Business Madness: Three Case Studies of Game-Changing Success

Part 1: How a Strategic Game Plan Turned Hiring Challenges into Competitive Advantage

Do you know what time of year it is?

Sure, Q1 is wrapping up, and sure, spring is on the horizon—but that’s not what we’re talking about. It’s the season so many people have been waiting for... March Madness. The energy is electric, the stakes are high, and everyone’s hoping this will be the year their bracket doesn’t bust.

Every year, men’s college basketball teams enter the tournament with talent, drive, and big ambitions—but only the ones with a strong game plan and ability to adapt to challenges in front of them make it to the championship. Winning teams don’t step onto the court without a strategy, right? Well, the same can be said about business strategy, yet many companies approach their processes like a pickup game—reacting in the moment instead of executing a winning playbook.

A previous Energy & Utilities client we worked with found themselves in this exact situation. They had everything they needed to win—demand for workers, a capable HR team, and a solid workforce—but their hiring process was holding them back from reaching their full potential and capitalizing on growth opportunities.

Running an Outdated Playbook

For years, this company ran the same outdated plays—paper applications, manual reviews, and endless paperwork. Every time they needed to scale up for hiring, they scrambled to fill positions, struggling to keep up with demand. There was no system, no automation—just long hours and unnecessary obstacles.

The result? Missed opportunities, frustrated HR teams, and a process that felt like an endless scramble rather than a smooth, fast break to success. They were working blind with no single source of truth, distracted by the fear that something would slip through the cracks. Inefficiencies, duplicate data, and multiple systems created a web of chaos that slowed them down even further.

They were burning out trying to keep up, and when a critical hiring surge hit, their outdated system collapsed under the pressure. Positions sat unfilled for weeks, workloads piled onto already overburdened teams, and the business started losing ground to competitors who moved faster. That’s when they knew—something had to change.

The Playbook Upgrade: A Smarter, Faster Hiring Strategy

They decided it was time to upgrade their game plan, and that’s where SETGO came in—helping them put together game-winning processes and strategies. We worked closely with the team to streamline their hiring process and eliminate the bottlenecks they didn’t even know were holding them back.

Here’s what we recommended:

• Implement a more efficient approval process during the pre-sales flow to ensure smooth communication and proper handling when the servicing entity wasn't the business entity.

• Introduce a duplication management process for accounts and contacts, eliminating the chaos of duplicate data and the risk of errors due to miscommunication.

• Review and update existing automations to improve efficiency, sustainability, and ensure the system stayed current with their needs.

• Streamline and reconcile data collection across entities—from the account to the opportunity record—to ensure all relevant information was accurate and accessible in a single, cohesive system.

• Most importantly, develop and implement a plan to eliminate the "master document"—removing unnecessary manual processes and making way for a more streamlined, automated system that could scale with future hiring demands.
  

With these upgrades, they could stop scrambling, start executing a winning strategy, and move at a pace they could control.

Breaking Away from the Competition

Once the company was running these new plays, everything changed.

Hiring that once took days now took minutes, allowing the team to bring on talent at a much faster pace. The stress of compliance headaches was eliminated with a fully integrated onboarding system, ensuring that all documents were completed on time. When hiring demands surged, the company was no longer caught off guard; they could scale up quickly and efficiently without the usual chaos.

But it wasn’t just about implementing better technology—it was about putting the right strategy behind it to ensure long-term success.

Salesforce gave them the power to build a customized, winning playbook that fit their business, automated what mattered, and eliminated inefficiencies they didn’t even know were holding them back. Now with an efficient system in place, they had the structure and automation they needed to move fast without sacrificing quality. No more scrambling, no more bottlenecks—just a smooth, scalable hiring process designed for long-term success.

With the right tools, strategy, and execution, they didn’t just hire faster—they gained a competitive edge and started winning.

Is Your Hiring Playbook Costing You the Game?

In college basketball, teams running outdated plays get outpaced by their competition. The same applies to your business—if your processes are stuck in the past, it’s time to rethink your playbook.

Stop playing defense and start controlling the pace of your business. If you're ready to stop scrambling and start winning, let's build a playbook that leads you to championship victory.