Monday, November 09, 2026
Sales are up but the bank balance isn't following. Here's Marc Benioff's V2MOM — the one-page tool that turns a wish-list strategy into the few moves that actually protect your margin.
Saturday morning, and you're on the phone to the client who pays slowest, complains loudest, and changes the brief three times before every job. Meanwhile the client who actually keeps the business afloat hasn't heard from you in six weeks, because they never make a fuss — they just quietly pay on time and reorder. If that sounds familiar, you're not managing a customer base. You're managing whoever shouts.
The villain is a quiet one: the belief that all revenue is good revenue, so every customer earns the same attention, the same discount flexibility, the same Saturday phone call. It feels fair. It's also why some owners work flat out on turnover that barely moves the bank balance.
What you'll miss if this doesn't change: another year spent servicing the loudest half of your customer list, while the quiet, profitable half slowly drifts toward someone who does call them back.
I worked with a client who had 123 customers on the books. We sat down and actually graded them — not by gut feel, by revenue and margin, properly totted up. Eight customers. Just eight, out of 123. Those eight were worth $266,240 of the $630,220 the business turned over that year — well over 40% of revenue from under 7% of the customer list. Nobody had ever added it up before. The owner had been treating customer 9 and customer 119 as equally important, because on paper they looked the same: both "a customer."
"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
Here's the uncomfortable part: the clients draining your weekends are rarely your worst clients by revenue — they're just the ones who ask the most and pay the least in proportion to the noise they make. The fix isn't firing anyone in a dramatic way. It's simply knowing which eight to call first, and treating the discovery as data, not loyalty.
This isn't for you if you'd rather keep every customer exactly equal and keep working every Saturday to prove it. It is for you if you're ready to find out which eight customers are actually running your business.
If you've never actually graded your customer list, that's the one-hour exercise we'd start with.
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.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Eighty-four percent of consumers say they plan to buy from a small business in the next two months. Most of that goodwill never converts, and it is not because customers do not care. It is because there is no specific offer ready to meet them.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Most SME owners are hitting their numbers, so why is confidence falling? The real reason isn't the economy. It's what's missing from next year's plan, and the three-question test that fixes it before you finalise a dollar of it.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Owners testing something new are far more likely to expect faster growth. Here is how to find the adjacent customer segment sitting right next to yours.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Thought a business coach was out of budget? For many eligible NZ businesses, the Regional Business Partner Network can cover a large share of the cost.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Some SME leaders are already getting a half-day a week back from AI. Here is the simple filter that decides what to automate, augment or leave alone.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
It was not the pitch that killed your last deal. It was the four weeks of silence after it. Here is the follow-up sequence most SME sales teams never build.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Most SME marketing stops the moment someone buys once. Here is the Value Ladder that gives your best customers an obvious next step, and why 74 percent never get one.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
A growth plan with no diagnosis is just a wish list with a date on it. Here is the three-part test that separates a real strategy from guesswork, before your next budget gets signed off.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Everyone in your industry follows the same playbook. Here is why fresh eyes beat it, plus a one-hour exercise to borrow a proven idea from another industry this week.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Five lessons from McDonald's own history that a 20-person US business can copy, plus where systems stop and growth questions begin.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Different industries hit different growth constraints. Find the Simple-Growth page written for your type of business, plus two free resources on loyalty and exit planning.