Saturday, November 07, 2026

Four options, four different jobs. A plain guide to who EOS, Dent's Key Person of Influence, EO New Zealand and one-to-one coaching each suit, built only from what each publishes.

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.

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.

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Most SME owners make their biggest calls alone, with no one qualified to challenge them. Here's how to build a "kitchen cabinet" that gives you real strategic pushback — without a formal board.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Revenue is climbing and you feel like you're winning — until you check what's actually left over. Here's the simple two-number habit that stops growth from quietly eating your margin.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Your accountant, a podcast, a mastermind group and a mate all just told you something different about your business. Here's how to audit that noise and consolidate around one voice that actually knows your numbers.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Every new hire without a system takes twice as long to become productive, and you end up re-explaining the same things forever. The 90-Day Ramp Map fixes that in four steps.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Your best salesperson might be the one quietly eating your margin. Here's how to audit and rebuild your commission structure so it rewards the sales that actually grow your business.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Most SME owners quietly go quiet on marketing right when customers are buying the most. Here's the simple plan to hold your ground through Nov-Jan without burning out your team or your budget.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

That pricing review, that org chart, that product line nobody will kill — they're not neutral. Learn how to spot and pay down the strategic debt quietly taxing every decision you make.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Most business owners survive the slow season and wait for trading to pick up. The ones who grow fastest use the quiet to fix last peak's bottlenecks, cross-train their teams, and renegotiate supplier terms.

Wednesday, September 09, 2026

When coaching starts feeling comfortable, most owners think they've outgrown their coach. Usually they've just outgrown the scope. Here's how the Scope Reset Conversation keeps a great coaching relationship producing great results.