Thursday, November 05, 2026
Most owners do not lack ideas. They lack a weekly rhythm that turns a plan into action. A five-question check, who Making It Happen ($297) suits, who should skip it, and the real next step. Checked 5 November 2026.
A major retailer or a bigger competitor offers to put your product on their shelf under their own label, at guaranteed volume, no marketing spend required — and it feels like the growth break you've been waiting for. Kevin has watched a dozen FMCG founders take that deal in the last few years, and he has watched most of them regret it within eighteen months. Private label manufacturing can be a legitimate part of an SME growth strategy. It is almost never the free win it looks like on the term sheet, and the founders who get burned are usually the ones who said yes without running the numbers past the guaranteed volume line.
Private label deals are seductive because they solve the hardest problem in FMCG — guaranteed distribution — without the years of grind that building your own brand shelf presence normally takes. But volume isn't growth if it comes at the cost of margin, capacity, and brand equity all at once. Kevin has seen businesses take on a private label contract that filled 60% of production capacity at wafer-thin margin, leaving no room to service their own branded customers during peak season — and no leverage to renegotiate once the retailer knew how dependent they'd become. The deal that looked like growth on the way in becomes a single customer holding the business hostage on the way out.
1. Cap the capacity — Set a hard ceiling on what percentage of production any private label contract can consume, before you negotiate. Most businesses that get hurt never set this number in advance.
2. Price the exit, not just the entry — Model what happens to your cost base and cash flow if the retailer cancels the contract in twelve months. If that scenario sinks the business, the contract is too large.
3. Protect the brand line — Keep your own branded product's shelf presence and marketing investment intact regardless of the private label volume. The moment your own brand goes quiet to service someone else's label, you've stopped growing your business and started growing theirs.
"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
Cash flow pressure makes guaranteed volume irresistible in the moment, and the long-term brand cost is invisible on a term sheet — it only shows up eighteen months later, in a P and L that's grown in revenue but shrunk in margin and control. This is a decision that benefits enormously from an outside read before signature, not after: someone who has sat on both sides of exactly this kind of deal and can price the real risk before the ink dries, not once the retailer already holds the leverage.
If a private label conversation is on your table right now, get the numbers checked before you sign — not after.
...and you become the owner who grows the brand on your terms, not a retailer's.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
AI is saving small business owners 10 to 13 hours a week, and most have no idea what they gained. Here is the four-question method for pointing AI at the hours that matter.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
You nailed the pitch and the buyer loved it, then the deal went quiet. The reason is usually a meeting room you were never invited to. Here is how to sell to a buying committee you cannot see.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Customers don't buy products, they hire them to do a job. Here is the framework that explains why an inferior competitor keeps outselling you, and what to fix in your marketing today.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME owners have one growth plan: get more customers. There are actually four distinct ways to grow, and the cheapest one is usually sitting in your existing customer file.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Small business confidence just rose, but growth expectations are falling for almost everyone. New 2026 data reveals the one decision separating owners still growing from owners just waiting it out.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A 1 percent price increase lifts operating profit by an average of 11 percent, McKinsey's Global 1200 research found, far more than an equivalent rise in volume. Here's how to raise prices without losing your best customers.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Some coaches build a business out of being needed forever. Here's the Graduation Test: three questions that reveal whether your coach is transferring real capability, or just keeping you on retainer.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most owners respond to a bottleneck by fixing something else entirely. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints explains why that backfires, and documented case studies show a mean 69 percent lead-time reduction once the real constraint is found.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Roughly four in ten B2B purchase attempts end in no decision at all. It's rarely about price. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, in plain English, and why it explains almost every stalled deal in your pipeline.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
41 percent of consumers now always read reviews before choosing a business, and 31 percent won't use one rated under 4.5 stars. Here's the Review Velocity System that turns happy customers into a steady stream of five-star proof.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
64 percent of executives say they're juggling too many conflicting priorities, and most SME strategies die from addition, not ambition. Here's the three-step Strategic Short List that turns six priorities into the one that actually moves the needle.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A third of small business owners are absorbing this year's cost increases out of their own pocket instead of raising prices. Here's the three-step Margin Audit that turns that guess into a safe, thirty-day pricing test.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Before you approve the next hire, run the revenue-per-employee test. Some of the growth you are trying to buy with headcount is sitting in tasks AI can already take off the list.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Owner-dependent businesses sell for roughly half the multiple of businesses that run without them. Dan Sullivan's Who Not How question is the simplest fix most owners never try.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
The tasks only one person in your business can do are a hidden cost waiting to land. Here is how to clear the backlog in an afternoon using a recorder instead of a blank page.