Tuesday, November 03, 2026
The Entourage or Simple-Growth: who each suits, what The Entourage publishes on price and proof, and seven questions to ask before you apply. Checked 4 November 2026.
You did the invoicing before 7am. You'll do the GST return this weekend. Somewhere between the two, you were supposed to think about where this business is actually going, and that slot never showed up. If you can't remember the last time you sat down and asked "is this still the right plan," you don't have a strategy problem. You have a time-to-think problem, and it's quietly costing you more than any missed deadline.
Most owners think strategic planning means a two-day retreat or a forty-page document, so it gets pushed indefinitely while the books, the tax and the admin eat every spare hour. US owners now spend roughly eight hours a week consumed by worry over business finances, and lose an average of 33 working days a year to tax and financial stress (Xero Emotional Tax Return 2026, US, as reported by CPA Practice Advisor). Every one of those hours is an hour strategy didn't get.
Strategist Richard Rumelt's work on good strategy versus bad strategy found the opposite of what most owners assume: bad strategy isn't a lack of ambition, it's a lack of diagnosis. Owners skip straight to action without ever naming the one real problem worth solving. You don't need forty pages. You need one honest hour that asks three questions, in order.
"...it was the most notes I have ever taken from any speaker."
— Steve Holloway, Founder, Between Two Beers Podcast
Most owners reading this will nod, then open their inbox. The obstacle isn't understanding the kernel, it's that nothing in your week protects the hour it takes to use it. Kevin blocks his own diary from first thing Monday until midday, and again mid-morning Tuesday, as thinking time: no calls, no email, just the business's three questions. Not because he's naturally disciplined, but because he found that if the slot isn't booked, it gets taken by whatever's loudest that day.
That's not a productivity tip. It's the whole fix: the diagnosis-policy-action kernel only works if it has a fixed appointment on the calendar, the same as payroll or GST. And this is where an outside pair of eyes earns its place — someone whose only job in that hour is to pressure-test your diagnosis, so a private thinking session turns into an actual plan instead of a nice thought you had on a Monday.
This isn't for the owner who wants someone else to hold the laptop for an hour and call it strategy — the hour has to be yours. It's for the owner ready to defend it like any other non-negotiable in the business.
None of this guarantees easy. It guarantees the business starts answering to a plan again, instead of a to-do list — and that shift, from reactive to deliberate, is the one most owners wish they'd made sooner.
If the last strategic thought you had was in the shower three months ago, that's the first thing we fix.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Acquiring a new customer costs five to seven times more than growing revenue from an existing one. Here is the share-of-wallet audit that finds it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Most coaches say yes to everyone who can pay them. Here is the real test for whether a business coach is actually right for your business.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
The average knowledge worker gets barely an hour of uninterrupted time a day. Here is the meeting-free day protocol that gives your team room to think.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
A verbal yes is not a closed deal, and more than 40 percent of B2B deals stall in the gap between agreement and signature. Here is how to close it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Ninety percent of blog content gets zero traffic from Google, and most SME blogs are no exception. Here is the content-market fit audit that fixes it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Most SME owners benchmark against competitors whose real numbers they can never see. Here is the same-quarter self-benchmark that actually predicts growth.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Organic growth is always category growth plus share change. Here is the Share-of-Growth Audit that shows whether your revenue chart is real outperformance or a rising tide.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Habit research shows real change takes an average of 66 days, not three weeks. Here is the Commitment Corridor for judging whether coaching is working before you quit right before it does.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Workers lose roughly ten hours a week to manual, repetitive tasks. Before your next hire, run the Automate-or-Hire Filter to find out if the role should exist at all.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Half your sales team hitting quota means the other half is being carried by one or two people whose method has never been written down. Here is how to fix that before someone resigns.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Seventy six percent of purchase decisions happen at the shelf, not in the weeks of advertising before it. Here is the Shelf Impact Audit for FMCG brands that have never actually tested their own packaging.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Your dashboard has too many numbers and no owner for most of them. Here is the Focus Metric Framework SME owners use to find the one number that actually drives growth this quarter.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Twelve million American businesses worth nearly $10 trillion need new owners within a decade - and most of them, as currently run, cannot be sold. Here is the three-part test that tells you whether yours is one of them, and what to fix first.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Bain found a 5 percent lift in customer retention can boost profits 25 to 95 percent. Here's the Cohort Retention Audit that reveals whether your growth is real or just replacing lost customers.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Research shows much of the feedback we receive is too comfortable to change anything. Here's the Pushback Test that reveals whether your business coach genuinely challenges you or just agrees.