Tuesday, November 10, 2026
62.9% of US small business owners have less than three months of cash on hand if revenue slows. The Constraint Audit shows which problem to fix first before chasing more sales makes it worse.
Last updated 12 November 2026. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Market: New Zealand and the United States.
Someone drops the ball on the same handover, again. You fix it, you move on, and three months later it happens again with a different customer. You want a team that gets better every time something goes wrong, so the same mistake never costs you twice. What you've actually built is a team that solves problems in the moment and then forgets them completely, because nothing you do captures the lesson anywhere it can actually be reused.
You won't. Neither will they. A fix that lives only in someone's head, or buried in a message thread from February, isn't a system — it's a coin flip on whether the right person remembers at the right moment. Properly systemised businesses don't rely on memory. They build the lesson into how the next piece of work actually gets done, so it survives staff turnover, busy weeks, and everyone's naturally bad memory for process.
Talent researchers Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo found that the vast majority of how people genuinely get better at their job comes from doing the work itself, a meaningful chunk from watching and being challenged by others, and only a small slice from formal training — roughly 70% on-the-job, 20% from others, 10% formal.
Kevin built his own business, Sign60 (a signpost up in sixty seconds), around exactly this principle. Every client runs through a documented 100 Day Action Plan, tracked step by step in project software, not because paperwork is satisfying but because a plan that only lives in someone's head dies the moment that person's on leave, distracted, or gone. The lesson from client one gets built into the template for client two. Nobody has to remember it. The system remembers it for them.
Try this on the next problem your team fixes this week: before everyone moves on, ask one question — “where does this lesson live now, so the next person doesn't have to relearn it?” If the honest answer is “in my head,” you haven't actually fixed it yet. Build it into the checklist, the template or the induction, and the fix finally survives longer than your memory of it.
“Specific to my business requirements and takes a systematic approach. Practical, specific, and pertinent to my business.”
Simon Keepa
Icehouse Coaching Programme
Capturing a lesson properly takes five extra minutes you don't feel like you have in the moment. This isn't for you if your business is small and simple enough that everything genuinely stays in one person's head without cost — some businesses are. For everyone else, growth is exactly what breaks that model, usually around the same time you've hired someone who wasn't there for the first three times the problem happened.
A framework from researchers McCall, Eichinger and Lombardo showing most real learning (roughly 70%) comes from doing the job itself, 20% from others, and 10% from formal training.
Usually because the lesson from the last time lived only in someone's memory, not in the actual workflow.
Build the fix into a checklist, template or induction step so the next person can't skip it.
No — most of the fix is built into daily work, not formal training.
This is a method article and does not rely on a market statistic. Published by Simple-Growth (Motherbase Limited). Last updated 12 November 2026.
If the same problem has cost you twice this year, that's the system we build before it costs you a third time.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Somewhere in your pipeline right now is a buyer whose budget has to be spent before their financial year ends. Here is how to find them before a competitor does.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most SME marketing budget goes to whichever channel the owner already knows, never the one that would actually work best. Here is the simple test that finds it.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Most strategic plans fail quietly, from an optimism nobody questioned out loud. Here is the 20-minute pre-mortem that finds the weak spot before you commit a dollar to it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
What a business coach for an NZ food, beverage or FMCG brand should do: price waterfall, real constraint, velocity story and a 90-day plan.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
73% of small business owners feel more confident than ever, yet 57% have flat or falling revenue. Here is the real constraint behind the gap, and the 15-minute test that exposes it.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME owners know their cost per click. Almost none know their true cost to win a customer, because the real costs live in four different spreadsheets nobody has ever combined.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
A pleasant weekly chat and a structured coaching session can look identical from the outside. Here's exactly what should be happening in the room if the second one is real.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Most SME task lists have no visible connection to the goal on the whiteboard. OKRs fix that gap in three simple steps, without turning your week into a spreadsheet exercise.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Giving away a free sample, audit or pilot feels like it removes risk for the prospect. Mostly it just removes their reason to commit. Here's the structure that converts instead.
Monday, October 05, 2026
There is no single best business coach in the USA. Here are five criteria for choosing one, a fair look at the main formats, and why an outside perspective can change what you see in your own business.
Monday, October 05, 2026
Eighty-four percent of small business owners sacrifice health or relationships to their business, new 2026 data shows. Here is the Transferability Number test that shows why, and what to fix first.
Monday, October 05, 2026
You're about to have your busiest quarter of the year. If nobody's planned for it, your bank balance is about to go the wrong way at exactly the moment the business looks like it's winning.
Monday, October 05, 2026
Ask most owners what they do and they'll answer instantly. Ask them why their business exists, beyond making money, and watch the pause. That pause is costing you customers, hires and referrals.
Monday, October 05, 2026
Ask your team to name the business's single most important goal this quarter. Five different answers from five people means you have one problem, not twelve: nobody knows what the goal actually is.
Monday, October 05, 2026
You trained your team to build rapport and never push, and your best customer last quarter still went with the competitor who pushed them to rethink the brief. Here's why relationship-selling is the weakest profile in B2B sales.