Sunday, November 01, 2026
A franchise network or an independent coach? Here is who each suits, what is publicly known about cost and guarantees, and the questions to ask before you sign. Checked 1 November 2026.
Ask most SME owners how they plan to grow next year and you'll get some version of the same answer: more leads, more ads, more new customers. Ask them what a single customer is actually worth to the business over the life of the relationship, and most can't answer at all. That gap — chasing acquisition while ignoring lifetime value — is one of the quietest ways fast-growing SMEs leave real money on the table.
New customers are exciting, visible, and easy to celebrate — a new logo, a new sale, a new name in the CRM. That excitement quietly convinces owners that growth only comes from the front door, so acquisition eats the whole marketing and sales budget while the value already sitting inside the existing customer base goes unmeasured and unmanaged. Here's the problem with that instinct: acquiring a new customer typically costs several times more than retaining or growing an existing one, and a business that doesn't know its customer lifetime value (CLV) has no way of knowing whether its acquisition spend is actually profitable in the first place — it's just spending and hoping the math works out somewhere downstream.
You don't need a data science team to start using this number. Three steps get you there:
1. Calculate a real baseline — average order value x purchase frequency x average lifespan.
2. Segment your top decile — study what your highest-CLV customers have in common.
3. Set a CLV target, not just a revenue target.
Businesses that track this number stop asking "how do we get more customers" as their only growth question, and start asking "how do we get more value from the customers who already trust us" — a question that's usually cheaper to answer and faster to act on.
“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
CLV is harder to put on a dashboard than "new customers this month," and it doesn't produce the same instant dopamine hit as watching a sales counter tick up. It also forces an uncomfortable conversation: if your CLV is low, the problem usually isn't marketing at all — it's the product experience, the follow-up, or the service that determines whether someone comes back a second and third time. That's a harder truth to face than "we just need more leads," which is exactly why most owners never calculate the number in the first place. An outside operator who's built and sold businesses will usually ask for this figure in the first conversation, because it tells you more about the real health of a business than the revenue line does.
If your growth plan only has one lever — more new customers — that's the blind spot Kevin helps SME owners see and fix.
...and you become the owner who knows what every customer is worth to your business.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
US owners lose 22 hours a month to financial admin and 56% get blindsided by a tax surprise. Here's the E-Myth fix that gets the books off your desk for good.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
41% of US owners say the cash-flow gap between money in and bills out is their top stressor. Here's why better follow-up won't fix it, and the three moves that stop the chase before it starts.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
63% of US small businesses say word of mouth is key to new customers. Here's how to build that into a system that still works when you're not personally chasing it.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
68% of US owners have delayed a major decision purely from fear of getting it wrong. Here's the 15-minute premortem test that gets you unstuck before you spend another dollar on it.
Friday, October 30, 2026
UK SME owners now spend almost twice as long on admin as on growth, per a fresh 2026 survey. Here's the three-step Weekly Execution Audit Kevin uses to help owners flip that ratio.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Only 30% of US owners finished 2025 with profits above expectations, down from 57% the year before. Here's the real reason growing revenue stopped meaning growing margin.
Friday, October 30, 2026
43% of US owners have hidden business stress from their own family. Here's why carrying it alone is the actual problem, and why Kevin hired his own coach.
Friday, October 30, 2026
If your business stops the moment you do, the problem isn't your team. It's how many of their problems you're still quietly carrying. Here's the fix, from a 1974 HBR classic.
Friday, October 30, 2026
One client had 123 customers. Eight of them delivered 42% of total revenue. Here's the A-B-C-D grading system that tells you which customers actually matter.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Nearly three in ten US owners name unpredictable demand as a top stressor. Here's the always-on marketing system (RACE) that replaces the feast-and-famine cycle.
Friday, October 30, 2026
If a prospect asked what makes you different, could you answer in one sentence? Here's the three-question positioning map that gets you there before your next pitch.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Most sales die at silence, not at no. Here is how to build a first AI agent for sales follow-up in five steps, with a human in charge and NZ privacy and spam rules covered.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
AI speeds up whatever you point it at. Here is how to match it to the one link in your business that is actually limiting growth, before you spend on tools.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
36% of NZ SMEs use AI, but the smallest firms trail by 34 points. Here is a four-question test for choosing your first AI job, and a 30-day plan.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Nearly half of SME owners say their business doesn't have a money problem — it has a time problem. Here's the 90-day Freedom Plan to fix it.