Thursday, November 05, 2026
Vistage puts you in a group of 12 to 16 owners with a Chair. Simple-Growth is one owner-run coach who finds your constraint first. Here is who each suits, what is public on cost, and six questions to ask. Checked 5 November 2026.
Before you spend on finding new customers, count how often your existing ones buy. Many owners assume customers buy monthly when they buy four times a year. In Kevin D'Ambros-Smith's Know Your Numbers training, lifting that from four to six is "like getting 50% more customers without doing any extra work." This guide gives you the three numbers and a 30-day test.
A disclosure first: Simple-Growth sells the Know Your Numbers training, so Kevin is not neutral. The arithmetic below is free and needs only last year's sales report. Updated 5 November 2026. Written for owners in New Zealand and the United States.
This is one part of a bigger question: why has my business stopped growing? Start there if you are not sure whether frequency is your weak link.
Take the last 12 months. Kevin's worked example uses round numbers so the maths is easy to follow:
Six purchases at $200 is $1,200 per customer instead of $800. Using Kevin's $1.2 million goal as the example: at $800 a customer you need 1,500 customers to get there. At $1,200 you need 1,000. The same goal needs a third fewer customers, and they are the customers who already know you. That is simple arithmetic on training numbers, not a forecast for your business.
Kevin's point in the training is the same one he makes about every number: it is easier to win 1,500 customers than 6,000 separate sales, and easier still to ask 1,000 customers to come back twice more a year.
The US Federal Reserve Banks' 2026 Report on Employer Firms, based on the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, says: "Reaching customers and growing sales was the most commonly reported operational challenge." Most owners respond by trying to reach more strangers. Reach matters, but a customer you have already reached costs less to ask again. Check how often yours buy before you buy more attention.
Pick one number to watch. Kevin tells of a mountain bike park mechanic who was given a single KPI: greet 50 customers a day and offer a free bike check. About one bike in ten needed work, and daily revenue reached the $500 target. His line: "you've got to feed in people at the top to have the revenue pop at the bottom." Choose the action that feeds your number, then do it every day.
Divide average customer value by average sales value. Average customer value is 12 months of revenue divided by the customers who bought in that time. Average sales value is the same revenue divided by the number of sales.
Usually, because they already know and trust you, but your own numbers decide. Compare what it costs you to win a customer with what it costs to contact an existing one, then see which moves your revenue most.
Then frequency is not your lever, and reach or conversion is more likely the weak link. The eight-link check will tell you which.
Not sure which number to start with? Related reading: break a business constraint in 14 days without new spend and how to know every week whether you are making money. A 30-minute conversation will tell you which of your numbers is the real constraint.
Sources (checked 5 November 2026): Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms (United States; 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, published 3 March 2026). The worked example and the bike park story are from Kevin D'Ambros-Smith's Know Your Numbers training. Last updated 5 November 2026.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Nearly half of SMEs in a 2026 survey had not raised prices since 2022. Here's the three-sentence script that makes the overdue price conversation simple instead of stressful.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
76 of 100 B2B brands in a 2026 study fell into a credible-but-indistinguishable Sameness Zone. Here's the four-word positioning test, the Onliness Statement, that pulls a business out of it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Your revenue is up and your margin just fell anyway — here's the planning gap behind it. Four moves that put margin back on the same page as your growth target before next year's numbers are set.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
A practical playbook for NZ construction and building products owners: the market, the real growth constraints, how to price and win work, and a 90-day plan.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
53 percent of small business owners say nothing would change if AI vanished tomorrow, and that is not an adoption problem, it is an embedding problem. Here is the three-question test that shows which one your business actually is.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
New industry research finds most senior consumer goods leaders cannot say whether their last year of promotions actually made money. Here is the Revenue Growth Management discipline that fixes it before Christmas stock ships.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
New research shows 90 percent of small business owners are preoccupied with work outside normal hours. Michael Gerber's E-Myth explains why, and names the one shift that actually fixes it.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Workplace research puts the cost of refocusing after an interruption at around 23 minutes, and the average worker now fields well over 100 messages a day. Here is how to protect the hours that actually move your business.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Forrester research finds only 8 percent of B2B buyers name price as the biggest driver of their decision. Here is how to find out what a price objection is actually about, before you reach for a discount.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
A new Gartner survey finds most B2B buyers would rather research and decide without ever speaking to a salesperson. If your marketing cannot carry the whole sale alone, here is the tool that fixes it.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
New Gallup data shows only 11 percent of SME owners with staff have a detailed written plan, and most of the rest will try to write next year's in December. Here is the three-date fix to do this week instead.
Monday, October 12, 2026
EOS or Scaling Up? A fair, source-linked comparison for US owners, a five-point checklist to choose, and the growth questions neither operating system answers.
Monday, October 12, 2026
The seven concerns SME owners raise most often in coaching, why each one happens, and what actually helps.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Growth rarely needs you to do more. It needs you to stop five habits that quietly hold your business back.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Seven low-cost ways to lift sales this week, starting with the customers and quotes already in your business.