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.

Ask most SME sales teams what they sold last month and you'll get a strangely narrow answer — the same two or three offers, on repeat, regardless of what's actually in the catalogue. Most sales teams sell what's easy to explain, not what's most valuable to the customer — and that habit is quietly capping revenue in businesses that have spent years building a broader, higher-margin range nobody is pitching. If your highest-margin products or services are gathering dust while reps default to the same familiar offer, you don't have a demand problem. You have a comfort-zone problem.

The Problem Reframe: The Comfort Zone Sale

The enemy is what Kevin calls the Comfort Zone Sale — the offer a rep can explain in one sentence, price without hesitation, and close without needing to ask a single diagnostic question. It feels efficient. It is actually expensive, because it trains customers to associate your business with your cheapest, simplest offer, and it leaves your best-margin work permanently unsold. This is a well-documented pattern in complex and solution-based selling: the more a sale requires understanding a customer's situation before recommending the right fit, the more reps default to the option that needs the least understanding. It's the entire reason methodologies like SPIN Selling exist — to force a structured conversation about situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff before a rep is allowed to reach for the easy answer.

You can see how this plays out in considered, complex sales environments in HubSpot's breakdown of complex selling — the pattern holds whether you're selling enterprise software or premium FMCG ranging.

The Framework: Full Menu Selling

Full Menu Selling is the discipline of making sure every customer conversation actually covers what you sell — not just what's comfortable to sell.

1. Map the menu — list every product or service line and rank it by margin, not by how often it's currently pitched. The gap between the two rankings is your revenue leak.

2. Build the bridge question — give reps one specific question per high-margin line that naturally surfaces whether the customer needs it (“Are you still handling X in-house, or has that become a headache?”). One question is enough; it doesn't need to be a script.

3. Track the mix, not just the total — stop measuring reps only on revenue. Add a simple product-mix metric to the weekly pipeline review so the comfort-zone habit becomes visible, not invisible.

“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

The Execution Gap: Why Reps Default to the Easy Sale Anyway

Owners often assume this is a training problem. It rarely is — most reps already know the full range. The real obstacle is that the comfort-zone sale is safer for the rep personally: it closes faster, gets fewer objections, and doesn't risk the awkwardness of a customer saying no to something unfamiliar. Fixing this requires accountability from outside the sales team itself — someone tracking the product mix, asking why the highest-margin line hasn't been pitched in a month, and making that conversation routine rather than confrontational.

Quick Wins This Week

  • Rank your product or service lines by margin and compare it to what's actually being pitched.
  • Write one bridge question for your highest-margin, least-pitched offer.
  • Add product mix as a line item in your next pipeline review.

Key Takeaways

  • Identify the gap between what's most profitable and what's most pitched.
  • Equip reps with one bridge question per high-margin line, not a new script.
  • Measure product mix weekly, not just total revenue.
  • Expect resistance — the comfort-zone sale is safer for the rep, not the business.

If your best-margin products are the ones your team pitches least, that's the first gap Kevin helps you close.

...and you become the owner whose team sells the full menu, not just the easy offer.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Most SME marketing describes the product and targets a demographic — and both miss why people actually buy. Here's the Jobs To Be Done framework, and how to find the job your business is really being hired to do.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Nearly half of businesses miss the target they set for themselves — and it's rarely because the team didn't try hard enough. Here's the three-number check that builds a 2027 target you can actually hit.

Monday, October 26, 2026

ActionCOACH, an EOS Implementer or an independent coach? A fair, source-linked guide for US owners, with a six-question test to match the help to your biggest constraint.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Gallup's 2026 global workplace data shows manager engagement is collapsing faster than everyone else's. Here's the research-backed 3-step fix for SME owners wearing the manager hat too.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Only about a third of seasonal businesses hold enough cash to cover their leanest months before the slow season hits. Here's the ten-minute reserve check before this year's peak trade.

Monday, October 26, 2026

A well-known coaching ROI study found a $7.90 return per $1 spent. Here's an honest look at where that number comes from, and what actually transfers to an SME owner.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Only around 20% of companies complete 80% of their strategic goals, and fewer than half of employees know what's expected of them. Here's how OKRs fix that at SME scale.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Bain research shows winning a new customer can cost up to 25 times more than keeping one you already have. Here's the CLV/CAC discipline that flips where your sales effort goes.

Monday, October 26, 2026

A 2026 Gartner survey found SMEs put just 12% of marketing spend into brand-building, against the 60% long-term research recommends. Here's what that costs you eighteen months from now.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Fewer than 5% of employees understand their company's strategy well enough to act on it. Here's the one-page scorecard that fixes it, reviewed in 15 minutes a week.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Help to Grow: Management, a peer group like Vistage, or a business coach? An honest UK comparison, with best for and not ideal if for every option.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Free and low-cost mentoring suits some NZ owners; paid coaching suits others. Here is how to tell which fits your stage, your problem and your budget.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Most SME owners know their follower count, not where their last ten paying customers actually came from. Here is the 2026 data on what really drives growth.

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.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

More people call themselves a business coach than ever before. Here's the one test that actually separates a coach who gets results from one who just talks.