How to Solve Problems Holding Your Business Back

If you like most small businesses, yours probably isn’t where you want to be. Maybe you had a 3–5-year plan, as all business should, but your actual results are off from your projections. Perhaps they are WAY off. One of two things likely happened: you didn’t have realistic expectations, i.e., no business plan, or you had one or two big pain points preventing you from getting to where you want to be.

What are some common pain points?

1.      Not making enough money

2.      Expenses are too high

3.      Not generating enough profit

4.      Never having enough time

5.      Unable to motivate employees

6.      Clients that think you’re on their payroll

7.      Never seem to have any cash reserves

As you may have guessed, no cash, not enough revenue, and increasing expenses are the most common across most small businesses, that latter two directly related to not enough profit. In order to eliminate any pain point, you must get to the root of the problem. There is a technique called the “5 Why’s” that is highly effective in problem solving. It states that if you ask the question “Why” for every reason you give for a given problem, by the time you get to the 5th why, you’ll be at the root cause of a given problem.

Let’s test this theory out for “My business doesn’t make enough money.”

Why #1: Why doesn’t my business make enough money? Answer: Because either my sales are too low, or my expenses are too high. Or a combination of both.

Why #2: Why are may sales low and expenses high? Answer: Because I don’t have an accounting or marketing background.

Why #3: Why do I focus on tasks that I’m not expert in instead of the ones I am one in? Answer: I am not a good delegator, or I’ve underestimated the importance of those tasks that should be managed by experts, like bookkeeping and marketing. Doing tasks, I’m not good at prevents me from doing the ones I am good at, thus contributing to the problem.

Why #4: Why do I underestimate the importance of bookkeeping and marketing? Answer: Because I’m not truly knowledgeable in either and haven’t really given it much thought previously. Plus, it sounds like it may cost money.

Why #5: Why don’t I take the time to find out what this actually involves? Answer I Will.

So, we’ve come to the end. It began with the problem of not making enough money to a solution of finding an expert/specialist in these two key areas that can fix this, thus allowing me to do things I am an expert in. In this case, the business can do a Google search or if they use QuickBooks Online (highly recommended by this author) a search on their platform for a bookkeeper in their area. For example, let’s say it’s a business owner in Daytona Beach, Florida. You can Google “Bookkeepers in Daytona Beach Florida” or on the QuickBooks platform, put the zip code 32117 in the search box for “Find A ProAdvisor”. Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks Online, calls their bookkeepers “ProAdvisor’s.” It’s money well spent.

As you can see, even in this simple example, it’s not difficult to get to the root of any problem. The beauty of this example is I’ve used a quite common problem for many small businesses. Perhaps even yours.

Try it! I think you’ll discover that solving seemingly complex problems is easier than you think.

As always you can contact me for a free consultation.

Dream Big. Think Big. Go Big.