Has a government regulation, policy shift, or piece of legislation ever directly affected your business? Chances are it has. And chances are your response was a BBQ rant, a frustrated call to your accountant, or a LinkedIn post — but not a conversation with the people who actually made the decision.David and Rob sit down with Holly Bennett — lawyer, former political staffer, and founder of Awhi Group, one of New Zealand's most transparent government relations firms. Holly also founded Engage, the country's only organisation dedicated to teaching everyday Kiwi business owners how to lobby effectively.What most SME owners get wrong: they think lobbying requires connections, cash, and a Wellington phone book. Holly dismantles that assumption completely. The biggest myth? That only the big end of town can do it. The most underused tool available to every business owner? Their local MP — and it costs nothing.The conversation covers how to actually engage government — who to talk to, what hat they're wearing, and why sending correspondence to the wrong office means it disappears into a void. Holly also opens up on building Awhi from scratch in a sector most New Zealanders couldn't define, launching Lobbyist.nz to bring ethical standards to a largely unregulated industry, and why now — with an election on the horizon — is the most important time for SMEs to demand their seat at the table.The room where decisions get made has empty chairs. This episode shows you how to pull one out.Show NotesGuest: Holly Bennett — Founder & MD, Awhi Group | Founder, Engage
🔗 awhigroup.nz
🔗 engage.org.nz
🔗 lobbyist.nzThe Better SMB
Everything for the NZ SME on a high-performance journey.
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🔗 setseed.co.nzKey Topics: Lobbying | Government Relations | SME Advocacy | NZ Policy | Political Engagement | Business Growth | Awhi Group | EngageFollow & Subscribe: Find The Better SMB on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. If this episode changed how you think about your relationship with government — share it with three business owners who need to hear it.

Episode OverviewNew Zealand has around 530,000 SMEs — they employ 29% of the workforce and contribute over a quarter of GDP. Yet small business owners have long carried a regulatory and employment-law burden built, as the episode puts it, by people who've never signed a payroll or lost sleep over an employment dispute. In this episode, David and Rob sit down with Laura McClure MP — a former small business owner herself, having helped grow her family's fire safety consultancy into a national operation — for a deep, practical conversation on cutting red tape, reforming employment law, and what will actually move the needle on New Zealand's productivity ahead of the 2026 election.

• From business owner to Parliament: Laura helped scale her family's fire safety consultancy from the South Island into Auckland, and later found herself ironically being paid to help other businesses navigate the very red tape ACT now wants to cut.
• "Orange fatigue": Laura's term for regulatory overload — when constant compliance signals (like endless high-vis and road cones) stop registering as real warnings, making everyone less safe, not more.
• All that glitters is not gold: The 2015 health and safety reforms are Laura's go-to example of good intent gone wrong — a regulator was created without clear rules on how to actually comply, spawning a costly compliance "cottage industry."
• The regulation tip-off line: Run by the Ministry of Regulation, it's already fixed absurd rules — like hairdressers unknowingly breaking the law by offering a client a glass of wine or even a cup of tea.
• The "Golden Handshake" Bill: Laura's member's bill would let employers and employees have honest, protected conversations about ending employment by mutual agreement — modelled on similar law in the UK, Canada, and Australia — without it automatically triggering a personal grievance.
• Personal grievance risk and hiring: Laura argues the cost and risk of getting a hire wrong is a major reason small business owners hesitate to take people on at all.
• Leadership over technology: Laura agrees the biggest productivity lever is leadership and culture inside the business — government's job is to get out of the way, not to be the driver of productivity itself.
• Access to capital: Banks remain risk-averse to lending against a business case versus property, and NZ continues to struggle attracting foreign direct investment — partly, Laura argues, due to Resource Management Act uncertainty.
• Procurement pain for SMEs: A vivid example — a small-town painter missed out on a swimming pool repaint tender because the process was too complex, and a big contractor won it at four times the price, then subcontracted the same painter to do the job.
• Quickfire round: book recommendation — Habits of High Performers by James Loughlin.

Key Quote"The best thing government can do for a small business owner is to get out of the way — and then actively remove the obstacles it has already placed in the path."
The Better SMB is on a mission to lift New Zealand's productivity by helping SMB leaders take practical steps to improve business performance — through the podcast, our column The Last Word, and our growing community.🌐 Website: The Better SMB — Turning High Performance Into a System

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• PerformIQ — for your in-depth business assessment and benchmarking

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Episode OverviewIf you had to sell your business tomorrow, what would it actually be worth to a buyer — without you in it? Every year over 50,000 NZ businesses close and only ~2,000 actually sell. Businesses that sell are built to run without the owner as the glue. Rod Cook spent over a year pulling himself out of the critical path of Jackson's Flooring Design Commercial to make that possible.

• Origin story: Rod joined his wife Leanne's family flooring business, buying the commercial division in Hawke's Bay.
• Investing in advice early: A business coach from day one, plus a rule to always pay himself a salary — "the cost was irrelevant to the benefit I got from it."
• Weathering the cycles: The GFC and COVID — the pandemic pause pushed a systems overhaul that set up later growth.
• Delegate, don't abdicate: Early hiring mistakes taught Rod the difference, before building a nine-person team.
• "Milk the cow a little longer": An accepted sale offer was shelved on advice from friend John Hutch (Plan A Consulting) — unpopular with Leanne at the time, but the right call.
• The 2024 plan: Standalone premises, working Rod out of the day-to-day, and preparing for a future sale.
• On loneliness in business: Why an informal "board" of trusted advisors matters without formal governance.
• Sales as the engine: Ranked #1 in his franchise group for 19 of 20 years.
• Would it have run without him a decade ago? "Not a chance in hell."

"Delegate, but don't abdicate." — advice from John Hutchinson that reshaped how Rod built his team.
The Better SMB is on a mission to lift New Zealand's productivity by helping SMB leaders take practical steps to improve business performance — through the podcast, our column The Last Word, and our growing community.🌐 Website: The Better SMB — Turning High Performance Into a System

• Setseed — for your online platform requirements
• PerformIQ — for your in-depth business assessment and benchmarking (send me a URL and I'll link it)

Enjoyed this episode? Like, share, and comment — it helps us bring more great guests and content to New Zealand's SMB community.HighlightsKey QuoteAbout The Better SMBWith Thanks to Our Sponsors

Episode SummaryHutch — founder of Plan AConsulting and former NZ Police detective — joins David Altena and Rob Bull to share what 15+ years of working with Kiwi SMEs has taught him. From running petrol stations to advising businesses across New Zealand, he unpacks thepatterns holding owners back and the practical steps to break free.Episode Highlights1. From the Police Force to Petrol StationsBurned out after years in the CIB and Serious Crime, John bought a service station with no business training and learned by making “donations to the market.”2. The Trap of BusynessBusy isn’t the same as productive.John’s turning point was counting pies during a stock-take. Is your daily activity actually moving the business forward?3. Delegate vs. AbdicateHis first two operations managersfailed — not their fault. He abdicated instead of delegated. The fix: clear expectations, accountability, and his mantra “Trust, but validate.”4. Strategy Fits on One PageStrategy is a set of integrated choices, not a 50-page document. Start with one question: What’s your winning aspiration?5. Governance Scales DownFor a sole trader it’s 20 minutes of honest reflection. For a $17M business, an Advisory Board. Either way: direction, oversight, accountability.6. Breakthrough vs. StuckBusinesses that scale are clear on direction, willing to try things, and know their numbers. Tom Peters: “Whoever tries the most, wins.”7. The Undercover Business AdvisorWhile running a covert police op in the South Island, Hutch’s cover story was that he was a business advisor. Years later — that’s exactly what he became.Quick-Fire Round•       Weekly question: “Have I achieved what I set out to achieve?”•       Biggest myth: You need to be the fountain of all knowledge•       Books: The E-Myth Revisited, 7 Habits, Good to Great, Scaling Up, Playing to Win•       Hawke’s Bay hidden gem: Sit undera tree on a beach and look out at the sea Key Takeaways•       Stop counting pies — if you’re doing it, you’re stuck•       Busyness is not a badge of honour•       Trust, but validate•       Strategy fits on one page•       Governance scales to any size business•       Mistakes are tuition fees — learnand move on Links & ResourcesGuestPlan A Consulting — www.planaconsulting.co.nzEpisode SponsorSetSeed — www.setseed.comThe Better SMB PodcastListen on SpotifyBooks Mentioned•       The E-Myth Revisited — Michael E. Gerber•       The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen Covey•       Good to Great / Built to Last / How the Mighty Fall — Jim Collins•       Scaling Up — Verne Harnish•       Playing to Win — Roger Martin& A.G. Lafley•       Blue Ocean Strategy — Kim & Mauborgne•       Red Team Thinking / American Icon — Bryce Hoffman•       Slow Productivity — Cal Newport•       Alchemy — Rory Sutherland  Episode Tags#BetterSMB  •  #PlanAConsulting  • #SMELeadership  •  #NZBusiness   #BusinessGrowthThe Better SMB Podcast is proudly sponsored by SetSeed — www.setseed.com

New Zealand earns $21 billion a year from dairy exports. Yet the performance gap between the best farms and the rest is enormous — and it has almost nothing to do with technology, weather, or market access. It's leadership.Tennielle Ellingham has spent 20 years inside this gap. Through Beyond the Gate, she works with farmers, vets, advisors, and rural business owners on the part of farm performance that most training programmes don't touch: how you lead under pressure, build a team that speaks up, and make better decisions when the stakes are high and support is thin.In this episode:

• Why operational excellence in dairying is a leadership maturity problem — not a tech problem
• What visibly separates a top-quartile farm from an average one
• Why "adoption is not utilisation" — and where tech investment quietly fails
• The workforce capability crisis and what it actually costs on farm
• Why NZ's real competitive edge isn't pasture — it's leadership capability per hectare

Key quote: "Anyone can copy our grass. They can't copy three generations of decision-making."🔗 Beyond the Gate: beyondthegate.mn.co🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by SetSeed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #NZDairy #BeyondTheGate #LeadershipPerHectare #FarmLeadership

What does it take to build a high-performing business — and then hand it on to the next generation?David and Rob sit down with Jeff and Sasha Langham, the father-daughter team behind Drain Ninjas — a West Auckland drainage company and winner of the High Performance Award at the 2025 Northwest Country Business Association Business Awards. Drain Unblocking Auckland | Vacuum Loading | Drain NinjasTheir story starts simply: a gap in the market, a commitment to communication, and a family that saw an opportunity. Ten years on, they're a multi-service operation with a loyal team, a strong word-of-mouth reputation, and a business built to last beyond its founders.The conversation covers three big themes. First, the power of stepping back — entering the awards forced Sasha to reflect on a decade of progress she'd been too deep in the trenches to appreciate. Second, the team comes first — Drain Ninjas brought the whole crew to the awards night, because if the business wins, everyone wins. And third, succession done right — Jeff planned for the handover from day one, building a business that didn't revolve around any one person, with clear roles, documented plans, and support structures already in place.Their advice for other Kiwi family businesses? Start the conversation earlier than you think you need to. Clarify roles. Write it down. And don't wait until you're ready to retire to think about what happens next.Practical, honest, and full of hard-won insight — this one's worth sharing with every business owner you know.
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It might be a bit late in posting, but David and Rob came back after the summer break to kick off 2026 with a look under the hood — reflecting on what's worked, what's ahead, and how you can help shape the conversation.With 31 episodes now in the wild and a growing audience, the highlights from the past year include some standout guests, a government minister on the show, a top-rated episode with Dave Bunting becoming compulsory listening at a local marketing firm, and a column in NZ Manufacturer Magazine.But this episode is really about what's coming. The guys share their BHAG — getting 100,000 New Zealand SMBs on a high-performance journey — and the practical tools being built to make that happen. Backed by Setseed, a new online diagnostic capability was launched on March 4th at the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, giving businesses a way to benchmark their performance, compare themselves to industry peers, and chart a roadmap for growth.There's also a new team member — Danielle Hancock — joining as General Manager, plus exciting guests already locked in for the first half of the year and a push to get all major political parties on the show ahead of the election.The message? New Zealand's productivity problem is real — and the solution isn't coming from Wellington. It starts with businesses getting better, one decision at a time.Got a guest suggestion? Know someone who should hear this? Share it with three business owners you know. The rising tide lifts all boats.

Every construction project generates thousands of documents, drawings, decisions, and specifications. Then the project ends — and most of that intelligence disappears, buried on USB sticks or lost in SharePoint folders nobody revisits. In this episode, hosts David and Rob sit down with Jon Sinclair of Performance Building Technologies to explore why the construction industry's data problem is costing New Zealand dearly, and what businesses of any size can do about it today. Jon's path is anything but conventional — environmental scientist turned London developer turned managed services specialist — and it gives him a sharp eye for where the industry is leaving value on the table. His solution is something he calls "asset memory": a shared, searchable intelligence that carries the story of a building long after the project team has moved on.  What You'll Learn The scale of the problem. Construction professionals spend roughly 35% of their time on non-value-added work. A 3,500-page specification that takes 3–4 weeks to manually review can be processed by AI in under two hours — more accurately. New Zealand's productivity gap is stark: it costs us 50% more to build infrastructure than the US, and up to 900% more than countries like South Korea and Finland. The handover cliff. The biggest performance loss in construction doesn't happen during a project — it happens the moment it ends. Operational teams inherit a curated subset of project data; the rest vanishes. Jon makes the case that handover should be treated as a critical project phase, not a loose end. Why you're building two assets. Every project creates a physical asset and a digital one. The physical asset is visible; the digital one is usually ignored. But the digital asset compounds in value over time — informing maintenance, resolving disputes, proving compliance, and affecting resale. Jon shares a real example where a commercial owner discovered their building was 20% larger than they'd been leasing it for, simply because no one had ever checked. What asset memory looks like in practice. Rather than curating a subset of information into a structured system, Performance Building Technologies captures everything and lets AI do the filtering. Their approach layers a small language model trained on New Zealand building codes and construction terminology on top of all project data — so facility managers can ask "What's behind the wall in Ward 3?" or "What are the warranty conditions on the specialist lighting?" and get answers in seconds. The rework revelation. 70% of health and safety incidents on construction sites happen during rework. When teams are under pressure to redo work, that's when accidents occur. Solving the data problem is a safety issue as much as a productivity one. Practical first steps. Jon's three starting points for any construction business: (1) build a visual record of your work on site — LiDAR-equipped phones and apps like Polycam make it simple; (2) use AI to understand the specs you're signing before you sign them; (3) think about how you hand over information, because retained payments are often tied to digital deliverables. Key TakeawaysThe organisations that treat data as an asset — not an afterthought — will be the ones that close New Zealand's productivity gap and set a new benchmark for the industry. Start small, capture everything, and remember: the digital foundation matters just as much as the physical one.Connect with Jon Sinclair and Performance Building Technologies to learn more about asset memory and digital transformation in construction.Rapid Fire Questions

• Books: The End of the World Is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan . The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver — a fictional collapse of the US economy in 2028 that's feeling a little too real right now.
• Weirdly competitive hobby: Sourdough baking — bread, pita, waffles, pizza. All of it.
• Best spot in Grey Lynn, Auckland: Honey Bones — great food, great vibe.

Most small and medium businesses think of governance as box‑ticking, compliance, or something only “big corporates” need. But what if governance was actually your competitive advantage?In this episode, we sit down with Dr Peter Crow, an internationally recognised governance advisor and director, to unpack what governance really means for SMBs — and why almost everything business owners think about governance is wrong.Peter makes governance accessible, practical, and deeply human. He shows how the right conversations, the right people, and the right focus can shift a business from drifting like a “cork in a washing machine” to intentionally steering towards performance, resilience, and growth.Whether you’re a founder wearing 14 hats or an ambitious SMB preparing to scale, this conversation reframes governance from compliance to capability — from structure to strategic enabler.HighlightsGovernance is not compliance — it’s performancePeter challenges the biggest misconception in SMBs: that governance is about slowing things down, following rules, or meeting obligations. True governance is about steering, guiding, and enabling growth.The moment an owner should consider governance
From generational succession to new markets, or simply not wanting to make decisions alone — Peter explains the real triggers for adding governance capability.Why structure matters less than behaviour and capabilityBoards don’t perform because of frameworks. They perform because of people — how they think, behave, and challenge each other.“You cannot comply your way to performance”
Peter’s seven‑word myth‑buster reframes governance as a game plan, not a checklist.---------------------  The Better SMB Podcast is sponsored by SetSeed, the all-in-one platform that redefines what a website can be. Smart, secure and AI-tailored to reflect your brand. No plugins, no patchwork, no problems. Just world-class software and support in one subscription. Discover more at setseed.com  ---------------------  Connect with Rob and David on LinkedIn Rob Bull David Altena Learn more about NZ Lean Academy and the mission Rob is on to make NZ the best place in the world to do business  Download David's NBR-featured report "Boosting Productivity in New Zealand SMEs" by joining the mailing list on the Altena Solutions website and start your journey to a more higher performing business today  

Innovation isn’t just about technology or government policy, it’s a leadership choice. In this episode of The Better SMB Podcast, we sit down with Sean Doherty, former Callaghan Innovation leader, to unpack why New Zealand’s prosperity depends on the decisions business leaders make today. Sean shares insights from decades in engineering, manufacturing, and national innovation programmes, challenging SMB owners to step out of their comfort zone and start building capacity for growth. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: 

• Why New Zealand is “poor because it chooses to be” 

• The real difference between R&D, innovation and adoption 

• How leadership, not funding, is the biggest barrier to progress 

• Practical steps to shift from cost-cutting to growth 

Episode Highlights: 

• “Innovation isn’t a destination—it’s a daily choice.” 

• The three barriers holding SMBs back: funding, lack of strategy, and comfort 

• Why waiting for government support is a losing game 

• How small acts of leadership courage, like listening to staff ideas, can unlock big breakthroughs 

 --------------------- The Better SMB Podcast is sponsored by SetSeed, the all-in-one platform that redefines what a website can be. Smart, secure and AI-tailored to reflect your brand. No plugins, no patchwork, no problems. Just world-class software and support in one subscription. Discover more at setseed.com --------------------- Connect with Rob and David on LinkedIn Rob Bull David Altena Learn more about New Zealand Lean Academy and the mission Rob is on to make NZ the best place in the world to do business  Download David's NBR-featured report "Boosting Productivity in New Zealand SMEs" by joining the mailing list on the Altena Solutions website and start your journey to a more productive business today