What Gets Faster Each Time You Do It?

Why sprint training might be the key to winning your business marathon

Sprint Out of the Comfort Zone

The first time you do anything is always the hardest. You’re working against inertia, like a freight train slowly pulling out of the station.

Think back to your first sale, made without a track record or testimonials.

Or your first hire, when you had no idea what role they’d grow into or which skills were non-negotiable.

Or your first business plan, drafted without any historic patterns to guide you.

Growth comes when you can start building on something that’s already working. Your 20th sale is faster, easier, and more profitable than your first… and your 2,000th sale is even more so. You’ve figured out what works and built systems to support it.

But when things get easier, the comfort zone starts calling.

It’s tempting to settle into a steady marathon pace, jogging along instead of sprinting.

But the key to winning a marathon is knowing when to sprint – when to surge ahead and leave the pack behind. Because if you don’t level up, you’d better believe your competitors will.

Just like running a marathon, success in your business journey hinges on well-timed bursts of speed.

Three Ways to Surge Into Sprint Mode

1. Repeat What’s Working

The fastest way to build something big is to build something small and repeatable, so you can learn and improve each time. Just like Lego bricks can stack together to form a complex structure, your simple day-to-day actions can create powerful results when they’re repeated.

Think about your business as a set of building blocks, making up your sales and marketing, finance and admin, operations, and management systems. What are your opportunities to be faster or more consistent in each area?

2. Plug Any Leaks

Over time, a growing business starts to feel like a leaky bucket, with pinprick holes for profit to seep out. Be a detective and look for the leaks: time wasted, leads dropped, or people pulling in different directions.

Where can you tighten up your systems and processes, so no effort is wasted?

3. Train for Form

In running, incorporating small bursts of sprint training pushes distance runners to reach another level.

Their brains are forced to focus on making all parts of their body work together at speed. With that level of focus, any tiny mistakes in their form are corrected.

Just like a marathoner, tiny corrections to your form made while sprinting – little tweaks to accelerate and streamline your systems and processes – will compound over time for better long-term results.

This Week’s Takeaway

As a business owner, you need to be ready to sprint when the moment calls for it – whether that’s moving quickly to seize a golden opportunity or get back on course.

That’s why my new coaching program is build around 3-week sprints. Each sprint is an opportunity to home in on one area of your business and dial it up. Over time, these small adjustments compound, strengthening your business and accelerating your growth.

It’s about finally getting that list of lingering good intentions done and off your to do list, or removing the pebble from your shoe that’s been slowing you down.

So, if you were to carve out a few hours over the next 3 weeks to improve just one area of your business, what would you choose? And what would the impact be to finally have it done?

How Big Things Get Done: By Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner

If you’ve ever taken on a project, you know how quickly a big vision can slip off track. This book unpacks why most ambitious projects stumble and what sets the rare successes apart. With research data and a set of tested principles, you’ll find some solid takeaways on how to avoid costly missteps to get any ambitious project done (on time and on budget).

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