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Asking for customer feedback and then ignoring it is not a neutral act; it tells the customer more about the business than any service failure could on its own. This episode opens with a real example of a high-profile restaurant that solicited specific criticism, replied with a templated response, and confirmed the original concern in the process. It is a pattern more common than most business owners realise, and the commercial cost is significant.

Stuart and Mena work through why business owners are structurally poor at seeing their own weaknesses, why silence from customers is not evidence of satisfaction, and why not all feedback deserves equal weight. The discussion challenges the widespread use of Net Promoter Score, arguing that behaviour-based questions, whether a customer has actually referred the business, not whether they intend to, produce more honest and more actionable information.

The episode then moves to system design: how short the survey should be, when to ask, who owns the responses, and what a genuine reply looks like versus a template that bears no relationship to what the customer actually said. The B2B context receives specific attention, where feedback conversations work better as structured check-ins than post-project forms.

The closing decision rule is direct: a feedback system is only worth building if the business is genuinely prepared to act on what it hears. Anything less is a liability, not an asset.

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey!

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SPECIAL OFFER: Buy a one of Stuart's books for ONLY $20 including delivery. Use the discount code blog here.

Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website.

Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn. Mena: LinkedIn

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

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Most business owners have at least one hiring regret, and most can trace it back to a decision that felt right at the time. The problem is rarely a lack of effort in the interview. It is a lack of structure before and during it. Gut feel tends to reward confidence, charm, and the ability to perform well in a conversation, none of which reliably predict how someone will actually perform in the role.

This episode introduces a structured, scorecard-based hiring process designed to replace impression-driven decisions with evidence. Stuart and Mena begin with the pre-work most businesses skip entirely: defining not just what the role involves, but what success looks like across three to five core accountabilities, each with measurable outcomes. From there, the discussion moves to how to assess strengths, experience, and attitude separately, and why attitude, despite being the hardest to evaluate, is often the most important of the three.

The scorecard itself becomes the thread running through the entire process, generating interview questions, enabling independent scoring across interviewers, surfacing meaningful disagreements, and ultimately transitioning into a performance management tool after hire.

The episode also covers why reference checks are evidence, not administration, how transparency at the offer stage shortens the onboarding gap, and why the cost of one poor senior hire can set a business back by twelve to twenty-four months.

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey!

Click here to subscribe to our weekly email.

SPECIAL OFFER: Buy a one of Stuart's books for ONLY $20 including delivery. Use the discount code blog here.

Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website.

Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn. Mena: LinkedIn

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

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The proposed 2026 budget tax changes have generated significant concern among business owners, but most of the commentary has focused on politics rather than practical strategy. This episode cuts through the noise and addresses what small business owners should actually be thinking about before any of these changes become law.

Stuart and Mena work through three areas where the proposed changes have the greatest potential impact. On trust taxation, the discussion explores how limiting income splitting to family members on lower tax rates shifts the planning focus from who receives income to when and why an interposed company structure may offer meaningful flexibility under the new rules. On capital gains tax, the episode makes the case that the biggest risk for most business owners is not future CGT changes but failing to access the generous small business CGT concessions that already exist today, many of which require years of preparation to qualify for. And on negative gearing, the discussion examines what the removal of deductions means for the economics of established residential property, and why markets often create the best buying opportunities when sentiment is at its weakest.

The broader message runs through every segment: tax rules change, governments change, and business owners who build valuable businesses with clean structures and genuine flexibility consistently come out ahead, regardless of which policy environment they find themselves in.

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey!

Click here to subscribe to our weekly email.

SPECIAL OFFER: Buy a one of Stuart's books for ONLY $20 including delivery. Use the discount code blog here.

Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website.

Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn. Mena: LinkedIn

IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.