Sunday, November 08, 2026
Losing quotes to whoever answers first, not whoever's most polished? Here’s how one account cut quote time from 90 minutes to under 10 — and how your team can too.
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.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A business can grow revenue 40% in a year and be in more financial danger at the end of it than the start. Here's why fast growth without a cash plan is a warning sign, not a win.
Friday, September 04, 2026
The first ninety days of coaching are almost always productive. Here's why so many engagements quietly plateau around month six, and how to keep them accelerating.
Friday, September 04, 2026
If your business needs you in the room to keep functioning, you haven't built a business — you've built a demanding job. Here's how to test and fix that.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Chasing every enquiry equally is why sales teams stay busy and pipelines stay thin. Here's the qualification filter that protects your best sellers' time for leads that will actually close.
Friday, September 04, 2026
A shopper's eye moves across a shelf in under three seconds — if your packaging or marketing needs explaining, it's already lost. Here's what actually earns the second look.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most growth plans set a revenue number and never check whether the business can actually deliver it. Here's how to build strategy around your real capacity constraint instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67% of SME owners fund growth mainly from personal savings, 38% from credit cards, and only 22% from a bank loan. Why that's a risk, not a strategy — and what a real capital plan looks like instead.
Friday, September 04, 2026
67.4% of small business owners know they need a price rise — only 31% have made it. Here's why pricing needs a system, not nerve, and what that system looks like for SME and FMCG owners.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Every scaling SME hits the same transition — from a business that runs on the founder's instincts to one that runs on a team making good decisions without checking first. Here's how the ones that navigate it deliberately do it.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Being "coachable" isn't a fixed trait some owners have and others don't — it's a decision made fresh every week. Here's what actually determines whether coaching sticks.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Your business isn't short of hours — it's short of decisions that don't require you personally. Here's how to find and remove the owner bottleneck, one decision at a time.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most price objections aren't about the customer's budget — they're about a rep with no confident answer reaching for the easiest lever. Here's how to fix the sales conversation, not just the discount policy.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Chasing brand awareness on a limited budget is the fastest way to spend money without moving revenue. Here's the goal that actually fits a constrained marketing budget, and how to measure it.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Most SME strategy sessions produce energy and an impressive document — and almost no lasting change. Here's what a strategy session actually needs to produce, and how to turn it into real execution.
Friday, September 04, 2026
Only 8% of small business owners say they're fully prepared for succession, and 70% have no formal plan. Here's why succession is a systems problem, not a paperwork one — and the four-question test to check if your business is actually transferable.