Your Local Business Network - with Steven Purchase

23/09/2026

21/09/2026

Not everything important needs your attention today.
I'm presenting tomorrow, and right now I've got more things I could be doing than I've got time to do.

Meetings to have.
People to follow up.
Admin to sort.
Content to make.
And plenty of other stuff sitting on the list.
They're all important.
But they're not equally important today.

Today, getting this presentation finished is the highest priority use of my time.

I see the same thing with business owners all the time.
We try to get everything done, instead of deciding what actually deserves our attention right now.

Sometimes a productive day isn't ticking 15 things off the list.

It's getting the one thing done that actually moves you forward.

17/09/2026

Another system probably isn't the answer.

I see businesses spend thousands on new software because it's going to fix scheduling, quoting, communication, job management or productivity.
Three months later they're using about 20% of it.

So they start looking for something better.
Sometimes the problem isn't the system.
It's that nobody consistently uses the bloody thing.

Before changing it, ask:
Is there actually a clear process?
Does everyone know what “done properly” looks like?
Is the team using it the same way?
And is anyone actually holding people accountable to it?

A whiteboard used properly every day will beat a $500-a-month piece of software nobody uses.

More isn't always better. Used is better than perfect.

15/09/2026

Before adding another wage, figure out whether you've actually got a capacity problem.

You might have poor organisation.

You might have productivity issues.

You might have a s**t culture.

Another person just makes all three more expensive.

10/09/2026

Don’t confuse motion with momentum.

It’s pretty easy to get to Friday, look at everything still sitting on the list and wonder what you actually achieved.

But taking a minute to look back, a few things genuinely moved forward this week.

A meeting this morning turned into a conversation about potentially heading to Auckland to run a workshop for a group of tradie businesses early next year.

Started pulling together my next 90-day planning workshop.

Onboarded a new client - our first session ended with them committing to something that's been sitting on their wishlist … jumping out of a perfectly good plane next year for a skydive 😂

A couple of conversations continued around some potentially exciting industry opportunities.

And I had a bloody good squad session that challenged some of my own thinking while hearing what's working for other coaches across the ditch.

None of those are necessarily massive results today.
But they're all momentum. A lot of the best things in business start as a conversation, an introduction, a decision or simply doing the next thing.

Sometimes the result doesn't show up until months later. So before you finish the week focusing on everything you didn't get done…

What actually moved forward this week?

09/09/2026

A lot of my coaching sessions start with one question:
Whats one thing we can do now that will get the business moving forward?

Because the temptation in business is usually to add something.

Not enough work? More marketing.
Too busy? Hire someone.
Things getting missed? Buy some software.

Sometimes those are the right answers.
But before adding anything, I reckon there's a better question:

What have we already got that's not working as well as it should?

The leads you're not following up.
The team you've become the bottleneck for.
The system nobody uses.
The jobs you're busy doing but not making enough money on.

Growth doesn't always mean adding more.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity is fixing what's already sitting in front of you.

07/09/2026

06/09/2026

This is the truth nobody tells you about running a business....

06/09/2026

Marketing isn’t always the answer. Sometimes you just need to stop wasting the opportunities you’ve already got.