Have you ever spent hours trying to fix something in your business, only to eventually realize that the thing you were fixing wasn’t actually the problem?
I’ve definitely done this. Sometimes when something isn’t working the way I want it to, I start looking for ways to make it better.
Sales are slow? Maybe I need a better sales page. I’m not getting enough done? I probably need a better productivity system. I haven’t been creating content consistently? Obviously, I need to become more disciplined.
Those conclusions seem perfectly reasonable. And sometimes they’re right. But sometimes…they aren’t. And when they’re not, we can spend a whole lot of time being productive without actually making any progress.
That’s something I’ve been trying to get better at noticing in my own business. Before I jump straight into fixing something, I’m trying to stop long enough to ask whether the thing I’m looking at is actually the problem, or simply the easiest symptom to see.
Because there’s a big difference between the two.
The Problem You See Isn’t Always the Problem You Need to Fix
Let’s say you have a product that isn’t selling very well.
You look at your sales page and immediately start noticing things you could improve. Maybe the headline isn’t strong enough. Should you update that? Should you add more testimonials? Should the buy buttons be higher on the page? Should you just rewrite the whole thing?
So you spend an afternoon working on it. Maybe even an entire day (or longer). And then you wait a few days or weeks, and when sales still don’t improve, you start tweaking it again.
But there’s one important question you might not have asked: How many people are actually seeing the sales page? If only a handful of people visit it each week, rewriting the page may not change much.
You don’t necessarily have a sales page problem. You might have a traffic problem. And those require two completely different solutions.
I Recently Discovered This in My Own Business
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I recently discovered that I had been making a similar assumption in my own business.
I have opt-in pages where people can sign up for my free resources and sales pages where they can buy my products. When I wasn’t seeing as many sign-ups and sales as I’d like, it was easy to look at those pages and wonder what was wrong with them.
I thought the same things I mentioned above. Maybe the headline wasn’t good enough, or the copy needed more work. Maybe it was the actual offer that wasn’t appealing enough. Or maybe the entire page needed to be redesigned. I didn’t have any idea what I needed to change…just that I needed to make changes.
There were plenty of things I could change. But recently, I ran a small one-week Facebook ad test. The goal was partly to learn how Facebook ads worked and see what happened when I deliberately sent more people to one of my pages.
And it gave me something I hadn’t been paying enough attention to before: More data.
Instead of simply looking at the number of people signing up and thinking, That’s not enough, I could start looking at how many people were actually reaching the page compared with how many of those people were signing up.
That told a very different story. The page wasn’t the problem I needed to solve first. I needed more people reaching it in the first place. Once I had people going to it, a good percentage of people were signing up. So my problem wasn’t necessarily what was ON the page. It was getting people to SEE the page!
I Could Have Spent Hours Fixing the Wrong Thing
This is the part that really got my attention. Imagine if I hadn’t figured that out. I could have spent hours rewriting my opt-in pages. I could have changed the headlines, moved things around, rewritten the bullets, redesigned the graphics, changed the buttons, and tried completely different versions of the copy.
Now don’t get me wrong. I would have been very productive if I did all of that. I would have checked off a whole bunch of things from my to-do list. But I still wouldn’t have solved the actual problem. And that’s an important distinction, because being productive and making progress aren’t always the same thing.
Worse, I could have taken a page that was already doing its job reasonably well and changed it so much that it performed worse.
That’s what makes solving the wrong problem so sneaky. You aren’t necessarily procrastinating. You might actually be working really hard. You’re just working hard on something that isn’t currently the bottleneck.
Symptoms and Problems Aren’t the Same Thing
I think this happens all over our businesses because the symptom is usually much easier to see than the cause.
You’re not making enough sales. That’s real. You’re not growing your email list quickly enough. That’s also real. You aren’t publishing consistently. Again, that’s real.
But none of those observations necessarily tells you why it’s happening. If sales are low, maybe you need a better offer. Maybe the sales page needs work. Maybe the wrong people are seeing it. Maybe hardly anyone is seeing it at all.
If your email list isn’t growing, it could be that your opt-in isn’t appealing enough. On the other hand, it could be fantastic, but almost nobody is reaching the page.
If you aren’t creating content consistently, maybe you need to block out more time. Or maybe you have plenty of time, but every time you sit down, you have to decide what to write about, where to publish it, what format it should take, and whether it’s the “right” thing to work on before you can even begin. By the time you’ve made all those decisions, you may not create anything at all!
The symptom tells you where something hurts. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what’s causing it.
Sometimes We Solve the Most Obvious Problem
I don’t think we do this because we’re bad at business. I think we do it because our brains naturally want an explanation. Something isn’t working, so we grab the first explanation that makes sense.
I’ve started becoming a lot more suspicious of that first answer. Not because it’s always wrong, but because I’d rather spend a few minutes questioning it before I spend three hours fixing it.
Look for the Bottleneck
One thing I’ve been trying to do more often is look for the place where things are actually getting stuck. If I want more sales, for example, I can look at the whole path instead of immediately blaming the sales page.
I can wonder:
- Are enough people finding me?
- Are they joining my list?
- Are they opening my emails?
- Are they clicking through to the offer?
- Are people reaching the sales page?
- Are they buying once they get there?
Those are very different problems.
If people reach the sales page and don’t buy, then yes, maybe the page or the offer deserves my attention. But if hardly anyone reaches the page in the first place, rewriting it isn’t where I’d want to spend most of my time.
The same idea applies to almost anything. If I’m struggling to publish content, where exactly am I getting stuck? Coming up with ideas? Choosing one? Starting? Finishing? Editing? Publishing? Promoting it afterward?
Instead of labeling the whole thing “I’m inconsistent,” I can get much more specific. And once I know where the bottleneck actually is, the solution often becomes a lot simpler.
This Fits Into Something Else I’ve Been Thinking About
Last week, I wrote about asking: What’s making your business harder than it needs to be? I’ve been noticing that this week’s question is almost the next step.
Once you find something that’s harder than it needs to be, it’s tempting to immediately start fixing it. But first: Are you fixing the actual problem?
Because if I misidentify the problem, I can add more systems, tools, strategies, and work without making my business any easier. I might actually make it more complicated. That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do. I’m not looking for more things to do. I’m looking for the right things to improve.
Try This Before You Fix Something
Think of one thing in your business that isn’t working as well as you’d like. It could be that you’re not getting enough sales. Or that your list isn’t growing. It could be that you’re constantly behind on content. Or that there’s a project you’ve been putting off for months.
Write down what you think the problem is. Then, instead of immediately fixing it, ask: How do I know that’s the problem?
Do I have data that tells me this? Is there a particular point where people are dropping off? Can I see exactly where I’m getting stuck? Or did I simply choose the explanation that seemed most obvious?
Then ask one more question: What else could be causing this? You don’t need to turn it into a three-day investigation or build an enormous spreadsheet. Sometimes ten minutes of looking at the problem from another angle is enough to realize you’ve been trying to fix the wrong thing.
Make the Right Thing Easier
I’m still learning to do this. My natural instinct when I see a problem is often to start solving it. And there’s something satisfying about taking action immediately. But action isn’t automatically progress.
I could have spent hours improving my sales and opt-in pages and felt incredibly productive while completely ignoring the fact that I needed more people reaching those pages. That’s why I’m trying to get better at diagnosing before redesigning. Before I add another tool, rebuild another page, create another system, or tell myself I need to work harder, I want to understand what’s actually getting in the way.
Because making business easier isn’t just about removing friction. It’s about removing the right friction.
And sometimes the best way to solve a problem faster is to spend a little more time figuring out what the problem actually is.
