Thursday, October 29, 2026
Most sales die at silence, not at no. Here is how to build a first AI agent for sales follow-up in five steps, with a human in charge and NZ privacy and spam rules covered.
Walk into most SME sales reviews in the final week of any month and you'll hear the same phrase: "I can get this one over the line if I knock ten percent off." It sounds like good instinct — closing the deal, hitting the number. It's usually the single most expensive habit a sales team has.
A study by InsideSales Labs, examining 9.8 million sales opportunities across 151 companies over nine quarters, found reps close 2.9 times more deals in the final days of a quarter — and lose 11.4 times more margin doing it, with win rates falling by more than 12 percentage points against the rest of the month. The researchers put the average cost to a single company at roughly $98 million a year in lost revenue. Separately, a Bessemer Venture Partners survey found 73% of SaaS executives admit to offering steeper discounts specifically toward the end of a reporting period to hit their numbers (that figure comes with no published sample size, so treat it as directional). Scale the dollar figure down to SME size and the behaviour is identical.
I've built and reviewed commission plans across nine businesses of my own and in coaching 200+ businesses one-on-one across 30+ industries. The pattern is always the same: show me a team that discounts heavily at month-end, and I'll show you a commission plan that pays the same bonus whether the deal closed at full price or twenty percent off.
Most owners assume a team that discounts too much has a training problem or a confidence problem. Usually it has neither. It has a plan that pays purely on revenue booked, with no reference at all to the margin that revenue actually carries. A rep paid the same commission on a full-price deal and a heavily discounted one is behaving entirely rationally when they discount to close faster — the plan is simply telling them, in the clearest language a business ever speaks, that margin doesn't matter.
"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
Rewriting a commission plan feels like picking a fight with the exact people responsible for this month's revenue, at the exact moment you can least afford a dip in morale. So the plan survives another quarter, and another. An outside adviser can design and defend the change without it reading as a personal attack on the team that built your current number — usually the difference between a plan that actually gets fixed and one that gets talked about for another year.
If your best reps are also your biggest discounters, that's not a coincidence — and it's the first thing we fix.
Friday, October 16, 2026
A bank survey found 98% of small business owners do not know their company's value. Most shrug because they are not selling. That is the mistake: the work that lifts value is the same work that lifts growth right now.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Global surveys put client satisfaction with coaching at 95 percent good or excellent. The unhappy minority almost always skipped the same three checks before they signed. Here is what to check before you do.
Friday, October 16, 2026
67% of founders work more than 50 hours a week, and most of those hours go to re-explaining tasks or double-checking work that did not need it. The fix is matching your leadership style to each task's readiness level.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Seventy-seven percent of B2B buyers call their last purchase complex, with six to ten people in the room. Most SME sales reps still pitch like there is only one decision maker, then blame price when the deal goes quiet.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Eighty-four percent of consumers say they plan to buy from a small business in the next two months. Most of that goodwill never converts, and it is not because customers do not care. It is because there is no specific offer ready to meet them.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Most SME owners are hitting their numbers, so why is confidence falling? The real reason isn't the economy. It's what's missing from next year's plan, and the three-question test that fixes it before you finalise a dollar of it.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Owners testing something new are far more likely to expect faster growth. Here is how to find the adjacent customer segment sitting right next to yours.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Thought a business coach was out of budget? For many eligible NZ businesses, the Regional Business Partner Network can cover a large share of the cost.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Some SME leaders are already getting a half-day a week back from AI. Here is the simple filter that decides what to automate, augment or leave alone.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
It was not the pitch that killed your last deal. It was the four weeks of silence after it. Here is the follow-up sequence most SME sales teams never build.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Most SME marketing stops the moment someone buys once. Here is the Value Ladder that gives your best customers an obvious next step, and why 74 percent never get one.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
A growth plan with no diagnosis is just a wish list with a date on it. Here is the three-part test that separates a real strategy from guesswork, before your next budget gets signed off.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Everyone in your industry follows the same playbook. Here is why fresh eyes beat it, plus a one-hour exercise to borrow a proven idea from another industry this week.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Five lessons from McDonald's own history that a 20-person US business can copy, plus where systems stop and growth questions begin.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Different industries hit different growth constraints. Find the Simple-Growth page written for your type of business, plus two free resources on loyalty and exit planning.