Monday, November 09, 2026
Scaling Up publishes a price ladder from a $20 book to a $40,000-$120,000 annual coach retainer. Here is what each rung buys, who it suits, and when a coaching program is the better first step.
Every SME has at least one meeting that has happened five times this year with no different outcome — the same issue raised, the same discussion had, the same "let's revisit next month" close. That is not a communication problem. It's a decision backlog, and it is one of the most expensive, least visible drains on an SME's time. Research on meeting costs backs up what every owner already suspects: unnecessary and ineffective meetings waste an estimated $25,000 per employee, per year, according to Bloomberg-cited research — and the U.S. economy loses an estimated $259 billion annually to unproductive meetings, per London School of Economics figures. Most of that cost isn't wasted time in the room. It's the decision that still didn't get made.
You can read more on the scale of this cost in Flowtrace's meeting statistics research. The named enemy isn't meetings themselves — plenty of meetings are genuinely useful. It's the meeting that exists specifically because nobody is willing to make the call without one. Every recurring agenda item that never resolves is a decision sitting in someone's backlog, quietly costing the business momentum, clarity, and — eventually — good people who get tired of discussing the same problem without ever fixing it.
The fix isn't fewer meetings. It's a rule that forces every open item toward resolution instead of another round of discussion.
1. Decide — if the information needed to make the call already exists in the room, it gets decided before anyone leaves. No "let's think about it" when the facts are already on the table.
2. Delegate — if the decision doesn't need the owner or the leadership team, it gets handed to the person closest to the problem, with a deadline, on the spot.
3. Defer with a date — if it genuinely can't be decided yet, it gets a named owner and a specific date it returns, not a vague "next time it comes up."
Every open item in your business gets one of these three tags, every week. Nothing sits in limbo indefinitely — that's the entire point.
"Keeping me sane and focused during uncertain times."
— Rachel Williams, Icehouse Coaching Programme
Most owners aren't avoiding decisions out of indecision — they're avoiding them because every decision in a small business feels personal, and a wrong call has no one else to absorb the blame. That instinct is understandable, but it's also exactly why an outside voice in the room changes the dynamic: someone with no political stake in the outcome, whose only job is to ask "are you deciding this, delegating it, or deferring it with a date" every single time it comes up again.
If the same three issues have come up in your last three leadership meetings, that's your decision backlog — and it's the first thing Kevin helps you clear.
...and you become the owner whose meetings end in decisions.
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.
Friday, October 23, 2026
Four in ten small business owners say they discount often, and a third still report sales down anyway. Here's the SPIN Selling framework that gets you to full price without the price cut.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
When offers look alike, price is all that is left to compare. What New Zealand telecoms teach SME owners about escaping the price war.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Get more from the link that limits your growth before you spend a dollar on it. A 14-day, no-new-spend plan for SME owners.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Score eight links in your business from 1 to 5 and the weakest, earliest link is usually your constraint. A 20-minute self-check for SME owners.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Referrals just became small business owners' #1 source of new customers — up from 65% to 83% in a single year. Here's the Dream 100 system that turns word of mouth into a repeatable growth engine.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Roughly one in four founders report loneliness and isolation running their business. Here's what a coach actually does differently, and why the first session is rarely about strategy.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
NZ small business sales rose 8.6 percent this quarter, but growth ranged from 2.9 to 16.3 percent by industry. Here's the three-number check that tells you whether your growth is actually yours.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Only 30 percent of business change efforts fully succeed. Here's the three-part diagnosis, borrowed from strategy academic Richard Rumelt, most owners skip before fixing anything.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Close to six in ten of this year's US holiday shoppers are already buying, in October or year-round. Here are three sales moves to make this week before Black Friday arrives.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
77.6 percent of US consumers used AI to help with a purchase decision in the past six months. Here are three moves that make your small business visible when customers ask AI about you.