I was delighted to join Colleen recently on the WestBIC Enterprising Podcast for a conversation that covered a lot of ground – the Momentum Map, ERP systems, negotiation, digital transformation, and the bit I always enjoy most: talking honestly about what it’s actually like working with small businesses. After Colleen read out my bio at the start, I told her I was exhausted just listening to it, and we hadn’t even started talking yet.
We spent time on the Momentum Map, which is a one-page business planning framework I created after years of watching brilliant founders drown in advice and never quite get started. I used to write detailed, well-thought-out business plans for clients seeking funding from Enterprise Ireland or the banks – plans that I genuinely believed were useful roadmaps, not just box-ticking exercises. The problem was that a lot of clients saw them exactly as box-ticking exercises. The plan went in a drawer. I understood why – they were under pressure – but I kept feeling they were missing something that could actually help them manage the business and stay focused. So I built a framework that gets the essence of a business plan onto a single page, something that can go on the wall, that drives real actionable points, and that forces the question: what are you doing today and tomorrow to actually move things forward? That’s the Momentum Map.
Colleen asked which quadrant founders most under-invest in, and my answer was that it depends on the type of founder. For the high-potential startup founders who are full of vision and excitement, the money quadrant tends to be the critical one – because those people need others to back them, and those others will care very much about the revenue model and whether the numbers stack up. For the established small business owner who jumped on an opportunity five years ago, is good at what they do, and has woken up recently wondering how they ended up here and what happened to the life they imagined – those people need the bearings quadrant. They need to step back, figure out what they actually want, and remember that they have far more agency over how their business looks and feels than they’ve been giving themselves credit for.
We also talked about digital transformation, which is one of those phrases that can send a solopreneur running in the opposite direction. My starting point with clients is never the technology. It’s finding the one thing that’s genuinely wasting their time and costing them money – the irritant, the thing they’re doing manually at ten o’clock on a Friday night – and finding the simplest possible fix for it. Sometimes that’s a custom GPT. Sometimes it’s a straightforward automation tool. The goal isn’t impressive software. It’s time back and visibility on what’s actually happening in the business. And when it comes to bigger systems like ERP, I said what I believe to be true: the most common mistake is falling in love with a feature in a demo before you’ve properly defined what your business actually needs. That’s a very easy way to spend a lot of money on something that ends up gathering dust.
On negotiation – because Colleen asked for the one principle every founder should have in their toolkit – my answer was preparation. Not the most glamorous answer, but the honest one. Know the market. Think about who you’re meeting and how they’re likely to approach the conversation. Get clear on the minimum you can accept. Plan a few scenarios. And leave the ego at the door, because the best negotiations end with everyone walking away with what a former boss of mine used to call a warm feeling in their belly. In the textbooks that’s a win-win. In practice it means everyone got enough that they’re glad they sat down together.
The question I probably enjoyed most was why I keep coming back to SMEs. My answer was simple: I love them. I love the dynamism, the bravery, the complete lack of airs and graces. These are people who have often remortgaged their houses and weathered the crash, Brexit, Covid, raw material shortages, and whatever the next thing turns out to be. There are plenty of people flying the flag for the big multinationals. Smaller firms are always at a slight disadvantage – they don’t have the name recognition, they carry a disproportionate administrative burden, and they don’t always get the support they deserve. I think it’s important that someone feels passionate enough about them to shout a little louder on their behalf. That’s where I want to be.If you’d like to have a conversation about your business, whether it’s funding, systems, or just figuring out where to focus, schedule a call. No pitch. Just a straight conversation.
