Sunday, November 01, 2026

Revenue can climb for years while the business quietly becomes more dependent on you, not less. Here's the growth driver most SME owners never put on their own dashboard.

Every SME salesperson has felt it — the meeting that goes brilliantly, the contact who says "this is exactly what we need," the deal that then goes quiet for six weeks and dies. Search "how to close more sales" and you'll find scripts for the pitch. Almost nothing addresses the real reason B2B deals stall: your champion isn't the one signing the cheque, and they were never going to be enough on their own.

The Enemy: Selling to One Person

Most SME sales training still centres on a single relationship — build rapport, understand pain, present the solution, close. That model works for consumer sales and small-ticket transactions. It breaks down the moment your deal size grows enough to involve a buying committee, which research on B2B purchasing consistently shows now averages six to ten stakeholders even in mid-sized companies. Your champion can carry your case internally, but they can't win an argument they weren't in the room for.

The Framework: Multi-Threading the Deal

1. Map the Room — Before you invest more time, ask your champion directly who else needs to say yes, and what each of them cares about.

2. Arm, Don't Just Ask — Give your champion a one-page internal case they can forward, written in the language of the person who'll actually read it, not a sales deck.

3. Get Your Own Seat — Ask for a short call with the economic buyer or final approver directly, even fifteen minutes. A champion who can't get you that meeting is telling you something about how strong the deal really is.

"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

The Execution Gap

Most SME sales teams know the deal has stalled. What they don't do is go back into the account and multi-thread it, because it feels like admitting the relationship they built isn't enough. It isn't a personal failure — it's a structural one, and it's exactly the kind of pattern a sales process review with a coach catches before it costs you the quarter.

Quick Wins

  • Go through your current pipeline and flag every deal where you've only ever spoken to one contact.
  • For each flagged deal, ask your champion this week: "who else needs to be comfortable with this before it moves forward?"
  • Build one reusable one-pager your champions can forward internally without you in the room.

Key Takeaways

  • Identify every deal in your pipeline with only a single point of contact.
  • Map the full buying committee before assuming a stalled deal is dead.
  • Equip your champion with material built for the people they're selling to internally.
  • Request direct access to the economic buyer as a standard step, not an exception.

If your pipeline is full of deals that went quiet after a great first meeting, that's the pattern Kevin fixes first with you.

...and you become the owner whose good first meetings turn into signed deals.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

A 2024 study found SME owners lose 22% of their working week to admin and compliance. Here's the task-level AI audit that claws the time back without hiring anyone.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Seller-initiated deals close at nearly double the rate of buyer-initiated ones. Here's why proactive selling beats waiting for inbound, and how to shift the ratio.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

The best customer-acquisition channel most SME owners ignore isn't an ad platform — it's the audience someone else already spent years building. Here's how to borrow it properly.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Most strategic plans don't fail in June — they fail the day they're signed off, while everyone still feels confident. Here's the one-page exercise that catches the fatal flaw first.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

79% of SME owners can't make a strategic plan stick, and it's not an ambition problem. Here's the one-page fix that turns an annual plan into a system you actually use every week.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

SMB customer acquisition cost rose 18.4 percent year on year in 2025. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, and why improving your offer beats outspending a rising ad market.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

A 2026 Bluehost study found 87 percent of small business owners now use AI daily, yet only 6 percent trust it with their brand voice. Here's exactly where a business coach still earns their fee.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

Gallup found 55 percent of US business owners have no real plan for their business beyond themselves. Here's the two-week test that reveals how dependent your business really is on you.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

LinkedIn's 2026 research found 40 percent of B2B deals end in "no decision," not a loss to a rival. Here's how to build urgency into your sales process so your pipeline stops dying in silence.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

Organic reach on Instagram fell roughly 14 percent year on year in 2026, and every platform is heading the same way. Here's the channel SME owners already own that no algorithm can throttle.

Saturday, October 24, 2026

Up to 90 percent of strategies never get executed, and it's almost never the document's fault. Here's the team dysfunction actually behind it, and how to fix it before you rewrite the plan again.

Friday, October 23, 2026

Two-thirds of small business owners are raising prices in 2026. If you're in the third who won't, the real problem is probably your offer, not your price point.

Friday, October 23, 2026

Revenue was fine. Profitability growth wasn't, for the first time in a year and a half. Here's the one number to track through your own busy season so the same thing doesn't happen to you.

Friday, October 23, 2026

Just 25% of business owners have natural delegator talent. Here's the Clockwork test a good coach runs before any strategy conversation happens.

Friday, October 23, 2026

31.7% of small business owners have never taken a full week off. Here's the handover document that actually fixes it, and how AI turns a week of writing into an afternoon.