Saturday, October 24, 2026
SMB customer acquisition cost rose 18.4 percent year on year in 2025. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, and why improving your offer beats outspending a rising ad market.
Ask most SME sales teams why they lost their last big deal and they'll name a competitor. Pull the CRM data and the truth is usually less dramatic and far more expensive: the prospect didn't choose someone else. They chose nothing. No decision. No follow-up. No line item in anyone's "lost to" report — because "went quiet" isn't a category most SME sales trackers even measure. If you're not measuring it, you're not managing it, and it is very likely the single biggest hole in your pipeline.
The enemy in most SME sales cycles isn't the rival quote sitting on the buyer's desk — it's inertia. Staying with the status quo is always the buyer's easiest option, and it costs them nothing to choose it by simply doing nothing. Industry pipeline research consistently shows "no decision" outranks "lost to competitor" as the most common reason deals stall in B2B sales cycles — often by a wide margin. Most SME salespeople are trained to handle price objections and competitor comparisons. Almost none are trained to handle silence, because silence doesn't feel like an objection. It feels like nothing happened. That's exactly why it's so expensive.
Here's the framework Kevin uses with sales teams to convert stalled deals into decisions — one way or the other.
1. Name the cost of "no decision" out loud, early — ask what it costs them to keep doing things the current way.
2. Multi-thread before you need to — get a second contact before the deal stalls.
3. Build a Decision Date into the proposal tied to value, not a discount clock.
4. Send the "should I close the file?" email when a deal goes quiet.
"Kevin doesn't just present — he electrifies the room and drives massive, real-world value! He drops game-changing insights and actionable shortcuts that show businesses exactly how to turn everyday customers into raving, loyal fans — and acquire new ones faster than ever thought possible."
— Gareth Bayliss, Sales Manager, The Icehouse
Most SME salespeople avoid asking about urgency and cost of inaction because it feels pushy, and most SME owners never coach the skill because they're too busy selling themselves to train anyone else to do it. That's the real execution gap — not a lack of scripts, but a lack of practised discomfort. This is exactly where structured sales coaching earns its keep: role-playing the direct question until it stops feeling awkward, and building the habit of closing the file on dead deals instead of letting them rot in the pipeline for months, quietly inflating a forecast that was never real.
The salespeople who close this tab and keep sending the same gentle follow-up will still be chasing the same stalled deals next quarter. The ones who fix this today won't.
...and you become the owner whose stalled deals get a real yes or a clear no.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Being the best operator built your business. Staying the best operator is now the ceiling on how big it can get.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Buying a new platform feels like progress. Usually it's avoidance — the process was broken before the software, and stays broken after.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Your top performer's secret isn't a better pitch — it's a question sequence that gets the prospect to close themselves.
Friday, September 04, 2026
You don't need a national ad budget to get cut-through — you need dominance in the community your customers already trust.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most strategy fails in translation, not ambition. Here's how to cascade a boardroom goal all the way down to a Monday task list.
Friday, September 04, 2026
56% of US shoppers have quit buying a brand over shrinkflation. Why quietly shrinking packs costs FMCG brands more than an honest price rise — and how to build a value-change system instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most FMCG brands that succeed regionally never make the jump to national shelf space. Here's what the brands that do scale nationally build before the big order arrives — capacity, standardisation, and sell-through data — and why the brands that don't fail fast once they win it.
Friday, September 04, 2026
The owners who get the most from coaching don't walk in with good news — they walk in with a real problem. Here's why the progress-report habit quietly wastes coaching sessions, and what to bring instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most productivity advice optimises the calendar you already have. The real fix is deciding what doesn't belong on it. Here's the 90/10 diagnostic for finding — and protecting — the small share of your week that actually drives growth.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most sales training focuses on the pitch and the close. The outcome is usually decided in the first five minutes. Here's the diagnostic-first opening sequence that changes conversion rates without changing your product or your price.
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.