Sunday, November 08, 2026
If your enquiries dry up the day you stop posting, you don’t have a marketing system. Here’s the Flywheel fix and a sign on a wall that outperformed a campaign.
Most lost sales don't die on price. They die in the first four minutes, when a salesperson launches into features before finding out what the prospect actually needs fixed. If your close rate has plateaued despite a solid product and a decent pitch, the problem usually isn't your pitch. It's that you're pitching before you've diagnosed anything.
Every SME sales conversation carries the same temptation — the prospect is on the phone, the clock is ticking, and the instinct is to get straight to what you offer. It feels efficient. It's actually the reason so many quotes get a polite "we'll think about it" instead of a signature. A prospect who hasn't articulated their own problem out loud has no urgency attached to solving it — and no way to judge whether your solution actually fits, because they never defined what "fits" means. You've answered a question they haven't finished asking.
This mirrors what decades of B2B sales research keeps finding: the salespeople who ask the most diagnostic questions before presenting consistently close at higher rates than those who present the earliest and hardest. Talking more isn't the same as selling more.
Here's the structure Kevin coaches every SME sales team through, whether they're selling a service, a product, or a six-figure contract.
1. The Current State Question — "Walk me through how you're handling this today." Not "are you happy with your current supplier" — that invites a shrug. Get them describing the actual process, out loud.
2. The Cost Question — "What is that costing you — in time, money, or stress?" This is where urgency gets built, and it has to come from them, not from you.
3. The Ideal State Question — "If this were solved properly, what would that look like?" Now they've defined their own success criteria. You're no longer selling — you're matching.
4. The Permission Pitch — only now do you present, and you present back their own words: "You said X was costing you Y — here's exactly how we solve that."
Notice what's missing until step four: your product. That's deliberate. A pitch delivered before diagnosis is a guess dressed up as expertise.
"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
Diagnostic selling takes discipline most SME sales conversations don't get, because it means sitting with silence while a prospect thinks, resisting the urge to fill the gap with product features, and slowing down a call that feels like it should move fast. Under pressure — end of month, end of quarter — the pitch-first reflex wins, every time, unless it's been drilled into muscle memory. That's the gap coaching closes: not teaching people what good questions sound like, they usually already know, but building the discipline to ask them under pressure and actually wait for the answer.
If your team is pitching hard and still hearing "let me think about it," the fix usually isn't a better pitch — it's better questions before it.
...and you become the owner whose team diagnoses first and closes more of the deals worth winning.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Which jobs should a US small business hand to AI first? Published US data, a five-check test and a 30-day plan to pick one job, track one number and keep the decisions that matter.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Most small business owners already believe AI works, but barely one in ten has invested in using it properly. Here is the simple ladder for turning casual AI use into real, compounding productivity gains.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Vet and allied health practices rarely have a clinical problem. Here is how to find the real constraint, keep patients returning and build a 90-day growth plan.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Most SME owners are fixing the wrong problem. Here's the 3-step method that finds the one constraint actually holding your growth back, before you spend another dollar.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
A third of US small business owners say they don't know whether they have the tools — AI included — to grow next year. That's not a confidence problem, it's a visibility one, and it's fixable in an afternoon.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Confidence up a quarter, down the next, tariffs easing then tightening — waiting for certainty is its own decision, and usually the wrong one. Here's a simple way to keep deciding well when the ground keeps moving.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
There's one role almost every SME owner has avoided filling for a year or more — while quietly doing it themselves instead. Here's the Who Not How framework, and the three-step test that makes the hire obvious.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
They nodded, asked great questions, said it's exactly what they need — then disappeared. Here's why warmth isn't a buying signal, and the three-message sequence that gets stalled deals talking again.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Most SME marketing describes the product and targets a demographic — and both miss why people actually buy. Here's the Jobs To Be Done framework, and how to find the job your business is really being hired to do.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Nearly half of businesses miss the target they set for themselves — and it's rarely because the team didn't try hard enough. Here's the three-number check that builds a 2027 target you can actually hit.
Monday, October 26, 2026
ActionCOACH, an EOS Implementer or an independent coach? A fair, source-linked guide for US owners, with a six-question test to match the help to your biggest constraint.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Gallup's 2026 global workplace data shows manager engagement is collapsing faster than everyone else's. Here's the research-backed 3-step fix for SME owners wearing the manager hat too.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Only about a third of seasonal businesses hold enough cash to cover their leanest months before the slow season hits. Here's the ten-minute reserve check before this year's peak trade.
Monday, October 26, 2026
A well-known coaching ROI study found a $7.90 return per $1 spent. Here's an honest look at where that number comes from, and what actually transfers to an SME owner.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Only around 20% of companies complete 80% of their strategic goals, and fewer than half of employees know what's expected of them. Here's how OKRs fix that at SME scale.