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.
Every marketing plan Kevin sees from an SME owner starts with the same assumption: growth means finding people who've never heard of you. That's the expensive way to grow. The cheapest, fastest-converting audience in your entire market is sitting inside your competitors' customer base right now, quietly unhappy, and nobody is marketing to them on purpose.
If you've been asking how to get more customers without spending more on ads, this is the answer most SMEs skip past: you don't need a bigger audience, you need a better-targeted one — people already proven to buy in your category, who are already looking for a reason to leave where they are.
Most SME marketing is built to be liked by anyone who happens to see it. That's a comfortable brief and a weak strategy. A switcher — someone actively frustrated with their current supplier — isn't looking for likeable. They're looking for a specific, credible reason to move, and most marketing never gives them one because it's too busy trying not to offend the middle of the market.
Switching-cost research consistently shows the same pattern: customers overestimate the pain of switching until someone makes the alternative concrete and low-risk. That's a marketing job, not a sales job — by the time a switcher talks to your sales team, the decision to look elsewhere has usually already been made emotionally.
Building a genuine switch campaign — as opposed to generic "why choose us" content — comes down to three moves:
1. Name the friction, not the feature. Find the two or three specific complaints customers in your category actually voice about incumbents (slow response, price creep after year one, poor communication) and speak directly to those, not to your own feature list.
2. Remove the switching cost in public. Whatever makes switching feel risky — contract lock-in, onboarding hassle, data migration — state exactly how you handle it. "We migrate your account in 48 hours" beats "seamless onboarding" every time, because it's specific enough to be believed.
3. Give them a low-commitment first step. Switchers rarely jump straight to "sign me up." A no-obligation audit, a side-by-side comparison, or a short trial gives them a way to test the water before they burn the bridge with their current supplier.
"Kevin, you distilled business, marketing and sales strategy into powerful simple concepts and actions with real life stories of your start-up business and corporate life. You walk the talk with empathy and passion. Feedback has been off the charts. The energy in the room was palpable."
— Nikki, MahiTahi / Colab (11 Food and Beverage Companies)
Owners usually know exactly what their competitors' customers complain about — they hear it in every sales conversation. What's missing is the discipline to build that intelligence into an actual campaign instead of letting it live as anecdote. That gap between knowing the friction and marketing against it deliberately is exactly where a structured system, not another ad spend increase, makes the difference.
If your marketing is built to be liked by everyone, it's converting no one — a switch campaign built around real competitor friction fixes that fast.
...and you become the owner who gives unhappy customers of your competitors a clear, low-risk reason to move to you.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
56 percent of stalled B2B deals end in no decision, not a lost sale to a competitor. Here is why your prospects go quiet after saying yes, and the direct question that gets them talking again.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
The median landing page converts at 6.6 percent, and most SME websites never get close. Here is what the top quartile actually does differently, and why fixing it beats spending more on ads.
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Most growth plans start with last year's number plus a guess. Here is the three-number market-sizing check that separates a real plan from a wish list.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Nearly 8 in 10 small business owners say long-term planning feels harder than ever. The usual fix, a better template, isn't the one that works — here's the exercise that fixes it before you build the plan.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
NZ retail lifted productivity 9.1% without adding hours, while national output per employee fell. Here's how to grow revenue before you grow headcount.
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Most owners expect a coach to fix things in week one. Here's what actually happens in the first 90 days, and why that structure is the real breakthrough.
Friday, October 16, 2026
A 2026 Bain survey found fewer than half of CEOs believe their company can execute fast enough, even with full teams and budgets behind them. Here is the weekly rhythm that turns a good plan into tracked progress for an owner running the show solo.
Friday, October 16, 2026
A bank survey found 98% of small business owners do not know their company's value. Most shrug because they are not selling. That is the mistake: the work that lifts value is the same work that lifts growth right now.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Global surveys put client satisfaction with coaching at 95 percent good or excellent. The unhappy minority almost always skipped the same three checks before they signed. Here is what to check before you do.
Friday, October 16, 2026
67% of founders work more than 50 hours a week, and most of those hours go to re-explaining tasks or double-checking work that did not need it. The fix is matching your leadership style to each task's readiness level.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Seventy-seven percent of B2B buyers call their last purchase complex, with six to ten people in the room. Most SME sales reps still pitch like there is only one decision maker, then blame price when the deal goes quiet.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Eighty-four percent of consumers say they plan to buy from a small business in the next two months. Most of that goodwill never converts, and it is not because customers do not care. It is because there is no specific offer ready to meet them.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Most SME owners are hitting their numbers, so why is confidence falling? The real reason isn't the economy. It's what's missing from next year's plan, and the three-question test that fixes it before you finalise a dollar of it.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Owners testing something new are far more likely to expect faster growth. Here is how to find the adjacent customer segment sitting right next to yours.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Thought a business coach was out of budget? For many eligible NZ businesses, the Regional Business Partner Network can cover a large share of the cost.