Monday, November 09, 2026
What does a business coach cost in the US? The published price points, where each comes from, six questions to ask before you sign and a simple payback test.
Last updated 12 November 2026. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Market: United States.
Revenue's up again this year. You still don't feel any richer, and if someone asked what the business is actually worth, you'd be guessing. You want to be building something with real value, not just a job with more complexity and worse hours than the one you left. What you might actually be building is a business that only works because you personally hold it together every day — which, to anyone looking to buy it, isn't really worth very much at all.
In Cornerstone's 2025 National Study on Selling Your Business, surveying 750 US owners of privately held companies with revenue between $5 million and $100 million, 61% said they had never had their business formally valued. Most owners build for years without ever finding out what, if anything, they've actually built — until the day they need to know, which is usually the worst possible time to find out the answer is “not much without you.”
Entrepreneur and author John Warrillow studied what separates businesses that sell for a strong multiple from ones that don't, and built it into eight value drivers — among them, critically, how much the business depends on the owner personally.
Kevin has founded or co-founded nine businesses — some genuinely successful, some real failures. The lesson he takes from both kinds isn't about hustle. It's that the businesses worth something to someone else were the ones that kept running properly when he stepped back, and the failures were, more often than he'd like to admit, the ones that only ever worked because he personally held every piece of it together. Knowing the difference, he says, is exactly why his job as a coach is to help owners grow — and help them avoid the mistakes that quietly cap what they're building.
Try this test this week: pick one of the three value drivers above and score your business honestly out of ten. If “owner independence” scores low, that's not just a future exit problem — it's the reason you can't take a real holiday now, and the reason growth keeps feeling like more weight on the same person. Fixing it is the same work either way.
“Kevin is an absolute powerhouse! He doubled our business's profits in the first month alone with lots more of his recommendations still to be rolled out.”
Curtis Hacon
Give A Sh!T
Getting a real answer feels like it only matters if you're selling soon, so it's easy to put off indefinitely. This isn't for you if you've already scored well on owner-independence and recurring revenue, and you genuinely know what the business is worth — most owners haven't, and don't. For everyone else, the gap between “growing” and “valuable” is usually hiding in plain sight, in the same three or four places.
Because the same things that make it valuable to a buyer — independence from you, recurring revenue, loyal customers — are what make it less stressful and more profitable to run today.
A framework from John Warrillow scoring a business on eight value drivers, including how dependent it is on the owner, to show what actually makes it worth more.
A formal valuation or a structured value-driver assessment are the two reliable starting points; guessing from revenue alone usually isn't close.
Yes — a business that stops running properly without the owner in the room is typically worth far less to a buyer, whatever its revenue.
Source: Cornerstone, 2025 National Study on Selling Your Business, United States, 750 owners of privately held companies with $5 million to $100 million in revenue. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Last updated 12 November 2026.
If you've never actually found out what your business is worth, that's a half-hour conversation, not a five-year plan.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most SME marketing still targets a customer persona sketched out years ago. Here's how to find out who's actually buying — and fix the mismatch.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most SME sales proposals are built to impress, not to close. Here's the one-page format that gets buyers to yes faster.
Monday, September 21, 2026
If Sunday afternoon has become the least relaxing part of your weekend, it's a design problem, not a discipline one. Here's the fix.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most owners choose a coaching format by budget, not by stage. Here's the test that shows which format actually fits your business right now.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Private label deals look like free growth — until they quietly cost you margin, capacity, and control. Here's how to protect your brand before signing.
Monday, September 21, 2026
New global research says 68% of small business owners now choose stability over speed — and that's the smarter growth strategy. Here's the 3-step Depth Audit to grow without breaking what you've built.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Most growth strategies don't fail because the market changed — they fail because nobody tested the assumptions underneath them. Here's the four-question audit that catches the weak spot before it costs you a year.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Your website, socials, and sales team may all be telling a slightly different story. Consistent brands see up to 33% more revenue — here's the one-page Message Map that fixes the drift.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Sales closes the deal, then delivery loses the customer within a quarter. The one-page Handover Brief that carries the promise, the anxiety, and the customer's real definition of success forward.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Every interruption costs roughly 23 minutes of refocus time, not seconds. The Protected Block system that stops "always available" from quietly destroying your most productive hours.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Coaching doesn't feel like steady progress — it dips hard around week five before the real structural change lands. Here's the 90-day curve nobody warns owners about, and why it matters.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
The instincts that built your first million will cap your next five if you don't replace them. Greiner's Growth Model explains why — and the Stage Check that shows if you've already outgrown your playbook.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
A new NielsenIQ study found 58% of shoppers don't care if it's your brand or the store's own. Here's the 3-step test to see if your FMCG brand earns its price premium.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Chasing every dollar of revenue isn't a growth strategy — it's a collection plate. Here's the four-question filter Kevin uses with clients before any deal gets signed.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Most SMEs treat marketing spend like rent — fixed, tolerated, never questioned. Here's the 70-20-10 test-and-learn loop that turns it into compounding evidence instead.