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.
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.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
A 2026 survey of 1,500 business owners found 32% have never taken a full week off. Kevin D'Ambros-Smith on why that's a systems problem, not dedication — and what the regret data reveals about coaching and support.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Most SME growth plans have one forecast and no backup. Here's how to build a 90-day roadmap with base, stretch, and contraction scenarios — plus the trigger points that tell you when to act.
Friday, September 04, 2026
New 2026 data shows only 6% of SME owners feel ready to grow. Kevin D'Ambros-Smith breaks down why the barriers everyone blames are shared by every owner — and what actually separates the 6% who feel ready.
Friday, September 04, 2026
88% of business leaders are confident about growth in 2026 — the highest since 2019. But 74% worry about cybersecurity and only 12% plan on a rolling basis. Here's why confidence without a planning system is exposure, not readiness.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Landing the big account feels like the win that changes everything. Here's how to spot customer concentration risk before one client's decision decides your year.
Friday, September 04, 2026
"It felt useful" isn't a return on coaching. Here's how to actually measure whether a business coaching engagement is working — and what to do if it isn't.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Decision fatigue, not hours worked, is what wrecks an owner's judgment by Thursday. Here's how to batch routine decisions and protect the ones that actually need you.
Friday, September 04, 2026
The highest-probability sale in your business is sitting in your existing customer file. Here's how to systemise cross-sell and upsell instead of leaving it to chance.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Claims about your own business don't convert — customer proof does. Here's how to systemise the kind of proof that actually moves prospects, on any marketing budget.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A new 2026 survey of 1,305 owners found only 20% would trust AI alone with a major growth decision — most still want a human in the room. Here's what that, and what owners really call "winning," means for your business.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most owners build strategy around growth targets, not whether the business would survive a buyer's due diligence. Here's why the exit-ready test is the sharpest strategy audit you're not running.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Hiring too early burns cash on capacity you don't need yet; hiring too late caps growth before anyone admits it. Here's how to time headcount off real capacity signals instead of a gut feeling.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Friends validate the decision you've already made. A good coach asks what's actually underneath it. Here's why that single question is the real value of business coaching — and why it's meant to be uncomfortable.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Constant switching between finance, sales, and operations quietly drains an SME owner's decision quality all day long. Here's how day-theming groups similar work together and ends the context-switching tax.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A single price turns every sale into a yes-or-no decision on cost alone. Here's why packaging your offer into three tiers changes the conversation, protects margin, and closes more deals without discounting.