The Schramko Playbooks
Strategic frameworks for founders who want simpler, more profitable businesses.
These playbooks explain how the system works. Mentor is where I apply it to your specific business.
Free to read. Not free to copy.
S - Simplify The Offer
The Case Study Framework
One question sequence for turning a client result into podcast, blog, and video content.
By James Schramko
The Positioning Interview
Get your real positioning language from the clients who already bought.
By James Schramko
Growth Follows Subtraction
Check what you removed before your last real growth spurt, because the pattern that got you here is more often subtraction than addition.
By James Schramko
Improve Your Sales Presentations
Build a sales presentation that moves buyers to a decision instead of a polite thank you.
By James Schramko
Increasing Your Membership Rates
How to raise membership prices without losing the members worth keeping.
By James Schramko
Membership Renewal Sequence
A three-phase sequence that makes the first renewal the obvious default.
By James Schramko
Nine Steps to a Profitable Business
The business model decisions that actually drive profit, weighted by how much they matter.
By James Schramko
Product Client Matrix
A data process for deciding which products and clients to focus on.
By James Schramko
Sales Copy For Your Offer
How to write sales copy around the one core belief your buyer holds.
By James Schramko
The Buyer Comes Before The Build
Check whether real demand exists before you spend another week building, because the build has never been what proves an offer works. Payment is the strongest evidence; a real person asking is where it starts.
By James Schramko
C - Convert Hidden Assets
Call Transcript Story Mining
Turn the transcripts you already have into a proof bank you can draw content from for months, without booking a single new interview.
By James Schramko
Coaching Application Call Framework
Run application calls that qualify hard and lead to a decision, not a free strategy session.
By James Schramko
Essential Prospect Emails
The minimum email sequence for converting new prospects into buyers.
By James Schramko
Graduate Tier Design
How to build a low-touch landing zone for clients who finish your program, so graduation stops costing you the relationship.
By James Schramko
Hard Conversations
Handle difficult customers, negotiate deals both sides feel good about, and resolve conflict without losing the relationship.
By James Schramko
How to Price Your Work More Accurately
A concrete process for finding what your work is worth from outside your own head, so you stop pricing from effort and start pricing from outcome.
By James Schramko
How to Maximise Sales at Your Live Events
Turn a live workshop into the commercial engine that keeps existing members longer and converts attendees into your highest-tenure clients.
By James Schramko
Organic DM Prospecting
Turn organic content signals into direct message conversations that produce three or four ideal clients a month, without paid reach.
By James Schramko
Paid Diagnostic
Free discovery calls are free consulting, and they train prospects to expect it. Replace them with a paid diagnostic that qualifies buyers and earns revenue.
By James Schramko
Revenue Share Deals
How performance-based deals work, and how to structure them so you get paid on results.
By James Schramko
Speaking From Stage
How to prepare and deliver a talk that converts the room.
By James Schramko
Subscriber Retention and Profit Maximization
A working segmentation for reducing membership churn, and what to actually do with each group.
By James Schramko
The Money You Already Made
Be firm rather than soft when asking for money you already earned, so cash sitting in someone else's account moves into yours this week.
By James Schramko
The Value Bridge
Get the buyer to price their own gap against your fee, in their numbers, then say nothing. The ROI method for business buyers, and what to do with the number once you have it.
By James Schramko
H - Hand Off The Work
Client Retention
Why keeping one client outperforms winning one new sale, and the single message that catches a drifting client before they decide to leave.
By James Schramko
Client Success Map
Give every client a clear visual path from entry to mastery.
By James Schramko
Fast Filter Hiring
A three-step screen that gets you to a serious shortlist in 48 hours.
By James Schramko
Onboarding Checklist
Give every new client a consistent start that delivers an early win.
By James Schramko
Get Paid Quickly: The 6-Step Stack
Clients who cancel in the first weeks were won and lost in the same transaction. Six steps between payment and first result close that gap.
By James Schramko
Systems
A reference list of the systems a professional business runs on.
By James Schramko
Team Infinity Project
Ongoing compounding projects that keep your team productive between campaigns.
By James Schramko
Team Meeting
How to run team meetings that align people and reinforce direction.
By James Schramko
The Founder Bottleneck You Can't See From Inside
Every recurring decision that unnecessarily needs you is a ceiling on the business. Find the ones that do not require founder judgment this week, write the standard, and hand them off.
By James Schramko
The Load You Can't Hire Your Way Out Of
Recognise the decisions that stack across every part of your business at once, and get an outside read before you make them alone.
By James Schramko
Virtual Assistant Agreement
A template engagement agreement for hiring a virtual assistant.
By James Schramko
R - Refine The Systems
AI Outside View
When your AI models disagree, that disagreement is the useful signal.
By James Schramko
AI System for CRM Prospecting
Stop tracking prospects in a spreadsheet. Use AI to remember every conversation, tell you who to follow up with, and draft the message in your voice.
By James Schramko
AI Sovereign Setup
Set up your AI so you own the context and are not locked to one vendor.
By James Schramko
AI System Optimization
How to set AI up as a reliable partner: structured context, tools you own, automated routines.
By James Schramko
AI Task Automation
Automate recurring tasks with scheduled AI agents that run without you.
By James Schramko
AI Vault Audit
Run one prompt across your AI vault to find what is bloated, duplicated, contradictory, or dead. Then act on the highest-leverage changes.
By James Schramko
AI Video Editor
Get Claude to edit your videos on your own computer, with no editing software and no editing subscription.
By James Schramko
AI Voice File
Build a document that captures how you communicate so AI and team can match it.
By James Schramko
Business Growth Checklist
A short checklist for spotting revenue hiding in work you already do.
By James Schramko
Client Filtering System
Stop attracting wrong-fit clients who drain energy and rarely implement.
By James Schramko
Content Pruning
A systematic audit for removing outdated content and consolidating traffic to your best pages.
By James Schramko
Deployment Discipline: The Activation Gap
Close the gap between what you have built and what you have actually deployed.
By James Schramko
End of Client Protocol
Run a professional client exit that preserves the relationship and the learning.
By James Schramko
Event Checklist
Run an in-person or hybrid event without missing the thing that breaks it.
By James Schramko
The First 48 Hours When Your Model Stops Working
What to do in the first two days after a business that worked for years stops working.
By James Schramko
Follow-Up That Runs Itself
Four things your job system already knows, or can be taught to know: a quote went out, a job finished, someone is running late, a client went quiet. Wire the follow-up to those four events and it runs without you.
By James Schramko
Founder Task Audit
List every person, every task, and every hour. Then keep only what the business actually needs.
By James Schramko
Group Coaching Versus Private Coaching
How to respond when a prospect asks for private coaching and you offer group.
By James Schramko
How to Leverage Private Coaching
How to build and run private mentoring as a high-value offer.
By James Schramko
Improving Email Deliverability
Keep your emails landing and read by combining technical setup with engagement.
By James Schramko
WCO Group Meeting Framework
Run group calls on Win, Challenge, One Thing for durable participant outcomes.
By James Schramko
Webpage Checklist
A checklist for reviewing whether a webpage communicates clearly and converts.
By James Schramko
WordPress to Cloudflare Pages
Replace paid WordPress hosting with a free, faster Cloudflare Pages site.
By James Schramko
A - Align The Founder
The Activity Iceberg
See the below-the-surface work that actually decides your results, and plan for it.
By James Schramko
Check The Machine Before You Blame Yourself
Before you fix your mindset, your skills, or your work ethic, check the business for a specific fault you have not looked at yet.
By James Schramko
Coaching Under Pressure
Close the gap between what you know and what you deliver when the stakes are highest.
By James Schramko
How I Make Decisions
Copy the decision system I run on my own business: filter what gets in, argue both sides before you commit, check the objective is still yours, and keep score on your own rulings.
By James Schramko
Personal Brand vs Business Brand
When to build under your own name, when to build under a company name, and how to run both at once without confusion.
By James Schramko
Pivot Under Pressure
Separate strategic insight from pressure-induced retreat.
By James Schramko
Success Mindset
Define success on your own terms instead of by comparison.
By James Schramko
The Clarity That Doesn't Leave The Room
Keep the decisions you reach with an advisor decided when you are back on your own, because borrowed clarity evaporates and owned judgment compounds.
By James Schramko
The Decision to Start
Find the real reason the thing you already know to do keeps not happening, and put an anchor under it instead of another explanation.
By James Schramko
The Project You Already Priced Out
Recost the build, hire, or production you shelved as too expensive. The number changed and you never went back to check.
By James Schramko
The Question You Already Know The Answer To
Catch yourself asking for permission when you already have the answer, so you make the call today instead of renting confidence from someone else's calendar.
By James Schramko
When the Framework Is Free, What Are You Actually Buying
A test for deciding whether you need a mentor at all, and if you do, what you're paying for that a search engine can't give you.
By James Schramko
When You Say Next Year
What "next year" usually means, how to tell timing from avoidance, and what to do with the decision you keep moving.
By James Schramko
The 64:4 SCHRAMKO Framework
An eight-part strategic model for growing recurring revenue and reducing founder dependency.
By James Schramko
M - Measure What Matters
AI Prompting Formula
The prompt structure that produces consistent, high-quality output from any modern AI.
By James Schramko
AI Training Data Questions
The questions that give AI the context it needs to work accurately in your business.
By James Schramko
Client Data Dependency
When the proof of your work lives inside the client's systems, write the data into the agreement as a term of the engagement. Build nothing to collect it.
By James Schramko
Measurement Before Spend
Set the baseline before you spend, so you can tell whether a campaign worked.
By James Schramko
K - Keep The Momentum
Content Creation Gear
The equipment setup for recording podcasts, YouTube, and video, mobile and studio.
By James Schramko
Content Production Routine
How social media content moves from idea to published post.
By James Schramko
Conversational Conversions
Turn content and emails into conversations that lead to sales.
By James Schramko
EPIC Social Media
Write social posts with the EPIC framework: Engage, Problem, Insight, Call to action.
By James Schramko
Essential Membership Emails
The minimum email sequences for onboarding and retaining paying members.
By James Schramko
Five Beat Video Scripts
Write short video scripts that hold attention and land a point, five beats, repeatable.
By James Schramko
LinkedIn Growth Playbook
Grow authority on LinkedIn through positioning and consistency.
By James Schramko
The Content Octopus
One core asset, eight distribution arms, more reach from the same original thinking.
By James Schramko
The Porch Light
Content that keeps a light on for the people who already know you, so they can find their way back years later.
By James Schramko
O - Own The Outcome
Own the Racecourse (OTR)
Control what you can.
By James Schramko
Still Running the Business You Started
The version of you that built this business is not the version it needs to run it now.
By James Schramko
The Owner's Playbook
Five principles for building a business that reflects your values and serves your life.
By James Schramko