Monday, November 09, 2026
US owners spend 22 hours a month on financial admin alone (Xero, 2026). Gary Keller's focusing question shows SME owners the one task worth handing off first.
You'll take almost anyone who can pay. The dentist, the trades business, the SaaS start-up, the retailer — if they've got a budget and a pulse, you'll write the proposal. It feels like sensible business. It's actually the reason your marketing message reads like it's for everyone and no one, your pricing is a guess, and your team can't describe your ideal customer in one sentence. You want a business that knows exactly who it's for and wins them easily. Right now, you're built to serve almost anyone — which quietly means you're built to truly delight no one.
“We can help anyone” feels generous. It isn't a strategy, it's the absence of one. Every dollar you spend trying to reach everyone reaches almost no one properly. Big brands never do this — they pick a target so precisely that the rest of the market feels, correctly, like it's for someone else. The fix isn't working harder at the same scattergun approach. It's picking the slice of the market you can actually win, and building everything — message, price, delivery — around winning it.
Venture investors use a simple three-number exercise to size a market before writing a cheque. SME owners can borrow it to decide who to actually chase this year.
One of Kevin's clients, a New Zealand forensics specialist, didn't try to out-market every forensics firm on the planet — the TAM was enormous and irrelevant. The real opportunity was the SOM: partnering with the leading American firm that already dominated the US market, and entering through a door that was already open, instead of building a new one from scratch.
Writing your SOM down doesn't take a workshop. Pick the twenty accounts, in your own database, that look most like your best client, not your newest one. Write the three things they have in common — size, industry, the problem that made them call you in the first place. That short list is your SOM for this year, and everyone in the business, from the person answering the phone to the one writing the proposal, should be able to recite it back to you. When a lead doesn't match it, that's useful information, not a lost opportunity: it's the market telling you where your message is pulling the wrong crowd. Owners who do this exercise properly usually find their real market is smaller, and far more winnable, than the one they've been chasing.
“I catch up with Kevin once a week and it is definitely the highlight of my week. He just sees different opportunities so clearly. I would not have considered the B2C market as an opportunity before working with Kevin and now it is a major focus for us. He has opened up so many new opportunities for us.”
— John Roberts, Co-owner & COO, Oragene
You know all this. You still say yes to the client who's a bad fit, because turning down revenue feels reckless when cash is tight. That's the real execution gap — not a lack of strategy, a lack of nerve to act on one. This isn't for you if you genuinely want to keep taking any client who can pay, no questions asked. That's a legitimate way to run a business. It just isn't the one that builds the asset you're trying to build. Naming your SOM on paper is step one. Having someone who holds you to it when a tempting bad-fit client calls — that's where a coach earns their keep.
If you've never actually written down who your business is for — and isn't for — that's the first thing we fix.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Some coaches build a business out of being needed forever. Here's the Graduation Test: three questions that reveal whether your coach is transferring real capability, or just keeping you on retainer.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most owners respond to a bottleneck by fixing something else entirely. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints explains why that backfires, and documented case studies show a mean 69 percent lead-time reduction once the real constraint is found.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Roughly four in ten B2B purchase attempts end in no decision at all. It's rarely about price. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, in plain English, and why it explains almost every stalled deal in your pipeline.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
41 percent of consumers now always read reviews before choosing a business, and 31 percent won't use one rated under 4.5 stars. Here's the Review Velocity System that turns happy customers into a steady stream of five-star proof.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
64 percent of executives say they're juggling too many conflicting priorities, and most SME strategies die from addition, not ambition. Here's the three-step Strategic Short List that turns six priorities into the one that actually moves the needle.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A third of small business owners are absorbing this year's cost increases out of their own pocket instead of raising prices. Here's the three-step Margin Audit that turns that guess into a safe, thirty-day pricing test.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Before you approve the next hire, run the revenue-per-employee test. Some of the growth you are trying to buy with headcount is sitting in tasks AI can already take off the list.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Owner-dependent businesses sell for roughly half the multiple of businesses that run without them. Dan Sullivan's Who Not How question is the simplest fix most owners never try.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
The tasks only one person in your business can do are a hidden cost waiting to land. Here is how to clear the backlog in an afternoon using a recorder instead of a blank page.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Chasing every lead in the run to year end is how you end up delivering the deals that cost you the most. Here is the Right-Fit Filter that catches a bad deal before you quote it.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Big brands never approve a campaign on gut feel alone. Here is the cheap, 48-hour pretest SME owners can run on any piece of marketing before a single dollar goes to media.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
There is no single best business coach in New Zealand, only the best fit for your stage and your problem. Here are six criteria, an honest map of the NZ options, and where Kevin D'Ambros-Smith fits.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME strategies are really just revenue wishlists with no diagnosis behind them. Here is the three-part test that separates a real strategy from a wish, and what to fix first if yours fails it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
94% of small businesses using AI across multiple functions have cut spending on marketing, data and bookkeeping, and they are more confident than ever. Here is the three-question audit to run before you cut judgment along with the invoice.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Chasing a poor-fit customer to hit a year-end number rarely pays off. Here is the Right-Fit Growth Filter SME owners use before saying yes.