Thursday, November 12, 2026
Regional chambers now run business training, some with the Icehouse, and many carry Regional Business Partner funding. Here is what a Hamilton programme and a Nelson workshop actually offered, who each suits, and when a coach by video call is the better fit.
Last updated 13 November 2026. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Market: New Zealand and the United States.
Every enquiry gets the same treatment from you: a quick reply, a proposal, a follow-up, maybe two more after that. You treat the hot buyer and the window-shopper identically, because you're not sure which is which until the money lands. You want a pipeline where you spend your energy on the people who were actually going to buy. What you've actually built is a system that's polite, thorough, exhausting — and strangely bad at telling the two apart.
Equal effort feels fair. It also means every hour you spend qualifying a tyre-kicker is an hour you didn't spend on the buyer who was ready to sign this week. The businesses that sell the most aren't the ones who follow up hardest — they're the ones who find out fastest who's actually in pain, and who's just browsing, then spend their time accordingly. Treating every lead the same isn't generous. It's just undecided, dressed up as process.
The Sandler Selling System, developed by David Sandler, flips the usual order: instead of pitching first and qualifying later, you qualify the real pain and budget first, and only pitch once you genuinely know it's worth both your time.
Kevin tells a story from early in his career about a supplier trying to win over a hard-to-read, intimidating agency boss — the kind of relationship most salespeople would have chased with pure persistence. Instead, the connection that actually opened the door was a shared love of field hockey, discovered almost by accident in conversation. The business didn't get won on the pitch. It got won because someone took the time to find out what was actually true about the person on the other side of the table, instead of running the same script on them as everyone else.
That's the real lesson underneath Sandler's method: qualifying isn't interrogation, it's attention. The owners who close more aren't the pushiest — they're the ones who actually find out what's true before they decide how hard to chase.
"Kevin is an absolute powerhouse! He doubled our business's profits in the first month alone with lots more of his recommendations still to be rolled out."
Curtis Hacon
Give A Sh!t
Qualifying hard feels like it might cost you a sale. It's the opposite — it tells you which sales were never real, early enough to spend that freed-up time on the ones that are. This isn't for you if your model genuinely runs on high volume, low-touch enquiries where equal treatment is the system working as designed. For everyone selling considered work, the lead you're treating the same as everyone else is usually the one costing you the most.
A sales methodology from David Sandler that qualifies a buyer's real pain, budget and timeline before presenting any offer, rather than pitching first and qualifying later.
Genuine buyers with real pain generally welcome direct questions — it shows you're taking their problem seriously rather than running a generic script.
Confirm real pain and a real budget first. If either is missing, it's useful information now rather than a wasted proposal later.
This is a method article and does not rely on a market statistic. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Last updated 13 November 2026.
If your last ten leads all got the exact same three follow-ups, that's the habit we fix first.
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.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Gallup's 2026 global workplace data shows manager engagement is collapsing faster than everyone else's. Here's the research-backed 3-step fix for SME owners wearing the manager hat too.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Only about a third of seasonal businesses hold enough cash to cover their leanest months before the slow season hits. Here's the ten-minute reserve check before this year's peak trade.
Monday, October 26, 2026
A well-known coaching ROI study found a $7.90 return per $1 spent. Here's an honest look at where that number comes from, and what actually transfers to an SME owner.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Only around 20% of companies complete 80% of their strategic goals, and fewer than half of employees know what's expected of them. Here's how OKRs fix that at SME scale.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Bain research shows winning a new customer can cost up to 25 times more than keeping one you already have. Here's the CLV/CAC discipline that flips where your sales effort goes.
Monday, October 26, 2026
A 2026 Gartner survey found SMEs put just 12% of marketing spend into brand-building, against the 60% long-term research recommends. Here's what that costs you eighteen months from now.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Fewer than 5% of employees understand their company's strategy well enough to act on it. Here's the one-page scorecard that fixes it, reviewed in 15 minutes a week.