Tuesday, November 03, 2026
The Entourage or Simple-Growth: who each suits, what The Entourage publishes on price and proof, and seven questions to ask before you apply. Checked 4 November 2026.
Revenue's up on last year. You should be celebrating. Instead you're staring at the bank balance wondering where it all went, because somewhere between saying yes to every job that came in the door, the margin quietly evaporated. More revenue was supposed to feel like more room to breathe. It feels like running faster for the same result.
Xero's 2026 research found rising costs are cited by 44% of US owners as a leading stress driver (Xero Emotional Tax Return, 2026). But rising costs are only half the story for a lot of owners. The other half is saying yes to everything, because nobody's ever written down, in one sentence, what this business is actually best at.
I've founded or co-founded nine companies, and the ones that grew their margin, not just their turnover, all had one thing in common: they knew exactly what they wouldn't do.
It feels risky to turn work away when revenue already feels tight. So owners say yes to the client outside their specialty, the rush job that blows the schedule, the discount to win the deal that was never going to be profitable anyway. Each yes feels harmless alone. Together, they're exactly why revenue climbs and margin doesn't.
Jim Collins studied what separated genuinely great companies from merely good ones, and found they could all answer one question with total clarity: where do three things overlap?
Where those three genuinely overlap is where this business should be saying yes. Everywhere else is where the margin is quietly leaking out.
"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
One of the businesses I founded, Sign60, was built around a single-sentence promise: a signpost up in 60 seconds. Not every kind of signage. Not every kind of install. One sharp overlap between what we could genuinely be fastest at, what actually made money, and what the team cared about doing well. We ran it against a 100-day action plan so the focus didn't drift back to "yes to everything" within a month of writing it down.
Writing the Hedgehog sentence is the easy part. Saying no to the next client who doesn't fit it, while the bank balance is still tight, takes a kind of nerve most owners don't have alone — because the downside of saying yes feels immediate, and the upside of saying no only shows up months later in the margin line. That gap is exactly where having someone outside the business, holding you to the sentence you wrote, earns its keep.
This isn't for you if you'd rather keep every type of job coming through the door than risk a quiet month while you refocus. It is for owners ready to trade some revenue for a business that's actually worth running.
More revenue was never the actual goal. A business that's good at one thing, and paid properly for it, is.
If you've never written down the one sentence this business should say yes to, that's the first thing we'd build together.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most productivity advice optimises the calendar you already have. The real fix is deciding what doesn't belong on it. Here's the 90/10 diagnostic for finding — and protecting — the small share of your week that actually drives growth.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most sales training focuses on the pitch and the close. The outcome is usually decided in the first five minutes. Here's the diagnostic-first opening sequence that changes conversion rates without changing your product or your price.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most SME marketing leads with product specs. Buyers respond to stories. Here's the system for finding, capturing, and multiplying the customer stories you already have — with an FMCG-specific angle on letting the shelf and repeat-purchase data talk.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most SME owners treat pricing as a set-and-forget cost calculation. Here's why price is actually the highest-leverage growth lever in your business — and the three-number method for testing whether you're underpriced.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A new study puts SME admin overload at $17,000 per employee a year — and finds AI tools alone aren't fixing it. Why systems have to come before software.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A business can grow revenue 40% in a year and be in more financial danger at the end of it than the start. Here's why fast growth without a cash plan is a warning sign, not a win.
Friday, September 04, 2026
The first ninety days of coaching are almost always productive. Here's why so many engagements quietly plateau around month six, and how to keep them accelerating.
Friday, September 04, 2026
If your business needs you in the room to keep functioning, you haven't built a business — you've built a demanding job. Here's how to test and fix that.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Chasing every enquiry equally is why sales teams stay busy and pipelines stay thin. Here's the qualification filter that protects your best sellers' time for leads that will actually close.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A shopper's eye moves across a shelf in under three seconds — if your packaging or marketing needs explaining, it's already lost. Here's what actually earns the second look.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most growth plans set a revenue number and never check whether the business can actually deliver it. Here's how to build strategy around your real capacity constraint instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67% of SME owners fund growth mainly from personal savings, 38% from credit cards, and only 22% from a bank loan. Why that's a risk, not a strategy — and what a real capital plan looks like instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67.4% of small business owners know they need a price rise — only 31% have made it. Here's why pricing needs a system, not nerve, and what that system looks like for SME and FMCG owners.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Every scaling SME hits the same transition — from a business that runs on the founder's instincts to one that runs on a team making good decisions without checking first. Here's how the ones that navigate it deliberately do it.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Being "coachable" isn't a fixed trait some owners have and others don't — it's a decision made fresh every week. Here's what actually determines whether coaching sticks.