Nike started with one shoe.

Not a clothing line. Not athlete deals. One shoe, the Nike Cortez, sold through distributors and then straight to customers. They figured that out before they built a range.

Amazon started with books. Books don't break, don't spoil, and ship back and forth easily. Amazon sold nothing else until supply chain and search worked. Then the next category. Then the next. 🐬

Now look at your own quarter. A new offer, two new AI tools, a side project somebody pitched last month, and the sales hire you still need to make. All of it "important."

My co-host this week, Mike Muhlfelder (Siebel, Oracle, IBM, then VP of Sales at Jitterbit), says one word matters more than all the others. Focus.

The three legs of the stool

Mike puts it like this: focus, communication, alignment. Three legs of the stool. And the other two don't happen without the first one.

At Siebel Systems, the company that created the CRM industry, everybody from Tom Siebel down to the newest salesperson knew the North Star. Create the industry and dominate it. If someone walked in and said "maybe we should sell financial systems too," the room looked at them like they'd lost the plot. That's not what we do.

That's what focus sounds like inside a company. Everyone can say what you're NOT doing.

Every new AI tool brings its own maintenance load

Here's where it gets hard right now. This week I got a ton of questions in Sprint Club: should I use this new AI agent? Should I use that one?

We tested one for a few days. Then I told the group: don't use it. 🐯

Not because AI is bad. Because of what comes with it. Say you set it up for the family groceries. Your spouse uses it. The kids ask for less broccoli and more honey. Now five people use a tool with access to your life, and you just added five ways in: laptop malware, a hijacked email, a bad plug-in, a domain hijack, a deepfake of you calling and asking for the Stripe password.

Do you have a protection plan for that? Hardware keys? Passwords only in a vault? Hope is not a strategy.

Here's the rule underneath it. When you decide to do something, you're also deciding to leave many other things undone. And you're signing up for all the maintenance that comes with it. If you're not going all in on that, don't start. The founders who add five tools this quarter are the same ones with no time left for the one sales hire who'd actually move revenue.

One question that kills side projects

Mike's favourite leadership move is simple. When a project shows up that nobody asked for, the leader asks: "How does that relate to the objective?"

Mike's example: the CEO wants AI decisions made, so one leader owns it and splits the testing across the team. In service of the objective. But if someone is building a robot that makes hamburgers and fries, and the mission is something else.. stop. Not now.

Netflix just did this the hard way. Growth slowed, so they let key executives go and said why: they need people who land blockbuster content deals. Bitter medicine. Clear.

Small team? You still need one focus

Siebel and Netflix are big. What about a team of five? 🌴

Here's how we do it with a small team. One focus, in one image. Right now ours is the Sales Gym. It has monthly goals, and each Friday we look at 3 numbers: how many people came into the gym, how many joined a class, how many stayed. That's it.

You don't need a strategy department or a PhD in business strategy. Usually the focus sits right next to what your client needs. And it keeps you in control of the week, instead of the week controlling you.

One thing until $10M

Mike's line for founders stuck with me: "Especially in your first 10 million.. one thing."

When he moved his business under TechCXO this month, it was easy to decide, because he knows exactly what he does (go-to-market for B2B tech) and what he doesn't (cyber, consumer, bicycles in the garage).

I felt the same thing in rowing this week. Off-season, no regatta, motivation slipping. Then a call: can you row the eight in Prague in three weeks? I'm in. Training got easy again. That clean, fresh-start feeling of a race back on the calendar, like opening a window after a winter shut indoors. It's much easier to train for something than just to train.

So write yours down. One focus. A yearly goal, maybe a 3-year goal, then monthly numbers you check every Friday.

Your sales process deserves the same rule. One way to run a call, in the same order every time, beats a different pitch for every buyer. That's what puts you in control of the conversation instead of hoping it goes well.

That's how you get to Sprintlife: a business that funds the life you want, without the grind of chasing ten things at once.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXVk2i5-WAY

Want help picking your one focus and the 3 numbers you check every Friday? Founders are doing this live inside Sprint Club.. weekly coaching, real numbers, accountability.

7-day free trial: https://www.strategysprints.com

Ready to accelerate now? Book a Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/strategysprint/discovery-call

Happy hunting. Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆