Friday, November 06, 2026
Revenue's up and the bank balance still isn't. Jim Collins's Hedgehog Concept shows SME owners why saying yes to everything is the real margin leak.
You know a competitor just did something close to what you do, and your stomach dropped a little. Not because they’re better. Because you suddenly can’t explain, in one sentence, what makes you different from them.
That’s an uncomfortable moment, and it’s common enough that it shapes how a lot of owners spend their next few months: quietly redesigning the logo, dropping the price, adding a feature nobody asked for — anything that feels like action, because sitting with “I don’t actually know what makes us different” is worse.
Here’s the villain: the idea that you should be able to see your own differentiation clearly from inside your own business. You can’t. Nobody can. I had a shoulder injury a few years back and waited three weeks to see the country’s best surgeon for it. Three weeks, for someone who could do in forty minutes what I couldn’t do for myself at all. I didn’t resent the wait. Specialists get waited for, and paid what they charge, because they can see something about your own situation that you genuinely cannot see from the inside — not because you’re not smart enough, but because you’re too close to it.
Your competitive advantage works the same way. You’re inside your own business every day, which is exactly why you can’t see what’s actually different about it the way a customer, a stranger, or a coach who’s seen dozens of businesses like yours, can. It’s not a knowledge gap. It’s a vantage-point gap, and no amount of staring harder at your own website fixes it.
What changes it, in practice:
“Kevin has been a game changer for us. I had tried a couple of high-profile US entrepreneur programs but found these just talked about ‘mindset,’ whereas Kevin gives practical advice to grow your business that you can implement immediately.”
— Brett Abeille
That’s the difference between advice that stays theoretical and an outside eye that actually names the thing you’ve been circling for months. The reason most owners don’t get this clarity on their own isn’t effort. It’s that you cannot be both the patient and the surgeon in the same operation. You need someone else holding the scalpel, or in this case, asking the next uncomfortable question.
Try this yourself before you book anything: write down, in one sentence, what makes you different from your closest competitor. Then show that sentence to someone outside your business — a customer, a friend in another industry, anyone who hasn’t heard your pitch before — and ask them honestly whether it tells them anything a competitor couldn’t also claim. Most owners find out their “difference” is actually a hygiene factor everyone in the category already has. That exercise alone won’t fix it. But it will show you, in about ten minutes, exactly how much you’ve been guessing.
This isn’t for you if you’re sure you already see your business as clearly as an outsider would. It’s for you if you’re ready to hear what that outsider actually notices.
If you can’t finish the sentence “what makes us different” without hedging, that’s exactly the conversation we’d start with.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
SME websites and pitches default to telling their own story. The research says customers skim past most of it looking for themselves - here's the StoryBrand framework that fixes it.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME growth plans default to out-competing everyone else on the same crowded turf. Blue Ocean Strategy's own data says that's the lower-profit path - here's the four-question grid that finds the faster one.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME owners blame a lost customer on price. New 2026 research says it is almost always one unresolved issue instead. Here is the three-step audit to find your real loyalty leak.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Revenue is not the same as profit, and a small slice of your customer base may be quietly cancelling out your best accounts. Here is how to find out which ones.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
The coaching industry has more than doubled since 2016 to over 232,000 coaches. With that many choices, here is the single question that tells you who is worth hiring.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
AI is saving small business owners 10 to 13 hours a week, and most have no idea what they gained. Here is the four-question method for pointing AI at the hours that matter.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
You nailed the pitch and the buyer loved it, then the deal went quiet. The reason is usually a meeting room you were never invited to. Here is how to sell to a buying committee you cannot see.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Customers don't buy products, they hire them to do a job. Here is the framework that explains why an inferior competitor keeps outselling you, and what to fix in your marketing today.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME owners have one growth plan: get more customers. There are actually four distinct ways to grow, and the cheapest one is usually sitting in your existing customer file.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Small business confidence just rose, but growth expectations are falling for almost everyone. New 2026 data reveals the one decision separating owners still growing from owners just waiting it out.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A 1 percent price increase lifts operating profit by an average of 11 percent, McKinsey's Global 1200 research found, far more than an equivalent rise in volume. Here's how to raise prices without losing your best customers.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Some coaches build a business out of being needed forever. Here's the Graduation Test: three questions that reveal whether your coach is transferring real capability, or just keeping you on retainer.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most owners respond to a bottleneck by fixing something else entirely. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints explains why that backfires, and documented case studies show a mean 69 percent lead-time reduction once the real constraint is found.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Roughly four in ten B2B purchase attempts end in no decision at all. It's rarely about price. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, in plain English, and why it explains almost every stalled deal in your pipeline.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
41 percent of consumers now always read reviews before choosing a business, and 31 percent won't use one rated under 4.5 stars. Here's the Review Velocity System that turns happy customers into a steady stream of five-star proof.