Friday, October 30, 2026
43% of US owners have hidden business stress from their own family. Here's why carrying it alone is the actual problem, and why Kevin hired his own coach.
Ask most SME owners how much of their revenue comes from their single biggest customer, and you'll get a rough guess, usually followed by "but we're fine, they've been with us for years." That's precisely the sentence owners said about the customer who left.
US accounting standards (ASC 280-10-50-42) require public companies to separately disclose any customer that makes up 10% or more of revenue — not because 10% is inherently dangerous, but because regulators decided that's the threshold worth telling investors about. SME owners rarely have to disclose anything to anyone, which is exactly why customer concentration quietly becomes someone else's problem to notice — usually a bank, a buyer, or an owner's own cash flow, at the worst possible moment.
Run it once and it's uncomfortable in a way no survey needs to prove. A business with four roughly equal customers loses 25% of revenue the day one leaves. A business with one customer at 40% of revenue loses almost half overnight — not because the market turned, not because the team underperformed, but because one phone call happened. That's not pessimism. It's arithmetic every SME owner is running without realising it, every day they don't check the number.
"I have grown my business 5x since working with Kevin. Everything Kevin told me to do was the complete opposite of what I had been doing. Working with Kevin has truly been a complete game changer."
— Richard, Chem Suppliers
The biggest customer is usually also the easiest revenue — the one that doesn't need chasing, the one where the relationship already exists. Deliberately spending time and money on smaller, harder customers to dilute dependence on the easy one feels like working against your own instincts. It is, which is exactly why most owners need someone outside the relationship to make the case for diversifying before the easy customer makes the decision for them.
If you can't say your top customer's share of revenue to the nearest 5% right now, that's the first number we find together.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Jim Collins found that companies which broke away from average performance could name, with brutal precision, what they could be best in the world at. Here's the three-circle test and the goal that pairs with it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Big-brand positioning is a decision, not a budget. Five questions, a one-sentence position and a five-touchpoint audit you can run this week.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Which jobs should a US small business hand to AI first? Published US data, a five-check test and a 30-day plan to pick one job, track one number and keep the decisions that matter.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Most small business owners already believe AI works, but barely one in ten has invested in using it properly. Here is the simple ladder for turning casual AI use into real, compounding productivity gains.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Vet and allied health practices rarely have a clinical problem. Here is how to find the real constraint, keep patients returning and build a 90-day growth plan.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Most SME owners are fixing the wrong problem. Here's the 3-step method that finds the one constraint actually holding your growth back, before you spend another dollar.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
A third of US small business owners say they don't know whether they have the tools — AI included — to grow next year. That's not a confidence problem, it's a visibility one, and it's fixable in an afternoon.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Confidence up a quarter, down the next, tariffs easing then tightening — waiting for certainty is its own decision, and usually the wrong one. Here's a simple way to keep deciding well when the ground keeps moving.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
There's one role almost every SME owner has avoided filling for a year or more — while quietly doing it themselves instead. Here's the Who Not How framework, and the three-step test that makes the hire obvious.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
They nodded, asked great questions, said it's exactly what they need — then disappeared. Here's why warmth isn't a buying signal, and the three-message sequence that gets stalled deals talking again.
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.