Our mate Luke’s son Henry lost footy 62-1.

It was also... a good close game. What??

Sometimes the scoreboard tells one story, but the game tells another. Watching from the sidelines, the contest was fairly even. Henry and his teammates were solid in the midfield, and defended well. But they couldn’t kick goals.

Cue clunky segue to Col taking us through the five critical components of running your small business, and why you can’t afford to drop the ball (ba-dum tssh!) on any of them.

1. Have something worth buying

2. Promote it so people find out about it (Turn strangers into neighbours)

3. Sell it enough (Turn neighbours into friends)

4. Deliver it well (Friends become BFFs)

5. Get referrals (BFFs become advocates)

Every successful small business boils down to these five basics. And like in the footy metaphor, it’s not enough to be brilliant at one or two of them. You need to be at least competent across all five. Otherwise, the “scoreboard” could resemble the time Col's under-10s side lost 256-0.

His personal highlight was smothering a ball with his face.