Notes from the road.

24 October 2026

A business owner I worked with did everything his coach told him. Grow the revenue.

24 October 2026

A client "just needs" something tonight. A team member leaves and you quietly absorb their workload.

24 October 2026

Last week we looked at why a 90 day plan needs numbers, and the three margins that tie them together. Here

29 September 2026

Most 90 day plans I see are lists of words. Goals.

28 September 2026

60% of small businesses in Australia don't make it past the first few years. That's not a warning — for most owners, it's already history. They made it. They survived.

28 September 2026

Speed of growth is simple: the change in size, divided by the time it takes. Grow from $500K to $750K in 12 months, and your speed is $250K a year.

28 September 2026

Growth is the goal. Profit is the measure.

28 September 2026

"I leave the numbers up to my accountant." I hear this constantly.

28 September 2026

Most people look in the direction they

21 August 2026

Recently I celebrated the launch of my book, 3 Months Forward. As an ice breaker, I asked the room a question. What does Profitless Prosperity mean to you?

21 August 2026

It's the one that won't go away. It keeps returning, over and over. It's like an itch on your back you can't quite reach. You try to ignore it. It comes and goes. But in the end, it needs attention. So for a business owner — what is that nagging feeling?

21 August 2026

Every business owner I've worked with eventually asks the same question: "Why do I need margin? Why can't I just run lean?"

27 July 2026

In 1494, an Italian mathematician named Luca Pacioli published a system for tracking money moving through a business. He called it double entry bookkeeping. Every transaction recorded twice — once as a debit, once as a credit. Equal and opposite entries keeping everything in balance. It was brilliant. And it has barely changed in 530 years.

27 July 2026

Everyone wants to scale. More revenue. More customers. More team. More impact. And why not? Growth feels like progress. Making a sale feels like victory. Money hits the bank account and for a moment, it feels like it's all working. Then it's gone.

27 July 2026

Running a business comes down to two things: time and money. Not separately. Together. Customers don't pay before suppliers and employees need paying. GST falls due the same week stock needs replenishing. Super is about to become same-day, which won't touch your P&L but will immediately shrink the breathing room on your balance sheet.

27 July 2026

Most business owners switch off the moment I bring up financial numbers. Either the yawn. Or the line I’ve heard a hundred times: “That’s what I pay my bookkeeper for.” Fair enough. But here’s the problem.

27 July 2026

Most business owners I meet are working hard. Really hard. They're putting in the hours, making decisions, managing people, serving customers, and trying to stay on top of everything that running a business demands. And yet — despite all that effort — many of them feel like they're not getting ahead. Revenue is growing, activity is constant, but financial progress feels slow or invisible.

27 July 2026

Most small business owners think about their customer offer in one direction — toward the customer. What will attract them? What will make them say yes? What price feels right for the market? These are marketing questions. They matter. But they're only half the conversation. Because your customer offer has two jobs to do — not one.

27 July 2026

Dan Rodger bought a business. At least, that is what he thought he was buying. Pakenham Trophies & Awards had customers, products, and revenue coming in the door. But once Dan was inside it, something did not add up. The numbers were rough. Decisions were reactive. Most of the clarity he expected to find simply was not there. As Dan put it, the business was running more like a hobby than a real commercial operation.

27 July 2026

I need to tell you something I've never said publicly. For years, I was a monthly business coach. I charged good money. I believed deeply in what I was doing. My clients trusted me. And looking back, the model served me more than it served them.

27 July 2026

I've spent 25 years working with small business owners. Good people. Hard workers. People who backed themselves when it would have been easier not to. And I've watched too many of them fail. Not fail and walk away clean. Fail and carry debt. Fail and sit across from their partner explaining why the business they believed in has left their family worse off than when they started. That outcome isn't just a business statistic. It's a family story and it's one I've made it my purpose to help rewrite.

27 July 2026

Of all the coaching disciplines available to a small business owner, strategy coaching feels the most serious. The most grown up. The most like what a real business does.

27 July 2026

Most business owners assume that if sales are growing, the business is heading in the right direction. It's a reasonable assumption. It's also one of the most expensive mistakes a small business owner can make.

27 July 2026

Have you ever finished a coaching session feeling genuinely energised — clear, motivated, ready to take on the world — and then wondered three weeks later why nothing much had changed?

27 July 2026

A business owner said something to me recently that stopped me in my tracks. "You're the first coach who's ever asked for my financial information." He wasn't complaining. He said it almost as a statement of fact — as if it were normal. As if every coach before me had good reason to leave the numbers alone.

27 July 2026

You'll remember Dave. Thirty-four employees. Years of steady revenue growth. A business that looked successful from every angle that most people measure as success. And a single line that told the real story: "In all that time of growing the business, we were never able to get in front of the overdraft."

27 July 2026

Last week I described a pattern that most business owners recognise but few talk about openly. Chasing revenue as the primary measure of success. Growing the top line while the real financial picture quietly deteriorates underneath it.

27 July 2026

Most business owners measure success the wrong way. Ask them how the business is going and they'll tell you their revenue. "We're at $2 million." "We just hit $3 million." Revenue has become the default scoreboard — the number that gets quoted at networking events, shared with pride, and used to justify long hours and hard decisions. But revenue is not profit. And profit is not cash. And until a business owner understands the difference between all three, they are flying blind — no matter how impressive the top line looks.

27 July 2026

A tipping point is defined as: The point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. After more than 20 years of observing and coaching small business owners, I’ve become fascinated by one particular pattern — how owners relate to money as their business begins to work.

27 July 2026

Forecasting is simply this: A method of predicting a future event or condition by analysing patterns and uncovering trends in previous and current data. Growing up as an accountant, I was taught that short-term forecasting held very little value.

25 July 2026

Most people are travelling too fast. Not just on the highway or through their inboxes — but through life itself. The pace feels relentless. The pressure constant. And underneath it all are four subtle but powerful forces that keep the wheels spinning far too fast:

25 July 2026

If you're trying to manage your business finances by carrying it all in your head, you're not alone. Many business owners think they're saving time by keeping future sales, staffing costs, product margins, and cash flow projections in mental storage. But what they're really doing is setting themselves up for trouble. Cognitive science shows that our brains can only hold 4–7 pieces of information in working memory at any one time. Yet financial decisions often involve dozens of moving parts: future revenue, expense timing, tax liabilities, payroll needs, pricing shifts, stock management, and more.

25 July 2026

In today's complex business landscape, access to capital is essential for growth, yet understanding how to optimize that capital for sustainable success requires more than just securing funds. While commercial finance brokers play a critical role in helping businesses access financing, many business owners find themselves needing more than just capital—they need clarity on how to deploy that capital effectively. This is where Financial Forecasting Coaching and the 3 Margin Framework (3MF) create complementary value that enhances rather than replaces the work of finance brokers.

25 July 2026

In the dynamic landscape of business ownership, financial clarity isn't just a luxury—it's essential for survival and growth. For businesses generating between $500,000 and $5 million in revenue, this clarity becomes increasingly complex yet critical. While traditional accounting services provide an indispensable foundation, many business owners find themselves needing something more: a forward-looking financial perspective that translates numbers into strategic guidance. This is where Financial Forecasting Coaching and the 3 Margin Framework (3MF) create transformative value that complements rather than replaces traditional accounting.

25 July 2026

My work life's had so many opposing forces trying to set the pace and focus of what to do, that much of my time was spent in responding to them.