Ron & Nicole's Insights About Small Business Coaching

AI is a tool. Judgement isn't.

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 22:29:12 GMT

Everyone’s asking whether AI can do what I do. Wrong Question.

I use AI almost every day. In my business AI genuinely helps me – Gather my thoughts, articulate a point, draft an email, work through a spreadsheet, build out a graphic. There are many uses for AI as a tool to automate things that can be automated in your business, streamline things that cannot, and simply to help brainstorm. So if you are paying a coach that claims they never touch the stuff, ask them again.

But I want to be precise about where the line sits, because the line is the entire value of what I do.

AI can give you an answer. It cannot tell you whether the answer matters.

That's the whole thing. Everything below is just detail.

Here’s what I think AI does exceptionally well:

Competitive analysis. Excellent, with one condition — it has to reflect your market. Ask it broad questions and you'll get broad answers. Give it your region, your customer, your price point, and it gets useful fast.

Creative writing. Absolutely yes! But be careful on this one. I can recognize an AI (particularly Chat GPT) written article from a mile away. And so can you if you are being honest with yourself. I will likely run this article through at least 2 AI tools to get my thoughts in order, but ultimately it will be my words on the page.

Math . OK, Here is where AI shines. They can give you the answers to complex formulas in their sleep. And more than that, if you don’t know the formula, they will help you to determine what the formula should be. It’ll help you determine what your gross margin is without breaking a sweat.

It just can’t tell you what it should be. They will give you the stats… GM in your industry typically runs at X%. Is that right for you? Who knows? — your suppliers, your market, your cash position, your goals — isn't a calculation. It's a judgement, and judgement comes from a person who knows the situation.

Creative development (images). In this case some are better than others. . I've had tools choke on a PDF that was scanned as an image, unable to read the tables or the text. I've had one do respectable work on a form-heavy document and produce something I'd have to hand back on an infographic. I've asked a tool to review its own rejected output and watched a competitor do better on the same brief.

That's a moving target. What doesn't move is this: none of these tools knew what I was trying to achieve. I had the picture in my head. They had a prompt.

A Cautionary Note: Marketing went from almost entirely human-developed to a huge share of what lands in your feed being machine-generated and shipped without a second read. That was never a clean win.

Google, Meta and the other search engines noticed. Their ranking systems penalise AI-generated content and favour original, human-produced material — content written to sound like content, with nothing of the person behind it, gets pushed down and sometimes filtered out.

So the pendulum is swinging back, faster than most people realise. The advantage is moving to people who can produce something only they could have written.

What AI cannot do:

Research. OK, Not true. It can give you the facts and figures, and can scrub a website. But I do my own research. I look for strengths and weaknesses, I look for the offerings the company provides, I consider the market in which that company is doing business, I look at the competitors that they are up against. Can AI help with research? SURE. But can it put it in context? Not on your life! And context is the job.

It doesn't know the owner. Their hopes, their ambitions, why they chose this business over every other thing they could have done with their life, and what they want it to become. That's not a data problem. No amount of processing power gets you there, because the information isn't anywhere except in the owner's head and their own telling of it.

It doesn't know the relationships. Suppliers, vendors, customers, partners, service providers — who they work with and, more importantly, why. It's rarely about the price they can get. It's shared values. It's the kids who played hockey together. It's the person who showed up when a parent died, and the loyalty that came out of it. Understanding what holds a business relationship together is worth more than any line on a comparison spreadsheet, and it comes from the owner, not a query.

And it cannot confirm relevance. This is the crux . AI can generate a plan, a projection, a strategy, a piece of marketing copy. It cannot verify that any of it fits your situation. It can't check its own accuracy against your reality, and it certainly can't tell you what result you're actually looking for - it doesn't know what you're trying to build.

Think about the tools you already use. Word is a tool. It'll catch your spelling; it will not help you write. Excel is a tool. It'll compute the formula you give it; it cannot confirm the formula produces the outcome you need. AI is the same shape of thing, only vastly more capable.

A tool can be excellent and still not be accountable for the result.

And no, this isn't a defence of the coaching industry

Now that we're here — a word about my own profession, because I'm not going to pretend the scepticism isn't earned.

Too many self-proclaimed coaches are repackaging someone else's philosophies, quotes and catchphrases without knowing how a business actually works.

Patting you on the back and telling you that the right attitude makes all the difference does not change the dollars in the bank account.

Ten things every successful entrepreneur does before 6am doesn't change your return on ad spend.

Getting into better shape will do wonders for your health and precisely nothing for your cost of goods.

If your coaching is a pep talk you're paying for monthly, you should be sceptical. You're right to be.

But that's an argument about practitioners, not about tools.

Because the answer to “How do I make my business better?” probably isn't hiding in another list of things successful entrepreneurs do.

And it probably isn't sitting inside an AI prompt either.

It's probably already somewhere inside your business.

We just have to find it.

About Ron Farrell

Ron Farrell works with business owners who want better profit, stronger systems and a company that doesn’t require the owner to carry everything on their back.

After building, systemizing and selling his own business, Ron now works with owners on the numbers, people and operating structures that turn a demanding job into a valuable business asset.

Why a Full Pipeline Doesn’t Mean a Healthy Business

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:54:30 GMT

The Sales Cycle – Part 1 of 8

By Ron Farrell, Grounded Growth Coaching

“We’ve got $3 million in quotes out right now.”

Sounds pretty good.

But how much of that $3 million is actually real?

How much was quoted last week?

How much has been sitting there for three months?

How many customers are actively making a decision — and how many haven’t returned a phone call since June?

There is a big difference between work you have quoted and work you are likely to win.

And an even bigger difference between work you are likely to win and money that will eventually make it into your bank account.

Your pipeline has already cost you money

Every opportunity sitting in your pipeline has a cost attached to it.

You may have paid to generate the lead.

Someone answered the phone, qualified the opportunity and booked the appointment.

Then came the site visit, estimating, pricing, proposal, follow-up and probably a revision or two.

For a larger project, several people may already have touched that opportunity before the customer has spent a dollar with you.

So when I look at a big pipeline, I don’t just see potential revenue.

I also see money already spent.

That doesn’t make a large pipeline bad. Of course you need opportunities.

But pipeline isn’t revenue, and it sure as hell isn’t profit.

Start looking at the age of your quotes

This is where things get interesting.

Pull up your open quotes and sort them by date.

What do you see?

If you have 40 open quotes, but 25 of them are more than 90 days old with no meaningful activity, do you really have 40 opportunities?

Or do you have 15 opportunities and 25 things nobody has had the nerve to mark lost?

Those stale quotes matter.

They inflate your pipeline. They distort your close rate. They make your future revenue look healthier than it is.

And sometimes they keep owners from dealing with a much more uncomfortable reality:

We might not have as much work coming as we think we do.

That’s worth knowing sooner rather than later.

Give your pipeline a reality check

I wouldn’t start by asking how much your open quotes are worth.

I’d start here:

How many are actively moving?

When was the last meaningful contact?

Does the customer have a decision date?

What is the next step?

How long does an opportunity normally take to close in your business?

And perhaps most importantly:

If this quote disappeared from your pipeline today, would you actually be surprised?

If the answer is no, I’m not sure it belongs there.

A smaller pipeline made up of legitimate, qualified opportunities is far more useful than a massive number padded with wishful thinking.

Because you can’t schedule crews with wishful thinking.

You can’t pay suppliers with it.

And the bank has never accepted an open quote as a deposit.

So by all means, build a strong pipeline.

Just make sure you know how much of it is actually real.

Better Business. By Design.

About Ron Farrell

Ron Farrell works with business owners who want better profit, stronger systems and a company that doesn’t require the owner to carry everything on their back.

After building, systemizing and selling his own business, Ron now works with owners on the numbers, people and operating structures that turn a demanding job into a valuable business asset.

Mastering Business Acquisitions & Exit Strategies

Tue, 26 May 2026 18:41:24 GMT

In this Episode we are having a conversation with one of our licensed Business Coaches Ron Farrell.

Ron shares his journey from insurance to business ownership, the importance of strategic acquisitions, and how education and systemization can dramatically increase business value.

Discover practical tips on profit optimization, exit planning, and building a portfolio of profitable businesses.

Key topics

Business journey from insurance to ownership
Importance of acquisitions and due diligence
Profit margins and systemization strategies
Exit planning and business valuation
Building a portfolio of profitable businesses

Chapters

00:00 Ron Farrell's Journey in Insurance and Business Coaching

09:26 Navigating the Insurance Industry and Business Ownership

19:15 The Importance of Exit Strategies and Business Valuation

21:51 Transitioning from Insurance to Coaching

23:18 The Drive to Help Others

25:16 The Importance of Education in Coaching

26:58 Exploring Business Acquisition Opportunities

29:59 Understanding Business Valuation and Success Rates

31:52 Financing Business Purchases

34:46 Leveraging Acquisitions for Growth

37:33 The Value of Education in Business Success

40:38 Profit vs. Revenue: The Real Business Metrics

43:33 Understanding Profit Margins in Business

47:44 The Importance of Business Acquisitions

53:13 Shifting Focus from Revenue to Profit

57:49 The Role of Coaches in Business Success

01:01:55 Legacy and Impact in Business Coaching

Hosts are Greg Forzani and Dennis Taekema.

Our guest is Ron Farrell www.groundedgrowthcoaching.ca

Ron & Nicole's Insights About Small Business Coaching

AI is a tool. Judgement isn't.

Everyone’s asking whether AI can do what I do. Wrong Question.

﻿

Here’s what I think AI does exceptionally well:

What AI cannot do:

About Ron Farrell

Why a Full Pipeline Doesn’t Mean a Healthy Business

Mastering Business Acquisitions & Exit Strategies