Friday, October 30, 2026

One client had 123 customers. Eight of them delivered 42% of total revenue. Here's the A-B-C-D grading system that tells you which customers actually matter.

It's 9pm and you're still working the phone. Another follow-up text, another "just checking in," another deal that needs one more push to close. You tell yourself the hustle is the job. Some nights you wonder if you can keep doing this.

Before you add another hour to the chase, ask a harder question: is the offer doing any of the selling, or is it all you?

Nine companies founded or co-founded, some very successful and some outright failures, taught me the same lesson about sales every time: an owner who has to personally convince every customer doesn't have a sales process. They have a treadmill.

The enemy is "sales is a hustle"

The advice everywhere says the same thing: more calls, more hours, more follow-up, more grit. Nobody tells you that if every deal needs your personal persuasion to close, the problem isn't your effort — it's what you're selling and how. Hustle papers over a weak offer. It never fixes one.

Fix the offer, not the chase

Alex Hormozi's Value Equation gives this a shape you can actually work with: value equals the dream outcome times the likelihood of achieving it, divided by the time it takes and the effort and sacrifice required. Every "almost closed" deal you're chasing right now is weak on one of those four. Chasing harder doesn't fix the equation. Changing it does.

  • Raise the likelihood — proof, guarantees, a smaller first step, so belief doesn't rest on your charm alone.
  • Shrink the time and effort — anything that delays the outcome or adds hassle is a reason a prospect goes quiet, not a reason to follow up again.
  • Make the dream outcome specific — vague benefits need a salesperson to translate them; a specific one sells itself.

I've built nine companies, and not all of them worked. The ones that struggled always had the same tell: I was the offer. The moment I stepped back, sales slowed, because nothing about what we sold made the decision easy without me in the room. The businesses that grew without burning me out were the ones where the offer did that work instead.

"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

Why this gets missed

Fixing an offer feels slower than making one more call, so exhausted owners keep calling instead. It's the wrong trade. An hour spent tightening the guarantee, the proof or the first step pays out on every deal after it; an hour spent chasing pays out once, if you're lucky, and leaves you exactly as tired tomorrow.

This isn't for you if you'd rather keep perfecting your pitch than look honestly at what you're pitching.

Key takeaways

  • Stop chasing harder on a weak offer — it just delays noticing it's weak.
  • Use the Value Equation to find which lever — likelihood, time, effort or the outcome itself — is actually stuck.
  • Specify the outcome — a specific one sells itself; a vague one needs you in every room.
  • Build the selling into the offer, not into the hustle, if you want growth that doesn't burn you out.

If you're exhausted from chasing and the close rate still isn't moving, the fix usually isn't more hustle.

Monday, September 21, 2026

You're tracking the wrong competitors. The business quietly stalling your growth is solving your customer's problem a completely different way — and it's not on your spreadsheet.

Monday, September 21, 2026

The cheapest audience in your market isn't strangers — it's your competitors' unhappy customers. Here's how to build a marketing campaign that speaks directly to them.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Winning deals teaches you what worked once. Losing deals, reviewed properly, reveals exactly where your sales process breaks — and keeps breaking until someone looks.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Big systems feel like progress but rarely fix productivity. The dozen small daily frictions nobody's bothered to remove are usually the real cost.

Monday, September 21, 2026

The cheapest coaching option is often the most expensive one once you count the year it fails to fix. Here's what a coaching engagement should actually deliver for the price.

Monday, September 21, 2026

The fastest way to grow isn't always a bigger ad budget — it's borrowing the trust a complementary business has already earned with your exact customer.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Dollar sales are up 0.8% but real unit demand fell 1.7% in the latest US retail data. If your revenue growth is just a price story, here's how to find out — and fix it.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Most business plans are fiction the moment they're printed. Here's the 3-step Resource Alignment Audit that reveals the strategy you're actually running — and how to close the gap before it costs you another quarter.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Most small business marketing budgets chase the customers who already love you. Category Entry Point Mapping shows why that caps your growth — and where the real customers are hiding.

Monday, September 21, 2026

More leads won't fix a slow sales pipeline. Learn the sales velocity formula SME owners rarely calculate — and the one lever that moves revenue faster than any lead-gen campaign.

Monday, September 21, 2026

"It's faster if I do it myself" is quietly capping your business's growth. Learn the $200-an-Hour Test to see what your delegation debt is really costing you.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Anyone can get certified as a business coach in a weekend. Almost nobody has actually built what they're advising you to build. Here's the Scar Tissue Test to tell the difference.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Winning deals and building compounding growth are not the same thing. Learn the Compounding Growth Audit to see if your business is actually building an asset — or starting from zero every quarter.

Monday, September 21, 2026

16% of grocery households now have someone using a GLP-1 medication — and they're buying less across your category, not switching brands. Here's the three-step Appetite Audit for your range before Q4.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Most SME owners compete by trying to be better than everyone else — and that's exactly why they're stuck. Here's the 3-step framework to become the only option instead.