Over the years, I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of business owners, and while every business is different, one conversation comes up again and again. It usually starts with someone saying, "I know something isn't working, but I can't put my finger on it." Sometimes they think it's marketing. Sometimes they think it's their website, their sales process or even their staff. The interesting part is that what they think is wrong isn't always where the real opportunity lies. After more than forty years in business, I've learned that some of the most important decisions are made before anyone starts talking about solutions.
"I Know Something Isn't Working... I Just Can't Put My Finger on It."
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that sentence over the years, I could probably retire.
It doesn't always come out exactly like that, of course. Sometimes it's, "We're working harder than ever, but we don't seem to be getting ahead." Other times it's, "We've spent money on marketing, but nothing seems to have changed." I've even had people sit down across from me and simply say, "I don't know what's wrong. I just know something isn't."
What I've found interesting is that very few business owners call because they know exactly what they need. They call because they're trying to make sense of what's happening in their business and, if they're honest, they know they're too close to it to see it objectively anymore. I understand that feeling completely.
When you're involved in the day-to-day running of a business, you're making decisions constantly. Customers need answers, staff need direction, suppliers need information, invoices need to go out, and somewhere in the middle of all that you're expected to find time to think about strategy, marketing, technology and where the business is headed next. It's no wonder most owners end up making decisions based on what feels most urgent rather than what may be most important.
Over the years, I've watched business owners invest in beautiful new websites, sophisticated CRM systems, advertising campaigns, software, equipment and even additional staff, believing that one of those things was going to solve the problem. Sometimes it did. Quite often it didn't, not because those investments were poor decisions, but because they were made before anyone had taken the time to understand what was really happening inside the business.
I remember one conversation in particular with a business owner who contacted me because he wanted a new website. That was the project as far as he was concerned. Had we wanted to, we could have quoted the website, collected a deposit and started building. Instead, we spent the first part of our meeting talking about his business. We talked about who he was trying to reach, what made his company different, which services he wanted to grow and what success would actually look like a year from now. Somewhere during that conversation it became obvious to both of us that the website wasn't really the place to start. The website wasn't the problem; it simply reflected a lack of clarity that already existed within the business. Once we worked through that first, everything else became easier because every decision now had a purpose behind it.
I've seen the same thing happen with CRM implementations. A company invests in software because they believe it will improve customer follow-up, only to discover that the software wasn't the challenge. Everyone was still doing things differently. There wasn't a consistent process, there wasn't agreement on how opportunities should move through the sales cycle, and there wasn't anyone measuring whether the process was actually being followed. The CRM didn't fail. It was being asked to solve a problem it was never designed to fix.
Marketing is no different.
People often assume that because I've spent more than forty years in marketing, I'm naturally going to recommend more marketing. Sometimes I do. Just as often, I don't.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is that business owners are looking for something deeper than their marketing. Marketing is simply where the frustration often shows up first. Sales begin to slow down, referrals aren't as consistent as they used to be, the website isn't generating enough enquiries, and naturally the assumption is that marketing must be the issue. Sometimes that's true. Other times marketing is simply exposing a different problem that's been quietly developing for quite some time.
I've always believed that every business leaves clues. They show up in conversations with customers, in declining conversion rates, in missed opportunities, in staff frustration, in inconsistent sales and in the dozens of little workarounds that become part of everyday life. None of those clues, by themselves, tell the whole story. The challenge is that when you're living inside the business every day, you stop seeing them because they've gradually become normal.
That's where an outside perspective becomes valuable.
One of the advantages of sitting across the table from hundreds of business owners over 40 years is that you recognize patterns. You hear the same concerns expressed in different ways. You notice similarities between industries that, on the surface, appear to have nothing in common. More importantly, you learn that the first solution someone suggests is rarely the whole answer. I suppose that's why I've never been comfortable jumping straight to recommendations.
It would certainly be easier. Someone asks for a website, you sell them a website. They ask about CRM, you recommend software. They want marketing, you build a campaign.
The trouble is that if the recommendation is based on an assumption rather than an understanding of the business, there's a good chance you'll solve today's symptom while tomorrow's frustration quietly takes its place. That doesn't serve anyone particularly well.
As my own business has evolved over the past few years, I've found myself spending less time talking about marketing and much more time talking about clarity. Not because marketing has become less important, but because I've come to appreciate that good marketing is usually the result of clear thinking, not the starting point. The same can be said for websites, sales processes, CRM systems and just about every other investment a business owner makes.
That realization is what eventually led me to develop the Growth Gap Assessment™.
It wasn't created as another online assessment or a clever marketing tool. It came from years of conversations with business owners who were trying to make important decisions without having a structured way to step back and look at the whole picture first. The assessment is simply the beginning of that conversation. It helps identify patterns, highlights areas worth exploring and gives us a starting point for a much more meaningful discussion about where the business is today and where it wants to be tomorrow.
What happens after that is different for every business.
Sometimes the assessment confirms exactly what the owner already suspected. Sometimes it points in a completely different direction. Either way, the conversation becomes more productive because it's based on understanding rather than assumption.
One of the things I enjoy most about what I do is watching the moment when a business owner suddenly sees something they hadn't seen before. It isn't always dramatic. In fact, it's usually quite simple. They'll stop for a moment and say something like, "That makes sense," or "I hadn't thought about it that way." Those are the conversations that lead to better decisions because they aren't driven by urgency anymore. They're driven by clarity.
If there's one thing I'd encourage every business owner to do before making their next significant investment, whether it's marketing, technology, staffing or anything else, it's this. Take the time to step back and ask yourself whether you truly understand the problem you're trying to solve. You may discover that your original idea was exactly the right one. You may also discover there's an even better place to start.
Either way, you'll move forward with far more confidence, and in my experience, that's almost always where better business decisions begin.
