Wednesday, November 04, 2026
Rocket Lab began in New Zealand and is now headquartered in Long Beach, California. Three source-linked lessons in outside thinking for US business owners, plus a five-question blind-spot test.
Most SME sales conversations lose money in the first sixty seconds — not because the price is wrong, but because of the order it gets said in. Lead with your price before the customer understands what they're actually buying, and you have just handed them the only number they'll remember, no matter how good the pitch that follows is. This is the price anchor mistake, and it is quietly costing SME owners margin on deals they should be winning at full price.
Behavioural economists have shown for decades that the first number mentioned in a negotiation — the anchor — disproportionately shapes everything that follows, even when both sides know the anchor is somewhat arbitrary. The original research on anchoring and adjustment found people's final judgments stay tethered to whatever number they heard first, even absurdly unrelated ones. In a sales conversation, that means whoever states a number first controls the emotional reference point for the rest of the conversation — and most SME salespeople hand that control to the customer, or burn it too early themselves, by quoting price before value.
The enemy is not your price. It is sequencing: quoting before the customer has built enough perceived value to receive the number without flinching.
This is the three-step order Kevin coaches sales teams to follow, every time, no exceptions.
1. Confirm the cost of the problem first — get the customer to say, in their own words, what the problem is currently costing them in time, money, or missed opportunity. This becomes your real anchor, and it is usually far higher than your price.
2. Present the solution before the number — walk through exactly what they get and why it solves the cost they just named. Price introduced here lands against their own stated cost, not in a vacuum.
3. State the price once, then stop talking — the most common self-inflicted wound in SME sales is filling the silence after the price with a justification or a discount nobody asked for yet.
"Kevin has some amazing ideas around marketing, things we would have never thought of ourselves. He also helped us through the process of getting into supermarkets. He has gone above and beyond what he needed to!"
— Amy Nixon, Icehouse Coaching Programme
Most SME sales training covers the words to say. Very few cover the order to say them in, so salespeople default to whatever order feels least awkward — which is usually price early, to "get it out of the way." That instinct is the exact opposite of what wins the deal at full margin. It takes deliberate practice and, frankly, someone listening to your calls to catch the pattern, because it is nearly invisible to the person doing it.
This is a five-minute fix once someone points it out — and a fix most SME owners never make on their own, because nobody is reviewing their sales calls for sequencing, only for outcome.
If your sales team is quoting price before the customer has said what the problem is costing them, that's the first thing Kevin helps you fix.
...and you become the owner who wins deals at full price because the customer sees the value first.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most SME marketing leads with product specs. Buyers respond to stories. Here's the system for finding, capturing, and multiplying the customer stories you already have — with an FMCG-specific angle on letting the shelf and repeat-purchase data talk.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most SME owners treat pricing as a set-and-forget cost calculation. Here's why price is actually the highest-leverage growth lever in your business — and the three-number method for testing whether you're underpriced.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A new study puts SME admin overload at $17,000 per employee a year — and finds AI tools alone aren't fixing it. Why systems have to come before software.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A business can grow revenue 40% in a year and be in more financial danger at the end of it than the start. Here's why fast growth without a cash plan is a warning sign, not a win.
Friday, September 04, 2026
The first ninety days of coaching are almost always productive. Here's why so many engagements quietly plateau around month six, and how to keep them accelerating.
Friday, September 04, 2026
If your business needs you in the room to keep functioning, you haven't built a business — you've built a demanding job. Here's how to test and fix that.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Chasing every enquiry equally is why sales teams stay busy and pipelines stay thin. Here's the qualification filter that protects your best sellers' time for leads that will actually close.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A shopper's eye moves across a shelf in under three seconds — if your packaging or marketing needs explaining, it's already lost. Here's what actually earns the second look.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most growth plans set a revenue number and never check whether the business can actually deliver it. Here's how to build strategy around your real capacity constraint instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67% of SME owners fund growth mainly from personal savings, 38% from credit cards, and only 22% from a bank loan. Why that's a risk, not a strategy — and what a real capital plan looks like instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67.4% of small business owners know they need a price rise — only 31% have made it. Here's why pricing needs a system, not nerve, and what that system looks like for SME and FMCG owners.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Every scaling SME hits the same transition — from a business that runs on the founder's instincts to one that runs on a team making good decisions without checking first. Here's how the ones that navigate it deliberately do it.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Being "coachable" isn't a fixed trait some owners have and others don't — it's a decision made fresh every week. Here's what actually determines whether coaching sticks.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Your business isn't short of hours — it's short of decisions that don't require you personally. Here's how to find and remove the owner bottleneck, one decision at a time.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most price objections aren't about the customer's budget — they're about a rep with no confident answer reaching for the easiest lever. Here's how to fix the sales conversation, not just the discount policy.