Monday, November 09, 2026
Scaling Up publishes a price ladder from a $20 book to a $40,000-$120,000 annual coach retainer. Here is what each rung buys, who it suits, and when a coaching program is the better first step.
There's a decision you've been circling for months — a new market, a new hire, a new product line. You've thought about it in the shower, on the drive home, at 11pm when you should be asleep. You want to actually make it. What you've done instead is build a very detailed list of reasons it might go wrong, and used that list as a reason to do nothing at all.
Bluevine's 2026 US survey of small-business owners found 68% had delayed or avoided a major decision — hiring, expansion, a new line — because they were scared of getting it wrong. The enemy here isn't the decision itself. It's the habit of listing risks forever instead of ever turning the list into a move.
A SWOT list — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats — is where most owners stop. Management theorist Heinz Weihrich took it one step further with what he called TOWS: instead of just listing the four boxes, you pair them up and force out an actual action from each pairing.
Kevin worked on 60+ global brands at DDB, Ogilvy and Saatchi & Saatchi before founding or co-founding nine companies, and one client from that era still shapes how he coaches growth decisions: McDonald's. What struck him wasn't the size of the brand — it was how systemised everything was, so a decision made once got made properly once, instead of being re-litigated with fresh panic every single time it came up. Big-brand thinking, small-business clarity, applied to the exact decision you're circling right now.
Pick the decision you've been circling and give it a real deadline this week — not ‘soon’, an actual date on the calendar, the same way you'd commit to a client delivery. Run the TOWS pairing with one other person in the room, even if that's just a trusted friend over coffee, because the fourth box — what would actually sink you — is almost always smaller and less likely than it feels alone at 11pm. Owners who've made a big call this way tend to say the same thing afterwards: the decision itself took an afternoon. It was the circling beforehand, sometimes for months, that actually cost them the time and the sleep.
“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
A risk list grows forever when there's no deadline and no one else in the room. Left alone with it, most owners just add another row. This isn't for you if the decision genuinely needs more information first — go get the information, that's sensible, not avoidance. It's for the decision where you already have what you need and you're circling anyway. That's the moment a second pair of eyes, and someone willing to hold a date against it, actually earns their keep.
If you've been circling the same decision for months, that's exactly the kind of thing a second opinion could unstick this week.
Monday, September 21, 2026
The fastest way to grow isn't always a bigger ad budget — it's borrowing the trust a complementary business has already earned with your exact customer.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Dollar sales are up 0.8% but real unit demand fell 1.7% in the latest US retail data. If your revenue growth is just a price story, here's how to find out — and fix it.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most business plans are fiction the moment they're printed. Here's the 3-step Resource Alignment Audit that reveals the strategy you're actually running — and how to close the gap before it costs you another quarter.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most small business marketing budgets chase the customers who already love you. Category Entry Point Mapping shows why that caps your growth — and where the real customers are hiding.
Monday, September 21, 2026
More leads won't fix a slow sales pipeline. Learn the sales velocity formula SME owners rarely calculate — and the one lever that moves revenue faster than any lead-gen campaign.
Monday, September 21, 2026
"It's faster if I do it myself" is quietly capping your business's growth. Learn the $200-an-Hour Test to see what your delegation debt is really costing you.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Anyone can get certified as a business coach in a weekend. Almost nobody has actually built what they're advising you to build. Here's the Scar Tissue Test to tell the difference.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Winning deals and building compounding growth are not the same thing. Learn the Compounding Growth Audit to see if your business is actually building an asset — or starting from zero every quarter.
Monday, September 21, 2026
16% of grocery households now have someone using a GLP-1 medication — and they're buying less across your category, not switching brands. Here's the three-step Appetite Audit for your range before Q4.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Most SME owners compete by trying to be better than everyone else — and that's exactly why they're stuck. Here's the 3-step framework to become the only option instead.
Monday, September 21, 2026
You paid for a website and a rebrand — but your Google Business Profile is what's actually deciding who gets the call. Here's how to fix it this week.
Monday, September 21, 2026
The order you say things in a sales call matters more than the words. Here's the pricing sequence mistake quietly costing SME owners their margin.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Working longer feels responsible heading into Q4 — but the data says your output actually falls past a point. Here's how to find your real ceiling.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Time who talks in your next coaching session. If it's mostly your coach, you're getting a lecture — not the accountability that actually changes behaviour.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Chasing wholesale and DTC at once usually means neither gets funded properly. Here's the Channel Mix Audit to pick a primary channel and actually grow.