Sunday, November 01, 2026
A franchise network or an independent coach? Here is who each suits, what is publicly known about cost and guarantees, and the questions to ask before you sign. Checked 1 November 2026.
Ask most SME owners “what happens if you got sick for a month” and they can answer for themselves — reluctantly. Ask them the same question about their best salesperson, their only bookkeeper, or the one team member who understands the ordering system, and most go quiet. Search “how to stop being the bottleneck in my business” and the advice is almost always about the owner. It rarely mentions that the owner is often just the first single point of failure a business finds — not the only one.
Most owners believe their business has more redundancy than it does, because day to day nothing goes wrong. That's not evidence of resilience — it's evidence the failure hasn't happened yet. A single-person dependency in any critical function — sales, production, a key supplier relationship, even the person who knows the passwords — behaves exactly like a structural risk on a balance sheet, except nobody's auditing it until it's tested.
1. List the Critical Functions — Sales, delivery, finance, key supplier relationships, IT/systems knowledge. Not roles — functions that must happen every week for the business to run.
2. Name the Single Point — For each function, is there genuinely more than one person who could carry it for two weeks with no notice? Be honest.
3. Build the Bridge — For every function with a single point of failure, document the minimum knowledge a second person would need, and assign someone to learn it this quarter.
“Specific to my business requirements and takes a systematic approach. Practical, specific, and pertinent to my business.”
— Simon Keepa, Icehouse Coaching Programme
Owners usually know exactly where their single points of failure sit — they just haven't prioritised fixing them because nothing has broken yet. This is a discipline problem, not a knowledge problem, and it's precisely where a coach's outside accountability turns “we should really document that” into a dated task that actually gets done.
If you can't answer who covers your most critical function tomorrow morning, that's exactly where Kevin starts with you.
...and you become the owner whose business keeps running when any one person is away.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
US owners lose 22 hours a month to financial admin and 56% get blindsided by a tax surprise. Here's the E-Myth fix that gets the books off your desk for good.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
41% of US owners say the cash-flow gap between money in and bills out is their top stressor. Here's why better follow-up won't fix it, and the three moves that stop the chase before it starts.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
63% of US small businesses say word of mouth is key to new customers. Here's how to build that into a system that still works when you're not personally chasing it.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
68% of US owners have delayed a major decision purely from fear of getting it wrong. Here's the 15-minute premortem test that gets you unstuck before you spend another dollar on it.
Friday, October 30, 2026
UK SME owners now spend almost twice as long on admin as on growth, per a fresh 2026 survey. Here's the three-step Weekly Execution Audit Kevin uses to help owners flip that ratio.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Only 30% of US owners finished 2025 with profits above expectations, down from 57% the year before. Here's the real reason growing revenue stopped meaning growing margin.
Friday, October 30, 2026
43% of US owners have hidden business stress from their own family. Here's why carrying it alone is the actual problem, and why Kevin hired his own coach.
Friday, October 30, 2026
If your business stops the moment you do, the problem isn't your team. It's how many of their problems you're still quietly carrying. Here's the fix, from a 1974 HBR classic.
Friday, October 30, 2026
One client had 123 customers. Eight of them delivered 42% of total revenue. Here's the A-B-C-D grading system that tells you which customers actually matter.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Nearly three in ten US owners name unpredictable demand as a top stressor. Here's the always-on marketing system (RACE) that replaces the feast-and-famine cycle.
Friday, October 30, 2026
If a prospect asked what makes you different, could you answer in one sentence? Here's the three-question positioning map that gets you there before your next pitch.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Most sales die at silence, not at no. Here is how to build a first AI agent for sales follow-up in five steps, with a human in charge and NZ privacy and spam rules covered.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
AI speeds up whatever you point it at. Here is how to match it to the one link in your business that is actually limiting growth, before you spend on tools.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
36% of NZ SMEs use AI, but the smallest firms trail by 34 points. Here is a four-question test for choosing your first AI job, and a 30-day plan.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Nearly half of SME owners say their business doesn't have a money problem — it has a time problem. Here's the 90-day Freedom Plan to fix it.