HeyJaredThe Better SMB Podcast
Join hosts David Altena and Rob Bull as they delve into the subject of small and medium- business productivity in New Zealand.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 8
- Latest publication
- Sep 21, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 16, 2026
Latest episodes
Ep 45. Will It Actually Help? Qiulae Wong on What the Opportunity Party Would Change for NZ's SMBs (opens the original)
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With hosts David Altena & Rob Bull | Guest: Qiulae Wong, Leader, The Opportunity Party New Zealand has been unable to meaningfully lift productivity for 40+ years, despite inquiries, restructures and reforms. Qiulae Wong — leader of The Opportunity Party, with a career in sustainable and ethical business including the B Corp movement — joins David and Rob to test her party's policies against one simple question: not whether they sound good, but whether they'd genuinely help SME owners build capa
Ep 44. Better Isn't Bigger — Dr Paul Wood on Why Continuous Improvement Starts With the Leader, Not the Business (opens the original)
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With hosts David Altena & Rob Bull and special guest: Dr Paul Wood, author of Better Never Stops. Growth and improvement aren't the same thing. Some businesses get bigger and more complicated. Some hit their targets while quietly drifting from what made them great. Dr Paul Wood — psychologist, former SAS and Hurricanes performance consultant, and author of Better Never Stops — joins David and Rob to unpack what continuous improvement actually looks like for the person running the business, not j
Ep 43. Listed Isn't the Same as Discoverable — What 2,000 Businesses Get Wrong About Getting Found (opens the original)
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With hosts David Altena & Rob Bull | Guest: Elise Balsillie, Head of Thryv Australia & New Zealand Three-quarters of NZ business owners think their online presence is strong. Only about half their own customers agree. Elise Balsillie draws on Thryv's 2025 Business Index — 2,000+ SME decision-makers and customers across Australia and NZ — to unpack that gap, and what it now takes to get found when customers are asking AI, not just Google, who to trust. In this episode: The confidence gap: why own
Ep 42. Connecting the Dots — Why Busy, Capable Businesses Still Aren't Moving Fast Enough (opens the original)
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Smart people, sensible ideas, real effort — and yet the business isn't moving as fast as it should. David and Rob unpack why: it's rarely a strategy problem, a people problem, or a technology problem on its own. It's a connection problem — and it's quietly cancelling out good work in businesses everywhere. In this episode: The All Blacks analogy for misalignment: brilliant forwards, brilliant backs, no shared game plan Why only half of NZ SMEs have a documented plan — and why the rest run on rea
Ep 41. Election Year Excuses — Why NZ Manufacturers Can't Afford to Wait (opens the original)
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Every three years, New Zealand business hits pause and waits for political clarity before it moves. David and Rob call time on that habit. In 2026, hesitation isn't caution — it's a competitive disadvantage, and the data on productivity, closures, and unemployment backs them up. In this episode: Why election years trigger a "wait and see" mindset — and why it's mostly noise, not strategy The uncomfortable truth about NZ's business closures, inflation, and where we actually stand against the OECD
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