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.
The numbers are better than last year. Revenue's up, the team's bigger, the calendar's fuller than it's ever been. And somewhere in the last twelve months you missed more of your own life than you'd ever admit out loud — the school pick-ups, the dinners, the weekends that were supposed to be just family.
Growth did exactly what it was supposed to do to the business. Nobody asked what it was doing to you.
Across 9 companies founded or co-founded, I've chased the top-line number before, and I've watched it grow while everything else I actually wanted shrank.
Revenue is the easiest number to chase and the easiest one to mistake for progress. It can climb for years while the business quietly becomes less able to run without you, not more — more customers who need you personally, more decisions only you can make, more hours that used to be yours. By the time an owner notices, the business has grown into exactly the thing they were trying to build their way out of.
John Warrillow's Value Builder work, built on research across thousands of businesses, scores a company on eight value drivers — and the one owners underrate most is owner-independence: can the business run, and keep growing, without the owner in every decision? A business can grow its revenue and shrink its value at the same time, if every new dollar makes it more dependent on one person, not less.
With Pia, we built a baby products business that reached 45,000 customers. What made it work wasn't chasing every sale — it was staying genuinely close to what the business was for. One of our team once sent a handwritten card to a struggling solo mum who'd ordered from us. She wrote back: "I thought no one cared. Then I got your note." That's the test we used for every growth decision: will it create more loyal customers, or just more revenue? They're not always the same question.
"He really got our vision from the beginning and has been a huge help in putting together a clearer plan and strategy for the next five years. Working with Kevin D'Ambros-Smith has given us the space to pause and reflect — on where we are now, where we want to be and how we get there."
— Gabby Kirk, Papier Hq
Revenue is easy to put on a slide. Freedom, time and owner-independence are harder to measure, so they lose the argument by default, not because they matter less. A 2023 Xero Money Matters survey of New Zealand small business owners found 47% had lost time with friends and family in the past 12 months — the cost usually isn't on anyone's dashboard, which is exactly why it keeps happening.
This isn't for you if bigger, at any personal cost, is genuinely the only goal.
Growth that costs you your life isn't the goal. Growth that funds it is — and that's the only kind Kevin measures.
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.
Monday, October 12, 2026
The 4 real reasons marketing fails for SME owners, and the practical, low-cost fix for each one.
Monday, October 12, 2026
New research shows 39% of small business owners blame admin, not the market, for stalling their growth. Here is how to find the real constraint before you spend another dollar fixing the wrong one.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Only 20-30% of businesses for sale actually sell, often because they can't run without their owner. Here's how to design yours so it can.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Writing your goals down is linked to real gains in achieving them. Here's the Vivid Vision exercise that turns a fuzzy dream into a measurable plan.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Owners using AI with purpose save 6 to 10 hours a week. Here's the simple audit that finds your first three tasks to hand over.
Monday, October 12, 2026
97% of buyers read reviews, but trust in them is falling. Here's how to build the review ask into your sales process, not just your marketing calendar.
Monday, October 12, 2026
64% of marketers can't tell competing brands apart. Here's the one-sentence positioning formula that makes sure your customers always can.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Most SME owners already know their real edge isn't price. Here's why benchmarking competitors kills that edge, and how first-principles thinking builds a strategy around it instead.
Monday, October 12, 2026