Saturday, November 14, 2026
Only 30% of surveyed US owners beat 2025 profit expectations, down from 57% (Bluevine). The E-Myth shows SME owners why margin, not volume, is the real growth number.
Last updated 14 November 2026. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Market: United States.
This is a story about an owner who wants steady, predictable new business — but who's only getting it in bursts, because the only lever they know how to pull is spending more on ads. You run a promotion, enquiries spike, you feel like a marketer again. Then it goes quiet. You run another one. Same spike, same silence after. You're not bad at marketing. You've just been taught that marketing means buying attention one burst at a time, instead of building a line of people who already trust you and tell the next person before you've spent a cent.
PYMNTS Intelligence's SMB Growth Report found 63% of small businesses that gained new customers said word of mouth was key to that growth (PYMNTS, US, 2025). That's not a reason to stop advertising — it's evidence that the channel owners trust most to actually convert is the one almost nobody has a deliberate system for. Most SME marketing plans have a line item for ads and nothing at all for "who already has the attention of the people I want, and how do I earn five minutes of it."
Chet Holmes' Dream 100, later carried forward by Russell Brunson and Dana Derricks, is simple to describe and uncomfortable to actually do: list the 100 people, publications, podcasts, communities or partners who already hold the attention of your exact ideal customer, then build real relationships with them over months, not a single cold pitch.
Kevin's seen what happens when a business stops waiting for one big marketing push and starts building a steady pipeline of relationships instead — eleven separate revenue streams at a Wanaka bike park, each one with its own small, loyal audience. With 730 season passes to sell and 300 loyal regulars renewing without being asked, that left 430 to find in ten weeks — six a day, every day, not one campaign and a prayer. The mechanic's one job was simpler still: offer fifty customers a free bike check. Repairs went up. Rentals went up. Accidents went down. None of it came from an ad.
"Kevin D'Ambros-Smith was the first coach that helped us and he was so great. He understood the business straightaway, was able to identify some of the areas where we could grow it, and some of the things to park. I don't think the ROW branding would be nearly as strong without his input. He was just brilliant."
Sarah McGuinness
Founder & CEO, Revolutionaries of Wellbeing (ROW)
Relationship-building doesn't show results this week, and most owners are measured — by themselves, most of all — on this week's enquiries. So the slow compounding list gets shelved every time a quieter month creates panic, and the ad spend goes back up instead. This isn't for you if you're already building that list every week without being told to — plenty of owners are, quietly, and it shows in how calm their quiet months feel. It's for the owner whose marketing plan is really just "spend more when it's slow," because nobody's ever sat down with them and built the other list.
A method, originated by Chet Holmes and carried forward by Russell Brunson and Dana Derricks, of identifying the 100 people or platforms that already hold your ideal customer's attention and building genuine relationships with them instead of buying that attention directly.
No — it complements it. Ads can fill the gap while relationships compound, but a business relying only on ads will keep feeling the feast-or-famine cycle this approach is built to smooth out.
Months, not days — it's a deliberately slower, steadier channel than a campaign, which is exactly why it keeps working in the quiet periods that burst-based marketing can't cover.
If your marketing plan is really just "spend more when it's quiet," that's the first habit to replace.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
Only 30% of surveyed US owners beat 2025 profit expectations, down from 57% (Bluevine). The E-Myth shows SME owners why margin, not volume, is the real growth number.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
40% of US owners have considered giving up their business this year (Xero, 2026). Kevin's own wins-and-losses story shows SME owners why doubt isn't failure.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
47% of NZ owners lost time with family this past year (Xero, 2023). The Who Method shows SME owners how to fill the seat that's quietly running their calendar.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
One real client's top 8 customers (of 123) delivered 42% of total revenue. Customer Lifetime Value shows SME owners why discounting on instinct rewards the wrong people.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
63% of US small businesses that gained customers credit word of mouth, not ads (PYMNTS, 2025). The Dream 100 method shows SME owners how to borrow attention instead of buying it.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
Roughly one in six US owners track nothing meaningful about where growth actually comes from (PYMNTS, 2026). Goldratt's Theory of Constraints shows SME owners how to find the one number that matters.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
EOS installs a management system across your leadership team. A business coach works the one constraint holding you back. Here is what is published in New Zealand, who each suits, and five questions to choose.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
The New Zealand Government is paying for AI tools that find a small business's biggest constraint and write an action plan. Here is what they do, what they cannot do, and how to choose between an AI check, a mentor and a coach.
Friday, November 13, 2026
Most strategic plans don't fail because the strategy is wrong — they fail because they're too big to run. New data on 20,582 real plans shows where the cliff is, and how to fix it.
Friday, November 13, 2026
62% of US owners have skipped or cut their own pay this year (Bluevine, 2026). Profit First, and Kevin's own lesson about hiring his own coach, show owners how to pay themselves first, not last.
Friday, November 13, 2026
If stopping feels like a risk instead of a rest, the business isn't the problem. Dan Sullivan's Who Not How reframe, and Kevin's own admission about struggling to say no, show owners the real fix.
Friday, November 13, 2026
US owners spend 22 hours a month on financial admin and 56% get hit by a tax surprise (Xero, 2026). The ECRS method and a real client fix show owners how to stop doing it themselves every month.
Friday, November 13, 2026
Equal effort on every enquiry feels fair. It just means you spend as much time on tyre-kickers as real buyers. The Sandler method shows SME owners how to qualify pain before they pitch.
Friday, November 13, 2026
US small businesses waste up to 40 cents of every marketing dollar on wrong-fit leads. A one-buyer Value Ladder exercise shows SME owners how to build a hook that actually lands.
Friday, November 13, 2026
Losing quotes to price feels like a pricing problem. It's usually a sameness problem. An OODA-loop exercise and a real client story show SME owners how to find the one line a competitor can't copy.