works. I've solved it. It worked. After two months, it was there. And so certification was my way to go. So where do I take inspiration from? I hold the question. I make space for it. I walk around with it without the plan, but I hold the question. And I think this is important. You don't learn this in business school. It's more like an artist, you have this big question. Or, you know, a priest, a priest has this longing for the infinite, and you just hold it, and you stay with it, and you work with it. And you stay with it. And at some point, it clicks. And so for me, it's I walk around, and then I see it either in triathlon in food chains. So stuff happens. But you hope you're holding the space. So this information can then come to you. And then you are ready to say, Okay, I see the path, now it's time to build. And then, in my case, it's heads down work until this is ready. I don't, I don't do heads up work anymore, it might take me three weeks of just building something.

Robert Peterson 21:29
Nice. Well, I like that you got to fire yourself, I think, you know, one of the challenges for many, many entrepreneurs, they jump into the space with with their passion, and this desire to do something different. And and then they treat it like a job and it becomes a job instead of a business. And, and there is a real difference between a job and a business. And so helping entrepreneurs make that leadership transition to lead a business and not just not just try to run a business themselves.

Unknown Speaker 22:02
Yes, it's a huge shift right from business operator to business owner. And the fun part is later the farm is when you are an owner. And so if you don't know it, that's the fun part. That's what you're relaxed. You're like a gardener, you see your stuff growing, you give it a little bit of water, and you see it growing, and you can actually enjoy it. Because the first part that hustled that grind, that's not really enjoyable, there is an adrenaline in it. Yes, there is an adrenaline rush. And I've kind of enjoyed also that adrenaline rush. But it's a different thing is it's a thing that's on the long run can kill you. On the other side, the joy of seeing something grow and scale and roll out over countries, that's a much more corn productivity both is productive. But the second stage is much more centered. And there is much more clarity, less adrenaline, more habits, daily habits and systems mainly systems. That's That's why I wrote the book strategy Sprint's because it's all about creating those systems.

Robert Peterson 23:20
I like obviously like that I want to we're gonna we'll come back to your book because definitely we want to talk some more about that. But we will be right back after this short break. This episode is sponsored by perfect publishing a different approach to publishing a book. Perfect publishing carefully chooses heroes of Hope, who exemplify living a life they created through faith, hope, patience, and persistence. No matter what page you open to in this mini cube of hope you will find a leader with a big heart, you will see you are not alone. The authors may share similar challenges that only hope and action could resolve. Get your free ebook at get a dose of hope.com Welcome back. Let's get back to more greatness. Earlier you mentioned when we talked about falling in love with the problem. The other piece you said that you'll never change is who you serve. How do you determine who you serve? And and and really narrow that down to, to the to the right person that needs that question answered needs that solution.

Unknown Speaker 24:25
Great question. Do we actually determine who we serve? I think that we don't even determine it right? We we kind of accept it it's more like I'm not a big meditator but you know if you're just feel inside of yourself, you know most answers. And in my case, it took me like 10 or 20 years to accept The fact that 99% of the people are totally different from me, they don't need me. 1% of the population worldwide is a sprinter. They need me, that's my people are people who are utterly unemployable like me. Freedom lovers a mix of you know, anarchic tendencies, but also creators. So artists in their spirit in their heart, they are artists, in their being, they are entrepreneurs, this is how you see them. They are entrepreneurs, they build stuff out of nothing. All the time, forces of nature faster than the people around them have an energy that comes from I don't know where, and they create, and they create, and they create these people. They need me because they are lonely. Nobody understands them. And they, they do a ton of mistakes. And they need processes, and they need somebody who understands them. Say, I see you, too, took me forever. But now I know. Okay, it's this 1% It's just a very tiny, nerdy part of the world.

Robert Peterson 26:40
But 1% is still pretty big number.

Unknown Speaker 26:44
That's, that's what I that's what I understood then. And if people say yeah, but you're saying, well, you're narrowing it down. It's a huge, huge total addressable market. Relax.

Robert Peterson 26:58
Yeah. Similar spirits. So I came, I Sir, I was a missionary, prior to becoming an entrepreneur. And, and, and I tried to work for for companies and do corporate gigs, and some of those and just really, entrepreneurs. And it's that same, that same spirit, you know, build stuff out of nothing, like, like a missionary does, and, and they're, they're lonely, and no one understands them. And, and so I get, I definitely get that and love those. Those are my people too. So love, love that, that identification. And I think the challenge for many entrepreneurs is that narrowing, right that, that getting down to that ideal profile of who their ideal customer is who they really, really serve. I love that you just said it's kind of like holding the question, holding the space for it, and just accepting who it is, who it is, who are your people?

Unknown Speaker 27:55
Yeah, it's almost a spiritual way of talking. Right. But I think that's the thing. It's, it's an intuition. You know, it, you know, who you really are and what you're here to do. And the rest is just, you know, don't let anybody tell it, tell you anything about it, just, you know, it's inside of you. Just go with it, trust it. There is there is a bigger intelligence at work inside of that it's an infinite intelligence, and you tap into it, you tap into it, and you know what you're here to do. And the rest is just, you know, accepting that it's not as you you personnel self would like it to be. Yeah. But I've accepted it, there is a bigger intelligence, the universe is smart, super smart, super old, super smart. Look at the geometry around. It's amazing. So I just accept it as they are, right? Show me the way What am I here to do? And then everybody sees it, you know, I have three kids. Now, it's easier when you have kids because you see your essence also in them. And they're all three very different, but the essence is the same. And so, from the outside, you can ask friends, you can ask colleagues, you can ask your clients, I'm an obsessive client, feedback. Asker. right all the time, hey, what? What's helpful, what's missing? What should we improve? I always do that. And then our clients say, Oh, but I don't. I don't dare to ask those deep questions to my clients. What if they don't like my offer? Well, you better know which parts they don't like, so that you can improve it.

Robert Peterson 29:46
Well, you talked earlier about the question and holding on to the question. And then and giving space for it and and that just taps into the power of curiosity, and then to ask your clients, you know, hey, what do you need? Hey, what's missing? Hey, how can we Help. That's that's putting that curiosity to work with them and opening the space to make sure this is the problem that we're solving. But is it? Are we are we talking about it? Right? Are we talking about it in a way that you understand it? Are we giving you the solution that that really, really is working on the problem? Or is our great solution that we think solves the problem not really solving it? And if you don't ask them, Curiosity is such a powerful, powerful tool. So I love that you talk about asking, ask.

Unknown Speaker 30:34
So important. And you know, it creates this shift from your personal view to their impersonal view, because it's the view of the market. So if I just am in my personal view, I build stuff that I like. That's not That's not the right thing to build is the easiest thing to build. But the right thing to build is actually what the world needs. And how do you know what the world around you needs? By asking, and by looking at it and by measuring so in in the strategy Sprint's method, we have a daily habit, weekly habit, monthly habit, the daily habit is around how you spend your time and what you can delegate tomorrow, the weekly habit shifts from your perspective to their perspective. So there is a dashboard, one marketing number one says number one operations number, and all of these three numbers come from the outside in. So latest, every seven days, the teams that we coach are looking at their stuff from the outside in. This is very important. Because if you just are building cranking, etc, you just improve what you love. And maybe it's irrelevant, maybe it's not. So you have to check that relevancy always from the outside in. One marketing number from the outside in is, what did people actually click this week on our website? Which parts? Do they really need? A sales number is what did they really buy this week from us? And operations? Number is how many of those introduced you to other three people? How happy are they really, with your offer? So these are key key questions in the sprint dashboard. And we install this core operating system if you want that it's all based around you not just doing the work, but learning about yourself and learning about what to delegate next delegate can be to a software to a person can be outsourcing can be letting go cutting completely stop doing weekly, weakly is okay, let's see our activities from the outside in. What does the world The world is our 15 clients, right? Our our 200 clients? What does the world say about what we're doing? What's really needed? What's really helping them? What's not? What do they need more of? What do they need less of? That's the input for the ops team, the operations team. They cannot possibly know what to do this week, if they don't get that feedback. So people ask me, but Simon? What if they tell me something negative? Well, then my team knows what to do this week. Otherwise, what the hell do we do? Most people, right,

Robert Peterson 33:52
we need their input. And I think that's the challenge is we get so busy thinking we know the answer. And, you know, in the coaching space, it's definitely one of the things if your client knows the answer, then then they won't hear what you're sharing with them. Because because their brain automatically says Oh, I know that, oh, I've heard that before I know that. And then the brain skips over it. And and I think the willingness to go ask and the willingness to be open to the answer is a very powerful, very powerful strategy. So talk about your dashboard from from the outside in. So what other ways that the strategy Sprint's right your your book is called strategy sprint, what other ways does the strategy sprint help to to grow a business?

Unknown Speaker 34:42
It's like you said they think they know the answer. And so whenever we think we know the answer. There is a problem there. My alarm starts because then oh, I have an assumption, which I think I've already validated. Let me see if it's really valid. So that's the core of the strategy Sprint's method, it's like a scientific method where whatever you think is real is actually an assumption. So you have to invalidate it, validate it. And, you know, if many people validate it, then you are onto something, it might become a theory. And when you have a theory, then you're on to something, then you use which. So, first you have just assumptions. And you usually realize that you are you move from assumptions to theory, in entrepreneurship, around those 35k level, when you do monthly 35k in revenue, you are moving from assumptions to validate assumptions. Now you are on to something you are, you have a theory now. And the theory is something that works most of the time. Ie II, II quals, MC square is a real theory, it works. So then you shift, when you shift, then it's about scaling. The first part is about finding what actually works. The second part from 35k on is how to scale it. And the book describes, literally, there is the marketing marketing chapter sales chapter operations chapter for those two stages, and gives away all my checklists, blueprints, the real processes, that that we use for ourselves and with our clients. Because they are very needed right now. It's tough to be an entrepreneur right now even more than usual. So it's good to have some proven processes, you know, I don't need to reinvent Ayurveda, it's, there's 5000 years, I better get a book and start already with the process, it will tell me when you cook, you take something that's bitter and something that sour and done something that's sweet, not just stuff, that's sweet. Okay, I can do that. And I can directly go cooking. And I don't have to think about anatomy and all that and biology that it would take me 6000 years to come up with it. So I just tap into the process directly. The strategy sprints book is the same just for building a company in the digital age. It's a process. And so you will not find the answers. But you will find the exact steps on how you find your answers. And that saves you so much time.

Robert Peterson 37:40
So powerful. So obviously, one of the challenges with having a strategy is, is getting everyone committed to the same plan to the same strategy. And obviously a solopreneur. Right? All the voices in his head gotta buy in. But when he out when he outsources when he adds team members when he or she when when they make the decision to start scaling and expanding. How do they how do they get alignment with this idea, this this plan this strategy?

Unknown Speaker 38:14
Chapter 1112, and 13 are exactly about that. Chapter 11 is the focus part. It's the process of how you align the team. In the weekly meetings, there is a very specific format to do that. And of course, the sprint dashboard helps you stay aligned, because everybody's working towards either a marketing goal, or I'm sorry, a marketing number of that week, or a sales number of that week or an operations number of that week, automatically. Your activities are super aligned. And latest every seven days they get re aligned. But how do you get there in the first place. That's chapter 11, where you see the focus card and how to create the first focus card, which is basically your strategy on one page. And then the activities that flow out of that to execute it. Today, one of our clients said it very nicely. She said, Well, I have now a big vision, but I have every step on how to execute it. That does and then yeah, that's the easy part. But then the hard part is hiring. Oh my god. Hiring takes so much time. You can make so many mistakes, and I have done them all. And then And then even if you do everything right, it can take months and you can lose people that you don't want to lose. And you can have people who you would like to lose but they're still there. So it's a lot of it's a lot of hard work hard work. And that's why chapter 12 and chapter three tene are literally the hiring blueprints. So the first part of the interview is chapter 12. And then, so how you interview how you go through a demo period, and how you decide if you if you onboard them or not. And then chapter 13 is how to do the onboarding the right way. Because in onboarding, you can do, again, a ton of mistakes. I've made them all in the, in the end, I wrote down the process that works. It's still it's still quite some work. And it's humbling to do hiring. But with the processes, of course, you can save hundreds of hours.

Robert Peterson 40:46
Well, and, and obviously, hopefully learn from the mistakes, right, like, like we learned from chefs that have burnt, put the wrong flavors together and done the experimenting for us. And so yes, in a lot of ways, this, this is, this is a tool to help create a framework, create a process, and, and learn from somebody that's, that's done it before and figured out, not only does this work for me, it works for all of my clients, and all of the business that businesses that I've consulted with. And so now we're, we're, we're amplifying the positive results. So that's, that's so, so powerful.

Unknown Speaker 41:29
Totally, I recently started yoga, and I do the Ashtanga variation. And, and I realize there is the primary series, and everybody who knows, Ashtanga knows the primary series is an exact step by step, now you do this, then you do this, then you do this. And in the beginning was like, oh my god, this is rigid, I thought yoga is more, you know, more freedom and more flow, this is super rigid. And then I realized, if it works, then there is a reason why the specific order of things. And in this primary series, it just works like a charm. If you accept it, right, then if you go into it, then you relax, and then you learn totally, and the body is totally built for that. And it's similar with the strategist Prince method, there is an order of things, that if you just do the right things, but in the wrong order, like spending too much for marketing before your sales works, or doing, doing the customer onboarding, without a specific peak energy flow, etc. So you can do the right things, but in the wrong order. And then it doesn't work.

Robert Peterson 42:49
So you just mentioned something, there's spending too much on marketing. So spending money on ads, and other when the sales system isn't ready. But let's dig a little there. Because obviously a lot entrepreneurs are throwing money at Facebook and, and, and other media platforms, expecting that to be the silver bullet.

Unknown Speaker 43:12
biggest waste of money is marketing, especially below 35k. And and then people go but Simon, you are the biggest market here and say yeah, I enjoy marketing, but I did not spend one cent in marketing before I hit 35k per month, not one cent and not one minute per day, I have put into marketing. Marketing has a very good function and plays in the right order. So when you build a house, you build first the fundaments and then the walls, then the windows and then the roof. Marketing is the roof. The foundations are who you're here to serve, and the problem that you solve. You do that until you have 10 testimonials and that can be working for free. I did that in the beginning. It's a good way to start. You start faster and not be too fancy at the beginning. So you can start you have 10 testimonials. People who said wow, this changed my life in this and this metric. When you have 10 of those now you have the fundaments now you move to the walls, the walls is sales. And in the chapter about sales, you will see exactly what to do and says then you move to the windows. And the very last thing is the roof. When everything works. Like a machine it's a resilient system with self healing mechanisms with self correcting mechanism. assumes you are on holidays, it still works. Not end, you see it, because you have a theory now. And the theory, you see it because you are doing 40k 50k 80k per month. Now, you put some of the profits, maybe 10%, maybe 15% of the profits, now you put them in marketing, because now you amplify. And if you're there, right now is a good time to spend in ADS. I never say that. But I say this right now, because we're at the beginning of a recession. And now everybody's cutting, because they cannot pay rent 40% of us, small companies couldn't pay the October rent. So those guys are cutting Google ads, Facebook ads, obviously. So this is the only time where I recommend going into marketing. If you're above 35k after you pay rent, and you have some profits that you can reuse, and you have a conversion machine. Because you have implemented the strategy sprint method, year with the book or with a sprint coach. Now 15% of your profits, now put them into paid ads, because on Google and on Facebook, you will have the same amount of eyeballs that you can reach for half the costs because half of your competitors are out of the game.

Robert Peterson 46:34
So I know, I know my my audience is asking Alright, so I'm in the front, not just 35k How do I build this Sales Machine to get the 35k

Unknown Speaker 46:44
Grab the book, that's a $7 Kindle investment, that's a good start and implement the heck out of it. And if you have any questions, strategies, prints.com Shoot me shoot me an email, I'm happy to help the many many of those tools like the daily habit weekly with monthly habit people can download for free on strategy sprint.com So use the book, use the free tools. Get yourself to 35k and, and then reinvest 15% of the profits into a marketing campaign. That might be a good plan.

Robert Peterson 47:26
Nice. All right, Simon. what's your what's your big dream?

Unknown Speaker 47:33
Might I might I'm living the dream right now. I'm enjoying this interview. I'm enjoying connecting to you and to wonderful souls out there. I'm I enjoy you know that I'm alive. I'm healthy. After this interview, a friend comes we go Sona. This is the dream. This is the impact, love understanding connection. All from home. We're living

Robert Peterson 48:03
All right, so we typically end each episode with the guests sharing their words of wisdom Simon so so what are your words of wisdom to our audience?

Unknown Speaker 48:14
Not so much a wisdom guy. I'm a practical guy. If if you would just do one thing. Then just go to strategies principle come in only do the daily habit only daily habit it will ask you how did you spend your time you put in 10 minutes, you learn something about yourself? And I would be very surprised. If if if that's not valuable to

Robert Peterson 48:39
you. Simon, thank you so much for joining me today. This was a wonderful conversation you added a ton of value for for the entrepreneurs listening and and I know that this will make a difference in their business if they do just one. But I think all three of those habits can be done and certainly they can start looking at those three different numbers in marketing sales and operations to

Unknown Speaker 49:04
thank you for doing this Robert for holding this space for your community with consistency. Keep rolling everybody.