Wednesday, November 04, 2026
Doing every bit of marketing yourself with no plan? Learn Donald Miller's StoryBrand method for making your customer the hero, not your business.
It's 9pm. The laptop's still open. You told your partner you'd be five more minutes, forty minutes ago. You're not behind because you're bad at this — you're behind because every decision in this business currently gets made by exactly one person, and that person hasn't had anyone to talk it through with in weeks. That's not a character flaw. It's a structural problem, and it has a structural fix.
47% of NZ owners reported losing time with friends and family in the past 12 months (Xero Money Matters, NZ, 2023), and separately, 43% of US owners admitted to hiding how bad business stress really was from a partner or family member (Xero Emotional Tax Return 2026, US, as reported by CPA Practice Advisor). Put those two together and you get a very ordinary, very hidden pattern: owners quietly carrying a weight they've decided not to show anyone, including the people closest to them.
Not motivation. Three specific, practical things:
"Talking with Kevin the first time was so valuable and we were learning so much. Within an hour Kevin had us thinking about our business and our goals in a totally different way. In fact we were supposed to be catching a flight but we decided it was more important that we continued the meeting with Kevin."
— Angus & Cameron, Flatpack Co
Kevin has founded or co-founded nine companies. He still hired an Icehouse coach to accelerate his own growth, because knowing how to build a business and having someone to pressure-test your thinking are two different things. "I've been the client too" isn't a sales line — it's the reason he built Simple-Growth the way he did: as the guide who has sat in the client's chair, not just studied it from a stage.
This isn't for the owner who wants cheerleading. It's for the owner who wants someone to actually push back, because that's the version of support that changes something.
This won't make the business easier overnight. It could mean you stop carrying all of it alone — and for most owners, that's the moment it starts feeling possible again.
Kevin works personally with a select group of SME owners to build the clarity and accountability that make carrying this alone unnecessary.
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Managers now spend over a fifth of their working week in meetings, and senior leaders admit most of it is wasted. A fixed meeting rhythm fixes more than your calendar.
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Most SME owners set ad budgets and discount limits by gut feel. One number, worked out properly, tells you exactly what a customer is worth and what you can afford to spend to win one.
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Most small businesses pour their whole marketing budget into this week's sale. The research on 30 years of advertising says that is exactly the wrong ratio.
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Most SME owners are confident they will hit this year's goals, and most will not. The fix is not more effort, it is a plan that fits on one page and gets checked every week.
Friday, October 09, 2026
The share of owners blaming the economy for not planning long-term has tripled in a year. Here's the one-page plan that actually fixes it, not excuses it.
Friday, October 09, 2026
A new market, a new product line, a second location: most lose money the same way, by skipping the three numbers that would have told them how big the opportunity really was.
Friday, October 09, 2026
Most people picture coaching as a conversation. The sessions that actually move a business are a loop, repeated every week, until it becomes how the owner thinks.
Friday, October 09, 2026
A forty-item to-do list with none of the three that mattered finished is not a time management problem. It is a filter problem, and the Eisenhower Matrix is the filter.
Friday, October 09, 2026
A good salesperson gets four real conversations a day. A good presentation, given once, can reach four hundred. Here is why most SME sales teams never use it.
Friday, October 09, 2026
Customers do not leave because a competitor shouted louder. They leave because, in the exact moment they needed someone, your brand was not the one they thought of.
Friday, October 09, 2026
Most SME owners track one number: the bank balance. The businesses that compound track four, using Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard, and catch the problem before it ever reaches the bank account.
Thursday, October 08, 2026
Thursday, October 08, 2026
Nearly half of NZ SME owners plan to raise prices this year. Only 4 percent of companies have a value proposition clear enough to justify it.
Thursday, October 08, 2026
Revenue can climb for years while the actual value of the business barely moves. Here are the eight drivers that decide which one you are really building, and why owner independence usually matters most.
Thursday, October 08, 2026
If every session with your coach leaves you comfortable, that is the warning sign, not the proof it is working. Here is why direct feedback outperforms kind feedback, backed by Gallup's data.