Sunday, October 25, 2026
ANZ's September 2026 survey shows NZ business confidence easing again. Here's the trap that data creates for SME owners, and how growth-minded owners should read it instead.
Short answer: Hand over three jobs first: drafting customer follow-up, drafting marketing, and preparing the admin behind your books. All three are repetitive, easy to check and close to revenue, and in each one you review the work before it goes anywhere. Start with whichever one is closest to your biggest constraint, not the one with the loudest tool.
Most US owners are no longer asking whether to use AI. The question is where to point it first. This guide uses published US data and a simple test so you can choose in an afternoon rather than a quarter.
According to the 2026 Empowering Small Business report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 66% of US small businesses now use AI. That is up from 58% in 2025 and 23% in 2023. The same report lists the most common uses among AI-using businesses: marketing and promotions (41%), improving the customer experience (35%), accounting (31%) and managing customer relationships (31%).
Using AI is not the same as getting value from it. Fortune, reporting on a Goldman Sachs survey of 1,256 small business operators from its small business education program, says only 14% had embedded AI across their core operations, while more than 70% said they would benefit from more training and implementation resources. That sample comes from one program and the figures are self-reported, so treat them as a signal rather than a census. The signal is clear enough: plenty of owners have tried AI, and far fewer have given it a proper job.
The best first jobs share three traits. They repeat every week, a mistake is cheap to catch, and a person can review the output in under a minute. These three fit that description for most owners, in almost any industry.
Look back at the Chamber data. Marketing, customer experience, customer relationships and accounting sit at the top of what US owners actually use AI for. That is not an accident. Those are the jobs where the work is mostly words and routine, and where a first draft saves real time.
The order matters more than the list. If leads go cold because nobody follows up, start with Job 1. If you have plenty of leads but nobody knows what makes you different, start with Job 2 and fix the message before you generate more of it. If you spend Sunday night in a shoebox of receipts, start with Job 3. Owners who skip this step tend to start where the tool is most exciting, not where the business is most stuck.
Run any candidate job through these checks. If it fails two or more, leave it with a person for now.
The last question is the one most owners skip. Without a number, you cannot tell whether AI is saving time or just keeping you busy in a new way. Fortune notes that data privacy is a common concern among small firms using AI, and it is a fair one. Read the data terms of any tool before customer information goes in.
Keep the decisions that define the business: who you serve, what you charge, who you hire, and what you stand for. AI can prepare options and summarize evidence. It cannot know which trade-off you are willing to live with. The best use of the hours you win back is almost always the work only the owner can do, such as talking to customers, strengthening your offer and developing your people.
When you are inside the business every day, everything feels urgent and every tool looks useful. An outsider asks a different question: where is the real constraint, and does this tool touch it? Ideas from other industries help here too. A follow-up routine that works for a dental practice often works for a contractor, and nobody in your own trade is likely to have mentioned it.
Kevin D'Ambros-Smith is a business coach and advisor who has coached 200+ businesses one-on-one across 30+ industries, after a career at DDB, Ogilvy and Saatchi and Saatchi and founding nine companies. He works with US owners online. His approach is to find the real constraint first, then fix it, before you spend another dollar on marketing, hiring or software.
"Working with Kevin has pushed us to step back and look at the business from the outside. He's easy to bounce ideas off, and he keeps us focused on working on the business instead of getting stuck in the day-to-day."
Ben Leitch, Home Lab Store
If you are not sure which kind of help you need first, the short questionnaire at Simple-Growth is a good place to start.
Start with a repetitive, low-risk job that sits next to revenue, such as drafting customer follow-up or marketing first drafts. Pick the one closest to your biggest constraint and keep a person reviewing every output.
Not to begin. Many owners start with general-purpose tools, and paid plans can wait until one job has proven its value. Judge any tool by the number it moves, not by its feature list.
Check the tool's data terms first, and avoid pasting personal customer details unless you are comfortable with how they are stored and used. When in doubt, remove names and account details before you paste.
The US Chamber of Commerce 2026 report found 47% of small businesses say AI is creating jobs today, while 6% say it is enabling headcount reductions. Your own result depends on how you use it.
Yes. Kevin works with US owners online, and the free 30-minute call runs across US time zones.
Walk away with one AI job, one number to track and a clear next step. Book a free 30-minute call with Kevin. It runs online and works across US time zones.
Prefer to read first? Join The Inside Track newsletter for practical growth ideas twice a week.
Kevin and The Simple-Growth Team
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Adding more isn't a strategy — it's a tax on your margin and your attention. Here's the three-step audit that tells you what to cut before you try to grow.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Winning a new customer costs five to seven times more than keeping one. Here's why most SME marketing budgets still get that backwards — and the fix.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Your champion loves the idea — and still can't get it approved alone. Here's the multi-threading framework that stops good B2B deals dying in silence.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
If your best salesperson or only bookkeeper vanished tomorrow, would the business survive? Here's the audit that finds your hidden risk points.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Coaching only works if you say the thing you'd rather not. Here's why the polished update is quietly wasting your sessions — and how to fix it.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
More headcount isn't the same as more growth. Here's why the fastest-scaling SMEs hire fewer, more capable people — and how to test your own team.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
NFIB's newest data shows small business profit trends falling twice as fast as sales, even as owners raise prices. Here's the three-step test to find where your margin is actually leaking.
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.
Sunday, September 13, 2026
FMCG suppliers just got scored on 38 retailer-relationship competencies — and the results reveal a growth capability gap hiding behind operational excellence. Here's the two-bucket audit to fix it before your next category review.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
82% of small business owners are confident about growth — but 53% say a lack of customer demand is their biggest obstacle right now. Here's the framework to tell which one you're building.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Export feels like the natural next step for a ranged FMCG brand — but it's a different business, not a bigger version of the same one. Here's the validation sequence that protects you.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
A certificate proves someone studied coaching — not that they've built or fixed a real business. Here's the vetting checklist that actually predicts results.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Your calendar isn't a record of what you value — it's a record of what you haven't said no to. Run the audit that shows the real gap and how to close it.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Most stalled SME deals aren't lost to a competitor — they're lost to silence. Here's the Urgency Ladder framework that turns "went quiet" into a real answer.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Your website works 24 hours a day, yet most SME sites haven't been touched in years. Run the five-minute audit that shows exactly where it's losing you customers.