The Better SMB Podcast

Part of Better SMB's Election 2026 series — sitting down with each major party's small business spokesperson ahead of 7 November. Before two decades in the NZ Army and now Parliament, Dan Rosewarne struggled at school and found his path through vocational training. He walks David and Rob through Labour's Small Business Action Plan ("A Fair Go") and its follow-up, Small Business First — and what it would actually mean for a tradie, a café owner, or a sole trader.In this episode:The real story behind the 15-day payment rule: a $15k materials bill, a 90-day wait, and why "paid on time" isn't yet the lawScrapping Investment Boost for a $10,000 instant asset write-off — and Labour's answer to the "$5 billion tax grab" criticismRaising the GST threshold to $80,000, taking 35,000 of the smallest operators out of GST altogetherThe 15% target for government contracts going to small business — and who's accountable if it's missedCapability, AI support, and the case for "earning the right to automate" before pushing adoptionWhat two decades in the military and a cancer diagnosis taught Dan about leading under pressureKey quote: "Regardless of who you vote for this election, the future performance of your business won't be determined by policy alone. It will be determined by the decisions you make, the capability you build, and the actions you take every day." — David AltenaBook recommendation: Dan's pick for SME owners — That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix🔗 Dan Rosewarne MP — Labour Party: labour.org.nz/our-team/dan-rosewarne🔗 Labour's Small Business Action Plan: labour.org.nz/small-business-action-plan🔗 Small Business First: labour.org.nz/small-business-first📊 Benchmark your own business with PerformIQ: www.thebettersmb.com/nz-manufacturer-signup/🌐 The Better SMB: www.thebettersmb.com🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by Setseed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #Election2026 #NZPolitics #SmallBusiness #SMBPolicy

With hosts David Altena & Rob Bull | Guest: Qiulae Wong, Leader, The Opportunity PartyNew 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 capability, capacity and confidence.In this episode:What "radically centrist" actually means, and why Qiulae argues the left-right divide is holding New Zealand backThe B Corp philosophy: putting social and environmental impact on equal footing with profit — and what that looks like inside a small businessThe tax reset policy explained in plain terms — and an honest admission that some SME owners could be worse off under itThe Breakthrough Economy policy: widening access to R&D tax credits and smaller, faster grants so the innovation pipeline isn't just for big businessRob's pushback: R&D policy is only useful if SMEs have the time and capability to act on it in the first placeClosing test for listeners: will this policy actually make it easier to build a capable, resilient small business — not just whether it polls wellKey quote: "We simply need to enact the playbook that [other OECD countries] have done over the last couple of decades." — Qiulae WongBook recommendation: Qiulae's pick for SME leaders — Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia🔗 The Opportunity Party: www.opportunity.org.nz📊 Benchmark your own business with PerformIQ: www.thebettersmb.com/nz-manufacturer-signup/🌐 The Better SMB: www.thebettersmb.com🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by Setseed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #NZPolitics #SMBPolicy #Productivity #NZBusiness

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 just the business itself.In this episode:The line between healthy continuous improvement and never feeling like anything is good enough"Personal prisons": the limiting mindsets that quietly hold capable owners back — including the assumption that everyone should care as much as you doWhat elite environments like the SAS and the Hurricanes do differently that an average NZ business could actually borrowGenuine self-accountability for a leader with no one above them to report toThe smallest first move to reverse slipping standards — service, culture, or your own habitsWhy "can't" is the word to ban from your leadership team's vocabulary — and what to replace it withKey quote: "Better isn't really about fixing a business. It's about continually refining the person leading it." — David AltenaBook recommendation: Paul's pick for business owners — Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown📖 Paul Wood — paulwood.com📚 Better Never Stops — HarperCollins NZ: www.harpercollins.co.nz/9781775542971/better-never-stops/📊 Benchmark your own business with PerformIQ: www.thebettersmb.com/nz-manufacturer-signup/🌐 The Better SMB: www.thebettersmb.com🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by Setseed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #Leadership #ContinuousImprovement #NZBusiness #BetterNeverStops

With hosts David Altena & Rob Bull | Guest: Elise Balsillie, Head of Thryv Australia & New ZealandThree-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 owners rate their own online presence far higher than customers actually experience itGEO vs SEO in plain English — what changes now that AI tools do the "searching" on a customer's behalfWhat ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview actually looks at when it recommends a plumber, accountant, or bookkeeperWhy reviews and response speed matter more than a flashy website redesignThe one hour a week that moves the needle further than a full rebrandA simple starting point: 15 minutes a week Googling your own business and three competitors, from your phoneKey quote: "Being listed is not the same as being discoverable." — David Altena🔗 Thryv — Small Business Marketing Software: www.thryv.com📊 Benchmark your own business with PerformIQ: www.thebettersmb.com/nz-manufacturer-signup/🌐 The Better SMB: www.thebettersmb.com🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by Setseed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #Thryv #GEO #SEO #SMBMarketing #NZBusiness

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 planWhy only half of NZ SMEs have a documented plan — and why the rest run on reactive managementThe "hamster wheel" trap: teams return from training or conferences inspired, then slide straight back to status quoHow to actually get a team to own the plan — devolved, military-style leadership over top-down mandatesWhy throwing technology at a broken process just makes chaos happen fasterA simple test for your own business: ask your three most senior people to write down their top three priorities, independentlyKey quote: "The behaviours of your people are the result of the system that you built." — Rob Bull, quoting W. Edwards Deming📊 Find out where your dots aren't connecting — benchmark your business with PerformIQ: www.thebettersmb.com/nz-manufacturer-signup/📰 Read the article this episode is based on — Connecting the Dots, NZ Manufacturer, The Last Word, June 2026🌐 The Better SMB: www.thebettersmb.com🎙️ The Better SMB Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0VmzaRqeU5g94kzfPRKQlqProudly sponsored by Setseed — www.setseed.com#BetterSMB #NZManufacturing #Leadership #BusinessAlignment #SMBNZ