Why It's Harder to Sell in 2026 (And What's Actually Changed) Part 2

What actually keeps a business alive when customers are more cautious, cash flow is tighter, and “average” no longer cuts it? The answer isn’t simply more sales. 

Five years ago, getting people to spend was easier. In 2026, customers are researching more, comparing harder and asking whether what you sell is genuinely worth their money.

In part two of this series, I’m breaking down what I believe business owners need to focus on now: protecting profit, building cash reserves, fixing unprofitable pricing, improving team productivity, controlling debt, sharpening your positioning and making it ridiculously easy for customers to buy.

We get into:

→ Why knowing your weekly breakeven number changes the way you manage cash flow

→ The $10,000 cash buffer I struggled to build, and why automating savings finally made it happen

→ Why more sales can actually create more problems when your pricing isn’t profitable

→ What 50–60% staff capacity is telling you before you even think about hiring again

→ The danger of overleveraging, including $150,000 purchases that don’t have a clear path to ROI

→ Why lowering your prices when customers say “that’s expensive” can make the problem worse

→ How constant discounts train customers to wait instead of buy

→ Why “average” marketing, service and customer experience are becoming the danger zone in 2026

This is about building a business that can handle pressure without forcing you into reactive decisions, and becoming the business customers deliberately choose when they’re thinking harder about every dollar they spend.

Chapters:

0:00 Why selling is harder in 2026: Part 2
 1:45 Why profit has to come first
 3:28 Work out your weekly breakeven
 6:22 Building cash reserves before you feel ready
 8:05 My $10,000 cash buffer
 12:13 Reassessing pricing and operating costs
 13:50 Fix productivity before hiring more staff
 15:16 Turning fixed costs into variable costs
 17:38 Debt, overleveraging and $150,000 purchases
 20:03 Your brand needs a real point of difference
 22:25 How consumer spending has changed since 2021
 24:30 Why lowering your prices can backfire
 26:12 Discounts can train customers not to buy
 28:14 Why average is becoming the danger zone
 29:21 Remove friction from the buying process
 31:47 Give people something worth talking about

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:

→ https://www.instagram.com/delusionalwithsammykennedy/
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedyofficial 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am obsessed with profit. And the reason why I'm obsessed with profit is because I have grown up in now million dollars worth of debt. And it's really scary not knowing if you have a business model that's actually gonna get you out of that debt. There's been times where I'm like, I do not have any money to even put towards a cash reserve. But cash reserves will literally change your life. So when you borrow money, it's important that you have a strategy to not only repay the money that you're borrowing, but make extra on top of that. Because as you know, businesses that thrive, they need profit. Profit allows you to pay people, it allows you to retain top talent, it allows you to reinvest back into your fit out, your products, your equipment, your supplies, like whatever it is that makes you incredible at what you do. If you don't have that profit there, there's no innovation, there's no improvements. If you haven't done an assessment of your operating costs, your pricing structure, how much you're paying in GST, F POS fees, because all of this stuff is going to change from the 1st of October. Now is the time to do it. At what point are you over-leveraged? At what point, if things did decline by 10 or 20%, do you think you would lose your business? Hello and welcome back to another episode of Delusional with Sammy Kennedy. Today we are covering part two of why customers feel harder to sell to in 2026 and what businesses need to do to change. Now, if you haven't already listened to part one of this series, please put this episode on pause. Go back and listen to part one, and then come back to this episode because I promise you it will make so much more sense. Now, in part one, we actually spoke into what has changed five years ago in business versus what we're experiencing right now, how the economy is actually creating a different kind of consumer prioritization when it comes to spending, what we're actually seeing from consumer behavior and data and statistics. And today we are actually going to focus more on you as the business owner and what you can do to stay empowered during these hard times. Obviously, when you're under pressure, you're in survival mode, and you're just trying to make it through week to week, it's hard to actually take that step out of the business and look at what strategies I can use to improve my circumstances. What do I actually need to focus on? Because you're just trying to like swim through the hard times every single day and you feel like you're just drowning. I've been there, I know exactly what it's like, and I'm going to share with you what I believe has been most valuable for us to focus on at Wild West bowling to ensure we are making good money, we're retaining our profits and actually setting ourselves up. So if something worse does happen in the economy, we won't lose our whole business and go bankrupt. So listen carefully. Now, if you know me, you know that I am obsessed with profit. And the reason why I'm obsessed with profit is because I have grown up in now million dollars worth of debt. And it's really scary not knowing if you have a business model that's actually going to get you out of that debt. And so when you borrow money, it's important that you have a strategy to not only repay the money that you're borrowing, but make extra on top of that. Because, as you know, businesses that thrive, they need profit. Profit allows you to pay people, it allows you to retain top talent, it allows you to reinvest back into your fit out, your products, your equipment, your supplies, like whatever it is that makes you incredible at what you do. If you don't have that profit there, there's no innovation, there's no improvements, and ultimately you will start to weather away with all the businesses who do not try, who do not evolve, who do not adapt, and they actually die a very slow and painful death because it's not like that they wake up one day and there's no money in the account. It's like treading water every single week, just barely surviving, but just pushing through. And they get to retirement, they haven't paid themselves any money, they have no super, their business isn't worth anything. And so we don't want that to happen to you. We don't want you to take all this risk, make all these sacrifices, and then have to walk away with nothing. Because that is the definition of insanity, is knowing that that is the outcome and you have not done anything else to help get yourself out of that situation. So coming back to profit, it's important that you understand the basics, like what is your break-even cost? Now, not annually, I want you to work it out weekly. So add up all of your expenses, how much is that as a total, then divide by 52 and figure out what is that weekly breakeven cost? Because that will give you an indication of how much you actually need to be bringing in per week just to survive baseline. Most people think, oh, what do I need to make per month or per quarter? But if you are not able to bring in enough money per week, then that's where you have like these huge variances in your cash flow because you're always relying on like some magical amount of money to hit your bank account and then pay all your bills. But if you understand what each of your expenses works out to be weekly as well, as cash flow comes in, you can start allocating money towards all of those things. So I did this in my own personal life. When I didn't do this, I would have my car regro come up, I would have my insurance come up, I would have all these big, nasty bills, dentist appointments, you name it, especially my contact lenses. Oh my gosh. But now that I understand how much those things cost me per year and I've worked it out to be a weekly amount, I have an automation set up. And so there's always money that goes into essentially this holding account. So when these expenses come up, there is always money there. And I'm not having to pull it from other areas. So my one gift that I can give to you today is please go and work out your break-even cost of your business. And then I want you to work backwards, figure out the weekly costs, and for specific areas, whether it's health, whether it's living expenses, whether it's wages, like whatever it may be, start setting up automations. So there's always something going towards it because if you pull cash flow from other areas where you shouldn't, or you decide, hey, I'm gonna go blow $10,000 on stock that you don't actually have to spend, like you shouldn't be spending that money. So getting a plan in place, making sure you know your breakeven costs, and then having profit on top of that. That comes back to profitable pricing, the one thing that I have created IP around because I understand it's not just having this nice number that you've copied off someone else and charged a little bit more, a little bit less. It's actually understanding your unique business overheads, what you need to charge, how much profit do you want to build into your offers? Because without profit, there is no point doing business. You would actually be better off working for someone else full-time because you would get paid more and you would be stressing less. So make profit a priority, not just the fancy revenue goals. Now, I know this is probably something that a lot of people will roll their eyes at me because it's hard. I get it, it's hard. There's been times where I'm like, I do not have any money to even put towards a cash reserve. But cash reserves will literally change your life. Now, it's interesting when I have this conversation to people who are like, I can't afford to invest, or I don't have any money to save. Those are the people who need it more than anyone else, undoubtedly. And so what happens is we get so used to just paying for everything. Like we see a bill in, we pay it, you know, oh, that thing, we prioritize it over actually looking at like what are our profit goals, what are our saving goals, what are we investing. And if you actually flip the script and look at, okay, well, if I wanted to make this much money and have this amount for profit, this amount of savings, and then you reverse engineer your numbers backwards, or you prioritized and protected that, and then whatever money you had left on, that's what you spend on your expenses, business starts to look really different. Now I know there's going to be fixed overheads, like you can't just go, hey, I'm not gonna pay my rent and put all this money into savings. I get that. But what happens is when you work out all of your numbers and you start to see, okay, well, how much do I want to save throughout the year? Or do I have a target or a goal? And you break that down. Once again, like we said in the last thing, like just set up that automation. Once the money's across, act like it's not there. Don't touch it, don't take it out. The more you can build up cash reserves and buffers in your business, the less reactive you will become. Now, I set myself a goal to have $10,000 as a cash buffer. And for a very long time, that was actually not an easy task to achieve. There was always another expense doing the podcast studio, traveling, like there was always something that I would be pulling money out of. And when I looked at my income, I knew I had to increase what I was paying myself. So then I had to look at what do I need to sell more of to make more money, to be able to pay myself more. And then I set up the automations, and now there was always money going into a savings account every single week. So my savings actually grew. And if I was going to have to do the thing of manually transferring all the time, I don't think I would have savings because there would always be a deduction coming out, or there'd be another expense where I'd see the money and I'd go, oh, I can just buy that thing now. Whereas I actually have like a holding fund, like I mentioned before. I have a savings fund. Now, once I hit that goal of $10,000, after that, money gets invested. And so now I have room to play with investments. So there's been so many different things that I've now started just setting up automations for and having a cash reserve for your personal life, for your business, it gives you peace of mind. So if you got sick, if there was a family emergency, if for some reason your business got flooded, like worst case scenario, if you got taken and you were out of action for like three months, do you have enough money to be able to handle that time? And if the answer is no, your priority is to build that cash buffer. And as much as it may feel impossible, and it's really frustrating to do because there's always so many more expenses, this is a great sign that maybe you need to cut back on spending in other areas. Because at the end of the day, it does come down to priorities. I didn't prioritize saving, I didn't prioritize investing, but when I set a target of like, I need to have a thousand dollars that is getting invested every single month, all of a sudden I was more strict on like what am I wasting money on? What subscriptions could I cancel? Do I really need this or is this just a want? Can I wait? And so when you get more intentional with being able to create the kind of life you want, what you value, and then money becomes like a direct reflection of that, you start to see a lot of things shifting. So if you don't have a cash reserve, if you don't have a buffer there, then business is going to feel very reactive for you. And what you should look at doing or consider is cutting some different expenses and just being able to put an amount that it feels achievable for you. Like it shouldn't take all of your revenue up and then you're having to just transfer it back out. That is not the goal of this. Do something so small it feels stupid not to do. Like even if it's 50 bucks a week. Like it may sound like a small amount, but it is the habit that you're building. And then as more cash flow comes in, you can always increase that. And so if you don't build these habits, nothing will change. And I have this conversation with a lot of my business owners I've done profitable pricing with. They say when I make more money, I'll pay myself. But then they make more money and they spend more money on supplies, equipment, they hire more staff. And so it all comes down to your prioritization. And I was definitely not someone who prioritized having a cash buffer, but now that I have one, the way that I've shown up in my life in business, it has stopped me from being a reactive business owner. And I haven't had to make decisions that kind of compromise my values or my energy or my time just for the sake of money. So definitely look at prioritizing building one of those in. Now, if you haven't done an assessment of your operating costs, your pricing structure, how much you're paying in GST, FPOS fees, because all of this stuff is going to change from the 1st of October, now is the time to do it. Why is now the best time? Because everyone puts their prices up on the 1st of July. And so if you did your price increase based on the numbers before 1st of July, and then you actually get the real-time data of what everyone else's price increases are, if you do a price assessment now, you understand how much the operating costs are, your cost of goods sold, you know ahead of the 1st of October what you'll be paying with FPOS fees, like you can actually make these proactive changes and then implement a pricing structure that still is profitable. Now there's no point you holding on to pricing that is not sustainable for you. If you do that, you're just going to be trading water like we're speaking about before. Like you're just going to feel like you're barely surviving week to week. And so there's no point investing more money into marketing, into hiring more staff, into scaling your operations if at its very core, your pricing strategy does not have profit built into it. So you need to reassess that. You need to get on top of that before you start putting more fuel on the fire with increasing sales. Because if there's no profit to begin with, more sales, more staff, more team, more stress. It's just, it's not the kind of more you need more of. Another thing to focus on is productivity. So if you're a service-based business, this is specifically relevant to you. If you have staff and they're only sitting at 50, 60% capacity, this is not a time to look at bringing anyone else on. You really need to hone back and look at why the productivity rate is so low? Do you need to invest in more training to improve their skills so that they can actually provide a quality service that retains clients? Is it that they don't have sales training and they don't feel confident rebooking? And you need to invest that time and get them to do some role play and really understand how to deliver a client experience and check out those clients, get them rebooked. Do you need to look at asking them, having a one-on-one, doing a performance plan, setting some KPIs and targets that they actually feel they're working towards rather than just kind of rocking up to work and then doing the thing and going home and not thinking about it at all anymore? Like, if you have low productivity rates, it's important that you ask yourself, why do I have low productivity rates? Like, what's causing it? What can we focus on to improve it and get them back up? Because if you once again invest more time, energy into acquiring more customers, but you can't actually retain the ones you currently have, you're just wasting more money. I would also say that now is probably a really good time to reduce some of your fixed costs and replace them with variable costs if you can. Essentially, we want to create more flexibility in your business so you don't have such high fixed overheads. If you've got some variable costs, so for example, you might have someone who is an agency doing your marketing for you. And if there's some kind of way where instead of high paying them a high monthly retainer fee, you could get someone in who comes in once a quarter and does X amount of reels for you, and then you spread those reels out over time, and maybe a VA or someone in your team can take over marketing. If that's going to be more beneficial for you in this current climate, then you've got to make business moves that are going to work for you long term. Now, if you've been investing in your marketing, you've got someone who's really been driving the growth and it's about to pay off, don't pull out of it right before you're about to get the result. But if you don't have the cash flow, if you're not seeing the ROI, then it's time to restructure because throwing money away at things that are not going to bring the direct return on investment, it's not going to be the best financial decision for you. And I've done this before, especially with my podcast. There were times where I was paying over $2,000 a month for audio only, full production, and I just knew that it was one expense I could have significantly reduced had I chose to, and I didn't out of fear. But looking at it now, hiring my own team, being able to get more value for the price that I am investing, it feels like it's a better decision. And so when I'm looking at are there ways that you can reduce costs for the immediate time? And then if the business is doing better, bringing those costs back in or switching out things that aren't bringing in ROI into areas that you know are going to bring a greater ROI. Like you've got to sit down and keep assessing and looking over things, not just waiting until tax time and then thinking, oh, what was all that for? Now we've had to look at this a fair bit, but when you have your financial broker or if you have someone offering you that you can pull equity out or you could get another loan out to do the next thing, it is also important that you know what your debt servicing capacity is. Like, can you afford to actually pay this debt? And at what point are you over-leveraged? At what point, if things did decline by 10 or 20%, do you think you would lose your business? And if you can sit there and look over those numbers and understand, okay, well, what cash flow do I need to be sustainable, to be able to survive this time and not over-leverage myself to the point where I'm falling behind on payments or I have to default. Like you don't want to go bankrupt. And so understanding how much you can actually afford to buy and do with your business is really important. There have been a lot of conversations in Zoom calls where I've spoken to a client, they're not in a good financial position, and then they go and buy an $150,000 piece of equipment or machine or something like a car that's not even directly going to bring an ROI into their business. And it's just like those feel-good purchases or exciting things in the moment, like there's got to be a plan for how it's going to bring an ROI back into the business. And maybe if you are making great money, then those are great tax deductions, but you've got to be in the right position to do those kind of purchases. You can't just do them willy-nilly and then just pray that it'll all work out because there is more cost associated with making bad decisions. Because when you got to sell these things, there might be a level of tax you have to pay or a transfer fee. And so, even though it might be like, oh, well, if it doesn't work out, I can just sell it. Sometimes that whole process ends up costing you more because there were unexplained or unknown costs in association with having to close that down. Same thing as when you expand too much and then you've got to fit out, and then you decide you want to close that business now and you want to get out of the lease, then you've got to do a defit cost, like just being aware of what these things are all costing you and how that's going to impact your cash flow, it could not be more important. And then from a non-financial side, I know we have spoken a lot about money because it does relate with money. Branding and marketing. If you don't have a clear point of difference from your competitors and you just blend in, you sound the same, you look the same, you show up the same, there's no reason for customers to choose you. And that is the single most valuable thing that your business can focus on is like really understanding who am I? What do I do? And how do I do it differently? How is my way going to serve the type of customer that I want to attract? And there's so many things that go into a unique selling point that I think people just throw out the intention behind their business. They go, yeah, we're high quality. Yep, we have great customer service. Yep, we're excellent at what we do. We have X amount of years experience. And like when everyone else is also saying that, it doesn't really stand out. So being able to niche, nail your messaging, figure out how you actually position yourself in a way that is elevated or is different or is unique, like that is going to be your greatest asset. And so if you haven't got a point of difference and you feel like you're just copying what everyone else is doing and you're blending in with the crowd, then before you go and do anything, that is the key. Like you have to have the brand. Your brand is like the concrete slab of a house. If you start picking out what beautiful scented candles you want, and you think about the dishwasher and the TV, but there is not even a concrete slab down. There's no roof. Like, what is the point? So bring it back to those foundations because without those foundations of your brand, your point of difference, your values, that seeps into everything. It seeps into your marketing, the type of clients you attract, the kind of client experience that you curate, the way that you do all of your marketing, your messaging, the culture that you build with your team. Like you need to understand that point of difference and hone it in because that is what becomes your secret source. That's what makes you uncopyable. So back in 2021, consumers were happy to spend whatever. They would just look at the coolest first thing they would see on an ad and go, wow, I'll just buy that and I'll try it out. There was no real thought or intention behind it. They knew they had the money there and they would spend it willingly. However, now in 2026, five years later, consumers are very intentional with their spending. They are putting a higher priority on things that are going to bring them more value. So they're asking themselves questions like: how much does this cost? What is it going to do for me? How long should I wait until I get this? Do I buy it now? Do I buy it later? What is the quality? Can I find something that's the exact same for cheaper? And if not, what makes this so different that I should pay more? Have other people tried this? What are they saying about it? They're spending more time researching, understanding, and then intentionally purchasing. And so you as a brand, as a business, need to focus on increasing the way that you showcase your value. Because if you are not seen as valuable, if you are not seen as better as an option for them, then they will not pick you. They will still spend money. The economy does not stop. People don't stop spending money. It just means that they will stop spending money with you. And so instead of asking yourself, why aren't people spending money? I need you to reframe your mind around that and ask yourself, why are people not spending money with me? Because when you start thinking about like, there are people out there who are making bank, they are thriving, they have successful businesses, and then there's businesses who are struggling, like people are still spending money. It's just asking yourself, like, why are they not spending it with you? What do you need to focus on in order to get people spending their hard-earned dollars that they don't want to let go of unless they know it's valuable and going to bring them something back in return. Now, naturally, if you're struggling with cash flow and people say, oh, that's expensive, you're probably gonna think, Oh, I need to lower my prices. And that is probably the worst thing you can do because when you lower your prices, you decrease your profit margins, and then it just has this ripple effect where it almost showcases to customers that you don't have the certainty, the confidence, and the conviction in the value of your offer. So if you feel that customers are saying things like, it's too expensive, I can't afford it, then what you need to prioritize is the perception of your brand positioning and the value that you are showcasing. So bring it back. Think about okay, what do I need to do to showcase that my brand has greater value than the other options that they are currently looking at? Where and how can I position my brand so that it's something worth paying more for? And this is where I believe that the premium, the high-end brands, like they always thrive because it doesn't matter what season of life or period of time we are in, like people will always want to spend more money to look good, to feel more successful, to elevate their status. And so if you can be one of those brands, or you're one that provides an experience, provides entertainment, provides this shift in the way that they're currently feeling into a better state, then that will also be something that they will happily throw their money at. Now, at the moment, consumers are almost waiting for these sales of their favorite brands to purchase. And the problem with this is when you run all these discounts, these promotions, it actually trains people to wait until your business has these sales before they purchase. And so instead of creating this urgency to buy, you actually create procrastination. And it's really hard when you have created that almost expectation of the behavior that there will always be a sale or a discount and you can just wait then and then buy everything you want. And so if you are going to run something like this in your business, you have to do it sparingly. You can't just do it all the time. Or if you are going to do it all the time, you need to have higher prices with the margins built in that can actually handle those discounts or those promotions. Because without knowing the numbers, without being able to create enough profit, regardless of the discount, like that's where businesses they fall into this trap and then they see a lot, like a lump sum of cash flow come in, and then they stop, sales stop, it struggles, and then they just keep falling back into that cycle and constantly relying. So we don't want that for you. And the way to overcome that is to come up with an incredible offer. It doesn't have to be discounted, it doesn't have to be promo, it just has to be positioned right, the right messaging, the right social proof, and pushed out multiple times. You can't just put it out once and hope that people buy. People need up to 30 touch points, I swear. Like stories, Facebook ads, email marketing, podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Like we are so distracted by how many different pieces of content and platforms and notifications are coming through that if you are going to do something in your business, you need to be loud and proud about it. Average is going to become the new danger zone if your business is just doing fine, if it's just doing the average marketing, the average customer service, average results, average prices, those will be the businesses that just end up being put into the ground. And so it's really important that as a business, you do have a care factor for the clients, for the customers, for their results, for their experience. And it doesn't become something you get complacent with. Innovation is going to become more and more relevant and important for these customers because of how fast our lives are constantly progressing and rapidly changing, especially with AI. So if you can add in that time within your month, like one hour, what are you doing for RD? What are you doing to improve? Is there something that you can reflect on? Like just finding these ways to take your business up and do these 1% improvements will compound over time and bring you more success. Another thing that's worth mentioning is if you are struggling with sales or you're struggling to get interest or bookings, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes it actually comes down to removing purchasing friction. I think sometimes we don't realize we've made it really hard for people to buy from us. And so if there's like all these different links and redirects and like overload of information, or someone has to DM you to book in, and there's not a booking system where they can just check times, or your website is really clunky, or they have to get sent 5,000 emails, or there's 20 field forms they have to fill out before they can request to work with you. That's where you will start to find people will just go for the easier option. So if you don't have your funnel, your social media, your website, your client onboarding, if that is not simple and streamlined, you will lose a lot of people throughout that process as well. So make sure you get a friend or your partner or family member, whoever you want, I don't mind. Get them to sit down with you and go through your funnel as if they are a first-time customer and get the feedback of like where they're asking questions, where they're feeling stuck, what they're really loving, because we rarely will go and act as if we're a customer in our own business. And it's so important that you do that because it will give you clarity on what's working and it will also highlight what's not working and what you need to focus on. There's been plenty of times where I've thought things have been automated and they haven't even been switched on. They've been like on draft mode, and so I'm going, oh, they should have got all these emails, and they didn't get the emails, and so it only took like one client speaking up and then realizing that this must have happened for the last 10 clients, but no one said anything. So even with your best performing systems and processes automations, it does not hurt to go back and just act like you're a first-time customer. You know, your branding picks, they might have got updated. You need to change your email signature, you need to update a Google Drive link, the domains change, we've rebranded, we've forgotten a few things. Like, don't be afraid of just revisiting the things that you've been doing for years that you think are already amazing, and just going, okay, what could we do to just update this or make it a bit better? So ultimately, for you to succeed in 2026 as a business owner with attracting customers and making more sales, you have to do something that is worth people talking about. Whether it's your marketing, your branding, your business, your experience, the type of community you build, the quality of result you get, it's going to take effort. And I think what was easy five years ago is going to take significantly more effort to have success in now. But the thing is, there's a lot of people struggling and there's people surviving, but there's not that many who are actually sitting and going, How can I make this better? How can I actually improve this and putting the effort in? There's a lot of victims out there, there's a lot of people who will prefer to complain about their circumstances, but not actually do anything to improve or change it. So, based on that fact alone, you have the chance to succeed. You have what is within you to make this work. And I know sometimes business can feel really hard and it can feel overwhelming. However, you are the type of person who is delusional just like me and knows you're not going to give up. You've invested way too much time, money, energy, effort, risk, sacrifice to get to where you are today. And I really hope that what I've shared in these last two episodes can help you in your own journey. Whether there's one piece of information or advice that can just allow you to go and succeed, that is the goal of this. So thank you so much for taking the time to listen to these episodes. If there's been something that has blown your mind or made you realize something, please send me a DM on Instagram at Sammy KennedyOfficial. I would absolutely love to hear your takeaways and what you're working on. Have an amazing week, and I will catch you for the next episode. Bye.