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 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.
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.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Nearly a third of small business owners have never taken a full week off, and new 2026 data shows the ones working the longest hours are also the most likely to want out. Here is the three-question test for turning hours into real freedom.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Over half of SMEs entering a new market in one UK study hit real problems doing it. The Ansoff Matrix maps the three safer growth routes most owners skip past first.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
45 percent of business owners in one survey feel trapped running the business they built. Here's how the Theory of Constraints, pointed at the owner instead of the process, finds the real fix.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
UK SME owners spend six working days a month on admin and 3.6 days on growth, one survey found. Dan Sullivan's Who Not How habit flips which question you ask first.
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.