Sunday, November 01, 2026
You cancelled the weekend away again. If you can't step away long enough to ask whether a coach is worth it, that's not a reason to skip the question — it's the reason to ask it.
Choose Scaling Up if you lead a team and want a structured platform for People, Strategy, Execution and Cash, with a free assessment to start. Choose Simple-Growth if you are the owner and the first job is to find the one constraint holding the business back before you adopt any platform. They solve different problems, and some owners use both.
A disclosure first: Simple-Growth publishes this guide and Kevin D'Ambros-Smith is an independent business coach, so he is not neutral. That is why this explains who each option suits instead of ranking them, and uses only what Scaling Up says on its own homepage. Checked 3 November 2026. Market: United States.
Scaling Up describes its platform as focused on "the 4 DECISIONS methodology every company must get right": People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. Its homepage leads with "13-30x Your Valuation", offers a free call as the main next step, and shows a badge of 250+ case studies. It is built for CEOs, founders and leadership teams, and it also recruits experienced coaches and consultants to become Scaling Up coaches.
Simple-Growth starts with you, not the platform. It finds the real constraint in your numbers, then builds a 90-day plan around that one thing. Kevin has coached 200+ businesses one-on-one across 30+ industries since 2017.
The practical difference: a platform gives a team a shared framework for every decision. Coaching tells you which decision to make first. If the real problem is that you are the bottleneck, another framework is more to run, not less.
This is not for you if you want a price list to compare today. Scaling Up's homepage says "Investment varies depending on the program and level of engagement" and that pricing is covered on a discovery call. Simple-Growth quotes coaching by conversation too.
Neither publishes a price for the main engagement, so ask each provider for a written 12-month total, including what is and is not included. If you would rather start small and fixed-price, Simple-Growth also offers three self-paced programs from $97: Quick Wins, Making It Happen and Know Your Future. Here is which one fits which problem.
"Kevin has the ability to make everything so simple. He can take something that seems like a complicated task and break this down to 1 or 2 key things, so that achieving the desired outcome becomes easier and very achievable."
Christiana Thomson
Johnson&Laird Talent Management (quoted word for word)
The US Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy reported in February 2026 that there are 36,207,130 small businesses in the United States, employing 62.3 million people, or 45.9% of private-sector workers. You are choosing from a crowded field, and most of those owners are making the choice alone.
No. Scaling Up describes a platform built on four decisions that leadership teams adopt, and it also offers coaching through its own coaches. Simple-Growth is one-on-one work with the owner, starting with a diagnosis. They can complement each other.
Partly. Its homepage lists a free assessment of about 10 minutes, a free A-Players Assessment and a 7-day Scoreboard trial with no credit card required. Check scalingup.com for the current offer.
Neither is automatically better. If you have a leadership team and want a shared framework, a platform may fit. If you are not sure what to fix first, start with a diagnosis.
Yes. Kevin coaches owners online, so location is not a barrier. Book a free conversation and you will leave knowing your likely constraint and what the first 90 days would look like.
Put the same questions to every provider and compare the written answers. A provider who answers with specifics is worth another conversation.
Not sure which suits you? A 30-minute conversation will tell you, and you are welcome to take the answers to any other provider. You can also read how coaching compares with EOS.
Sources (checked 3 November 2026): Scaling Up, home page. SBA Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Businesses 2026, 3 Feb 2026 (United States). The testimonial is quoted word for word from the person named. Last updated 3 November 2026.
Monday, September 07, 2026
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Sunday, September 06, 2026
Burst campaigns reset to zero every time. Here's why a sustainable weekly cadence beats an intense one-month push, and how to protect it through the slow months.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Most SME sales forecasts are built by adding up pipeline value — and it's almost always wrong. Here's how exit criteria, deal age, and weighted forecasting fix it.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Most of what fills an owner's calendar isn't driving results. Here's how to run a structured 80/20 audit that identifies the real 20% — and what to do with the rest.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
One-on-one coaching diagnoses and designs strategy. A peer accountability group enforces it. Here's why the combination produces follow-through that neither achieves alone.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Organic growth isn't the only path. Here's how well-chosen SME acquisitions can compress years of growth into one transaction — and where most owners get the due diligence wrong.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Most SME roadmaps fail from what they never remove, not what they add. Here's the three-question kill list to run before your next planning cycle — and why pruning, not adding, is what actually frees up growth capacity.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Paid social and search rent attention you don't own. Your email list is the one channel most SMEs already have permission to use — and almost never invest in properly. Here's how to turn it into a real asset.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Most sales training focuses on the pitch and the close. The call is usually already lost in the first five minutes. Here's the agenda-set and diagnostic sequence that fixes it — at the team level, not just for one rep.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Delegation doesn't fail because your team can't do the work — it fails because nobody defined what "done" looked like before the task started. Here's the four-part handoff that fixes it.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Self-funded expansion runs out of capital and management bandwidth before it runs out of market opportunity. Here's the franchise-readiness test and how to compare licensing against scaling it yourself.
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Business coaching has borrowed a lot from therapy's language, and it's blurred an important line. A coach uses psychology to find what's blocking you — then converts it into a dated business action, every time. Here's where the line sits.
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.