Sunday, November 01, 2026
You cancelled the weekend away again. If you can't step away long enough to ask whether a coach is worth it, that's not a reason to skip the question — it's the reason to ask it.
Most SME growth plans include a headcount line: hire more people, handle more volume. Search "how do I scale my business fast" and hiring plans dominate the advice. What gets missed is a pattern visible across the fastest-scaling SMEs Kevin has worked with: several of them grew revenue significantly while growing headcount only modestly — not by working people harder, but by hiring fewer, more capable people per role and giving them real ownership.
It's tempting to treat headcount growth as proof of business growth — more people looks like more momentum. But every additional hire adds management overhead, onboarding cost, and coordination complexity before they add a dollar of output. A team of high-capability people who each own a full outcome consistently outperforms a larger team of narrowly-scoped roles, because decisions move at the speed of the person closest to the problem instead of queuing for approval.
1. Score Current Roles — For each role, rate whether the person owns a full outcome (a result) or a task (an input). Outcome-owners drive density; task-owners drive headcount.
2. Hire Up, Not Wide — Before adding a new role, ask whether upgrading an existing hire's scope and capability solves the same capacity problem.
3. Protect the Bar — Every new hire should be measurably more capable than the average of the team they're joining, not simply available.
"You make success tangible. Help me go from a wish to reality. Now have clarity of purpose and belief. You made tripling the size of my business go from seeming impossible to really possible."
— Lina, Good Gravy
Hiring for density is harder and slower than hiring for headcount — it means saying no to an available candidate who isn't quite strong enough, and it means paying more per role for fewer roles. Most owners default to fast hiring under pressure, which is exactly the pressure a coach helps you hold the line against.
If your growth plan is a headcount number rather than a capability plan, that's the conversation worth having first.
...and you become the owner whose team grows in capability, not just in headcount.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Reps close 2.9x more deals at month-end and lose 11.4x more margin doing it, one major study found. Here's why the plan is the problem, not the rep, and three fixes.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
45% of US consumers used AI for a local business recommendation this year, up from 6% last year. Here's why schema markup won't fix your AI visibility, and what will.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Jim Collins found that companies which broke away from average performance could name, with brutal precision, what they could be best in the world at. Here's the three-circle test and the goal that pairs with it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Big-brand positioning is a decision, not a budget. Five questions, a one-sentence position and a five-touchpoint audit you can run this week.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Which jobs should a US small business hand to AI first? Published US data, a five-check test and a 30-day plan to pick one job, track one number and keep the decisions that matter.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Most small business owners already believe AI works, but barely one in ten has invested in using it properly. Here is the simple ladder for turning casual AI use into real, compounding productivity gains.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Vet and allied health practices rarely have a clinical problem. Here is how to find the real constraint, keep patients returning and build a 90-day growth plan.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Most SME owners are fixing the wrong problem. Here's the 3-step method that finds the one constraint actually holding your growth back, before you spend another dollar.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
A third of US small business owners say they don't know whether they have the tools — AI included — to grow next year. That's not a confidence problem, it's a visibility one, and it's fixable in an afternoon.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Confidence up a quarter, down the next, tariffs easing then tightening — waiting for certainty is its own decision, and usually the wrong one. Here's a simple way to keep deciding well when the ground keeps moving.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
There's one role almost every SME owner has avoided filling for a year or more — while quietly doing it themselves instead. Here's the Who Not How framework, and the three-step test that makes the hire obvious.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
They nodded, asked great questions, said it's exactly what they need — then disappeared. Here's why warmth isn't a buying signal, and the three-message sequence that gets stalled deals talking again.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Most SME marketing describes the product and targets a demographic — and both miss why people actually buy. Here's the Jobs To Be Done framework, and how to find the job your business is really being hired to do.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Nearly half of businesses miss the target they set for themselves — and it's rarely because the team didn't try hard enough. Here's the three-number check that builds a 2027 target you can actually hit.
Monday, October 26, 2026
ActionCOACH, an EOS Implementer or an independent coach? A fair, source-linked guide for US owners, with a six-question test to match the help to your biggest constraint.