Thursday, October 29, 2026
A lot of owners try the wrong format, see no shift, and decide coaching doesn't work for them. Here's what a peer room is actually good for, what 1:1 coaching is actually good for, and a 3-check way to pick.
You check the top line and it's up again on last year. You check the bank balance and it somehow isn't. You know you worked harder this year than last, took on more jobs, more customers, more weeks that ran long — and yet there's less left at the end of it than there used to be. You're not imagining it, and you're not doing anything obviously wrong. You're just chasing the number that doesn't actually pay the bills.
Only 30% of US small business owners finished 2025 with profits above what they'd expected, down sharply from 57% at the end of 2024 — a near-halving in a single year (Bluevine's 2026 Business Owner Success Survey, fielded November 2025 among 1,067 US owners). Costs rose faster than most pricing did: in that same survey, 34% of owners said rising supply costs hit them and 31% named inflation specifically, while only 28% had actually raised their prices in response. Revenue kept climbing. Margin quietly didn't follow it. That gap is where your missing bank balance is hiding.
I worked with a solvent business facing exactly this problem. They raised their price from $40 to $50 a unit. Their cost to deliver didn't move, so their margin went from $5 a unit to $15 — triple the margin, on the exact same volume. To hit that same extra profit by chasing more revenue instead, at the old margin, they'd have needed to roughly triple their turnover, selling three times as much for a third of the extra work this price change actually took. Not one client complained. The business had simply never tested whether the market would bear the real cost of what they were worth.
"Kevin's knowledge and intellect on all things business — no matter what industry it is — he just seems to find gems that you can focus on."
— John Roberts, Co-owner and COO, Oragene
Revenue is the easier number to talk about — it only goes up when things are going well, and it feels good to say out loud. Margin tells the truer, harder story, and most owners would rather not look at it closely enough to find out what it's actually saying. That's the real obstacle, not the maths. A second, less attached pair of eyes on your numbers usually finds the margin leak inside a single working session, because they're not protecting the story you've been telling yourself about why this year has been busy.
This isn't for you if growing the top line is the only scoreboard you care about. It's for you if you're ready to find out what your business is actually worth charging for.
If your revenue is climbing faster than your bank balance, that's usually the first gap we close.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
When you are surrounded by your industry, it is hard to see the wood for the trees. Here is why an outside perspective finds growth moves insiders miss, and how US owners can use it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Small businesses grow at half the rate of big ones, and it is not about budget. Techaisle's 2026 global survey reveals why depth of relationships beats contact count, and how to build your own Dream 10 this week.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Rising revenue feels like proof the business is winning. If your margin is quietly shrinking at the same time, you are growing broke. Here is the three-line check that catches it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
January feels like the obvious month to commit to a coach. It is actually the worst one. Here is why the owners who get the most out of coaching start in November instead.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Wrong hires are now costing Australian SMEs an estimated 7.3 billion dollars a year. The mistake almost never happens in the interview room. Here is where it actually happens.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Somewhere in your pipeline right now is a buyer whose budget has to be spent before their financial year ends. Here is how to find them before a competitor does.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most SME marketing budget goes to whichever channel the owner already knows, never the one that would actually work best. Here is the simple test that finds it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most strategic plans fail quietly, from an optimism nobody questioned out loud. Here is the 20-minute pre-mortem that finds the weak spot before you commit a dollar to it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
What a business coach for an NZ food, beverage or FMCG brand should do: price waterfall, real constraint, velocity story and a 90-day plan.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
73% of small business owners feel more confident than ever, yet 57% have flat or falling revenue. Here is the real constraint behind the gap, and the 15-minute test that exposes it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME owners know their cost per click. Almost none know their true cost to win a customer, because the real costs live in four different spreadsheets nobody has ever combined.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
A pleasant weekly chat and a structured coaching session can look identical from the outside. Here's exactly what should be happening in the room if the second one is real.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME task lists have no visible connection to the goal on the whiteboard. OKRs fix that gap in three simple steps, without turning your week into a spreadsheet exercise.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Giving away a free sample, audit or pilot feels like it removes risk for the prospect. Mostly it just removes their reason to commit. Here's the structure that converts instead.
Monday, October 05, 2026
There is no single best business coach in the USA. Here are five criteria for choosing one, a fair look at the main formats, and why an outside perspective can change what you see in your own business.