Tuesday, November 10, 2026
The November 2026 WoF changes mean fewer automatic visits for many cars. Here is how NZ workshop and aftermarket owners find the real constraint, protect margin and keep customers coming back.
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.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
If every deal needs your personal persuasion to close, you don't have a sales process — you have a treadmill. Here's how to fix the offer so it does some of the selling for you.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
A positioning statement sits in a folder. Distinctiveness lives in the details customers actually notice. Here's the gap between knowing your difference and being remembered for it.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
Saying yes to every enquiry feels safer than growth. It isn't. Here's the strategic choice — who you're actually playing to win with — that most SME owners never make on purpose.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
Most NZ businesses are owner-run and many have no staff, so advice has to fit one person's week. Here is how coaches, consultants, mentors and peer groups differ, what is publicly known about cost, and how RBPN funding can help. Checked 1 November 2026.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
Four well-known ways to get help growing your business, compared on who each suits, what is publicly known about cost, and the seven questions to ask before you sign. Checked 1 November 2026.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Most SME owners have a 12-month plan for the business but no vision for their own life. Here is a simple 3-step fix, plus the research behind it.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
US owners lose 33 working days a year to financial worry, mostly from not knowing their numbers. Here's the 2-number Monday check that closes the gap.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
46% of NZ small business owners aren't paying themselves. Here's why that has to change, and the three moves that build it into a real habit, not a hope.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
US owners lose 22 hours a month to financial admin and 56% get blindsided by a tax surprise. Here's the E-Myth fix that gets the books off your desk for good.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
41% of US owners say the cash-flow gap between money in and bills out is their top stressor. Here's why better follow-up won't fix it, and the three moves that stop the chase before it starts.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
63% of US small businesses say word of mouth is key to new customers. Here's how to build that into a system that still works when you're not personally chasing it.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
68% of US owners have delayed a major decision purely from fear of getting it wrong. Here's the 15-minute premortem test that gets you unstuck before you spend another dollar on it.
Friday, October 30, 2026
UK SME owners now spend almost twice as long on admin as on growth, per a fresh 2026 survey. Here's the three-step Weekly Execution Audit Kevin uses to help owners flip that ratio.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Only 30% of US owners finished 2025 with profits above expectations, down from 57% the year before. Here's the real reason growing revenue stopped meaning growing margin.
Friday, October 30, 2026
43% of US owners have hidden business stress from their own family. Here's why carrying it alone is the actual problem, and why Kevin hired his own coach.