The Problem With Starting With the Solution

When a founder tells me they need more leads, a new salesperson, a new website, or a way to break into a new market, I don't assume they're wrong.

They may be exactly right.

What I question is whether they've already decided how to solve the problem before they've fully defined the problem.

That distinction matters more than it might seem.

A company can spend a lot of money solving the wrong problem very efficiently.

We Tend to Notice What Is Missing

When growth slows down, the most visible gap often becomes the proposed solution.

“We need more leads.”

“We need a better salesperson.”

“We need to update the website.”

“We need to get into a new market.”

“We need a CRM.”

“We need to hire someone to run marketing.”

Each of those statements may be true. But they're not really strategies. They're starting points.

The harder question is: What makes you believe that's what you need?

If the answer is simply, “Because we're not getting the result we want,” there's still a lot to understand.

A lack of revenue could be caused by insufficient demand. Or it could be that the demand you're generating isn't converting. It could be the market, the offer, the positioning, the sales process, the customer experience, the people involved, the technology supporting them, or the way all of those pieces work together.

The symptom doesn't necessarily tell you the cause.

And the solution you reach for first often reflects the symptom you can see.

The Problem Gets More Complicated as a Company Grows

This is particularly true for founder-led businesses.

In the early years, a founder can compensate for a lot of gaps without realizing it. They know the customers. They know the market. They know what to say. They know who to call. They can make decisions quickly. They can spot an opportunity and act on it.

The business can move forward without many formal systems because the founder is filling the gaps.

Then the company grows.

More people become involved. More customers need to be reached. More revenue is required. The founder can't personally touch every opportunity or make every decision.

Suddenly, the gaps that were always there become visible.

And that's often when the company starts looking for solutions.

A new hire. A new technology platform. A new marketing channel. A new strategy.

But the underlying question hasn't changed: What is actually preventing the business from getting where it wants to go?

A Solution Can Create a New Problem

Starting with the solution can also create a kind of tunnel vision.

Suppose a company decides it needs to enter a new market. The decision may lead immediately to questions about messaging, campaigns, lead lists, salespeople, and technology.

But there are questions that should come first:

• Is this actually the right market?
• What makes the company relevant to buyers in that market?
• Do those buyers recognize the problem the company solves?
• Does the existing offer make sense to them?
• How will they discover the company?
• What will make them trust it?
• What needs to happen before they're ready to talk to Sales?
• Does the organization have the capacity to serve them?
• What capabilities don't exist today?
• What has to happen first?

The answers may still lead to a marketing campaign. But they might lead somewhere else.

Maybe the offer needs to change first. Maybe the company needs a different sales capability. Maybe the market isn't as attractive as it initially appeared. Maybe the technology is fine but the process around it isn't. Maybe the organization isn't ready for the growth it's trying to create.

You don't know until you've looked.

Strategy Should Not Begin With a List of Tactics

It's tempting to think of strategy as deciding what we're going to do.

I think it's more useful to think of strategy as figuring out what has to be true for the desired outcome to happen.

If the goal is to enter a new market, strategy isn't simply “create a go-to-market plan.” It's understanding the path between the ambition and the result.

If the goal is to increase revenue, it's not automatically “generate more leads.” It's understanding what has to happen between the first interaction with a potential customer and the revenue showing up.

That path has stepping stones. Some may involve marketing. Some may involve sales. Others may have nothing to do with either.

They might involve:

• People and capabilities
• Processes and workflows
• Technology
• Positioning and messaging
• Customer experience
• Organizational structure
• Measurement
• Training
• Change management

The work is figuring out which ones matter, which ones don't, and what order they need to happen in.

Sometimes the Answer Is Exactly What You Thought

This isn't an argument against solutions.

Sometimes you really do need more leads. Sometimes you really do need to replace a salesperson. Sometimes you really do need a new website. Sometimes you really do need a CRM.

The point is that those conclusions should come after understanding the problem, not instead of understanding it.

There's a difference between saying, “We need more leads,” and saying, “We've determined that our current market, offer, positioning, sales capacity, and conversion rates are strong enough that insufficient qualified demand is the constraint. We need more of the right prospects entering the system.”

The second statement gives you something to work with. It tells you why the solution makes sense. It also gives you a way to know whether it worked.

The Best Solution May Not Be the Most Obvious One

Growth rarely happens because a company finds one missing piece and adds it.

More often, there are several things that need to change—and they are connected.

That's why I start by looking at the whole picture. What's working? What's not? What has the company already tried? What do the numbers tell us? What do employees see? What do customers experience? Where are the gaps? What is the organization capable of executing today?

Only then can you start mapping the path forward.

Because the goal isn't to find a solution.

It's to find the right things to solve, in the right order, so the outcome you're trying to achieve is actually possible.

That's the problem with starting with the solution.

You might get very good at solving the wrong problem.