Thursday, November 12, 2026
A practical two-week away test for owners who cannot switch off: name the few calls only you can make, write down the rest, pick one weekly number, then step away and log every interruption.
Last updated 13 November 2026. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Market: United States.
You posted again this week. You boosted it, you tagged it, you even paid for the ad. A few likes, maybe a comment from someone who was never going to buy. You want your marketing to pull in customers who actually want what you sell, without you having to shout louder every week. What you've actually built is a message aimed at "anyone," which is why it lands with almost no one — including, most expensively, the people who drain your time and never convert.
A 2026 industry report from COSMarketing Agency found small businesses in the US are wasting up to 40 cents of every marketing dollar on leads that were never a fit in the first place (COSMarketing Agency, 2026). That's not a budget problem. It's a targeting problem wearing a budget costume. When you market to "anyone who might want this," you spend real money attracting the half of your inquiries who were always going to be slow to pay, hard to please, or gone after one job — and you never free up the time or money to go looking for the customers who actually make the business worth running.
Marketer Russell Brunson's Hook, Story, Offer framework — built out as a Value Ladder — starts from a single, specific buyer rather than a broad audience, then stacks offers from a small first step up to the real relationship. In plain terms:
Kevin saw this done properly with the physiotherapy brand PhysioAction and with Ellis Co, a facilities and solutions business. Neither started with a slogan. Kevin had them sit down with real customers and ask, plainly, why they'd actually chosen and stayed. The positioning that came out the other side wasn't written in a boardroom — it was lifted almost word for word from the customers who already loved the business. It worked precisely because it wasn't written for everyone; it was written for people who sounded exactly like the ones already in the room.
Try it this week: pull up your five best customers from the last twelve months and write down, in their words if you can, why they picked you. That sentence — not a brainstorm, not a rebrand — is your new hook.
"Kevin has some amazing ideas around marketing, things we would have never thought of ourselves. He also helped us through the process of getting into supermarkets. He has gone above and beyond what he needed to!"
Amy Nixon
Icehouse Coaching Programme
Narrowing the message feels like turning away business, so most owners widen it instead and hope volume covers the gap. This isn't for you if you're genuinely running a true commodity business where nobody cares who they buy from — a handful of categories work that way. For everyone else, the fix isn't a bigger audience. It's a sharper one, built from the customers you'd clone if you could.
A sequence of offers, from a small first step to the full relationship, built around one specific buyer rather than a broad audience — a structure popularised by marketer Russell Brunson.
It feels riskier but usually isn't — a broad message is already failing to convert most of the audience it reaches; a narrow one converts far more of a smaller, better-fit group.
From your own best customers. Ask five of them, in their words, why they chose and stayed with you, and use that language directly.
If you can't name your five best customers by face, that's the exercise we start with.
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.
Friday, October 30, 2026
If your business stops the moment you do, the problem isn't your team. It's how many of their problems you're still quietly carrying. Here's the fix, from a 1974 HBR classic.
Friday, October 30, 2026
One client had 123 customers. Eight of them delivered 42% of total revenue. Here's the A-B-C-D grading system that tells you which customers actually matter.
Friday, October 30, 2026
Nearly three in ten US owners name unpredictable demand as a top stressor. Here's the always-on marketing system (RACE) that replaces the feast-and-famine cycle.