Thursday, November 05, 2026
Revenue's climbing and the bank balance still isn't. The real fix usually isn't your price — it's that your marketing never said who you're actually for.
Every week Kevin gets some version of the same question from a founder comparing programmes: should I join a group coaching cohort or work with someone one-on-one? Most people answer it by budget, which is exactly backwards — the right answer depends on the stage your business is at, not what's left in the marketing line of your profit and loss statement. Get the format wrong and you can pay for the right advice in the wrong container and still barely move the needle. After running both formats himself, and referring clients into whichever one actually fits, Kevin's view is that the stage of your business predicts the right answer more reliably than almost anything else.
The assumption that group coaching and one-on-one coaching are simply different price points on the same product is where most owners go wrong. They're different tools solving different problems. Group coaching is powerful when the problem is common — pricing discipline, delegation, marketing fundamentals — because you learn as much from watching ten other owners solve it as from the material itself. One-on-one is powerful when the problem is specific to your business — a leadership team not functioning, a pivot decision, a founder conflict — because nobody else in a room of ten needs to hear the details of your cap table.
1. Name the problem — Write down the single biggest thing holding growth back right now. Be specific, not "everything."
2. Ask if it's common or unique — Would fifty other SME owners in different industries recognise this exact problem? If yes, it's likely a group-coaching problem. If it's specific to your team, your numbers, or your history, it needs one-on-one.
3. Check the stage, not just the topic — Pre-$1M businesses usually get more from group cohorts, where the fundamentals still apply broadly. Past the first team-led transition, most owners need the specificity one-on-one provides.
The businesses that get this wrong most often are the ones who join a group programme for a problem that was actually unique to them, and leave saying coaching "didn't work" — when the format, not the coaching, was the mismatch.
"You make success tangible. Help me go from a wish to reality. Now have clarity of purpose and belief. You made tripling the size of my business go from seeming impossible to really possible."
— Lina, Good Gravy
Budget conversations happen before stage conversations, almost every time — group coaching is priced lower, so it gets chosen by default, regardless of whether the problem actually fits it. The honest fix is a conversation before enrolment, not after three sessions of frustration: what's actually broken, and which format was built to fix it. A good coach will tell you when their own group programme isn't the right fit for your specific problem — that's a signal worth paying attention to, not a sales objection to push past.
If you're not sure which format fits where your business is right now, that's a five-minute conversation worth having before you enrol in anything.
...and you become the owner who chooses the coaching format that fits your stage, not just your budget.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Most SME owners can tell you their revenue. Almost none can tell you which customers are actually making them a profit. New 2026 research shows why that gap is the real growth problem, and a three-step fix.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
The average small business gets 27 percent of revenue from one customer. Here is the three-question check that tells you whether your growth is real, or just concentration in disguise.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Coaching can return seven times its cost, PwC research suggests, but rarely from where owners expect. Here is where the real ROI on a business coach actually shows up.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Gallup found managers think they give weekly feedback, their teams say otherwise. See why your business systems depend on a conversation most owners are avoiding.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
56 percent of stalled B2B deals end in no decision, not a lost sale to a competitor. Here is why your prospects go quiet after saying yes, and the direct question that gets them talking again.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
The median landing page converts at 6.6 percent, and most SME websites never get close. Here is what the top quartile actually does differently, and why fixing it beats spending more on ads.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Most growth plans start with last year's number plus a guess. Here is the three-number market-sizing check that separates a real plan from a wish list.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Nearly 8 in 10 small business owners say long-term planning feels harder than ever. The usual fix, a better template, isn't the one that works — here's the exercise that fixes it before you build the plan.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
NZ retail lifted productivity 9.1% without adding hours, while national output per employee fell. Here's how to grow revenue before you grow headcount.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Most owners expect a coach to fix things in week one. Here's what actually happens in the first 90 days, and why that structure is the real breakthrough.
Friday, October 16, 2026
A 2026 Bain survey found fewer than half of CEOs believe their company can execute fast enough, even with full teams and budgets behind them. Here is the weekly rhythm that turns a good plan into tracked progress for an owner running the show solo.
Friday, October 16, 2026
A bank survey found 98% of small business owners do not know their company's value. Most shrug because they are not selling. That is the mistake: the work that lifts value is the same work that lifts growth right now.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Global surveys put client satisfaction with coaching at 95 percent good or excellent. The unhappy minority almost always skipped the same three checks before they signed. Here is what to check before you do.
Friday, October 16, 2026
67% of founders work more than 50 hours a week, and most of those hours go to re-explaining tasks or double-checking work that did not need it. The fix is matching your leadership style to each task's readiness level.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Seventy-seven percent of B2B buyers call their last purchase complex, with six to ten people in the room. Most SME sales reps still pitch like there is only one decision maker, then blame price when the deal goes quiet.