Sunday, November 08, 2026
Coaching is largely unregulated, so the vetting is yours to do. Here are 12 questions to ask any business coach in NZ before you sign, with what a good answer sounds like.
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.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
A private, unwritten goal succeeds about 35 percent of the time. One with a weekly accountability check-in succeeds more than 70 percent of the time. Here's why that gap exists.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Roughly 65 percent of small businesses are tied so closely to their owner they'd struggle to run without them. Here's Gerber's E-Myth framework for finally getting out of the technician's chair.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
42 percent of B2B businesses do nothing proactive during the pre-Christmas slowdown. Here's what the ones who keep selling do differently, and why January rewards them for it.
Monday, October 19, 2026
Is Vistage worth it? A fair, source-linked look at what peer advisory groups offer US business owners, a checklist for deciding, and how one-on-one coaching differs.
Monday, October 19, 2026
Most small business owners know they don't compete on price, but can't say, in one sentence, what they compete on instead. Here's the three-step framework that fixes it.
Monday, October 19, 2026
A strong December can feel like proof you're growing. It can also be the reason nobody builds the pipeline that carries January. Here's the three-question check to run now.
Monday, October 19, 2026
A good coach doesn't start with your goals. They start with three numbers most owners can't answer on the spot, and that gap tells them exactly where to begin.
Monday, October 19, 2026
Most SME owners have tried an AI tool this year. Few can say, in hours, what it actually saved them. Here's the test that tells the difference, and the first step to take.
Monday, October 19, 2026
By the time a prospect calls you, they've already done most of their own research. Here's the sales approach built for exactly that moment, and why most SME pitches skip it.
Monday, October 19, 2026
Social platforms can change the rules on your reach overnight. Here's the one marketing channel no algorithm can take away from you, and why most SME owners still starve it.
Monday, October 19, 2026
A new survey says 53% of small business owners are stuck on finding customers. Here's the one-question test that finds out whether that's really your constraint, or just the easiest one to blame.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
ActionCOACH, Business Blueprint, government-backed advice and independent coaches compared fairly for Australian owners, with best-for and not-ideal-if for each.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
An executive coach develops you as a leader. A business coach works on the business itself. Here is how to tell which one an NZ SME owner needs before paying for either.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Most SME owners can tell you their revenue. Almost none can tell you which customers are actually making them a profit. New 2026 research shows why that gap is the real growth problem, and a three-step fix.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
The average small business gets 27 percent of revenue from one customer. Here is the three-question check that tells you whether your growth is real, or just concentration in disguise.