📄 Solutions rarely find problems, but problems often find solutions

You may have heard the adage: don't be a solution looking for problems to solve.

And it's true - that approach makes for excruciatingly ineffective marketing and sales, because a solution looking for a problem to solve will rarely find that problem it's looking to solve.

Because when we go out looking for ‘people who want the thing we have, the solution we bring’, two things happen:

First, we become myopic.

We narrow down our vision, to the select set of people or companies who might want our solution.

But because we only know so much about who they might be, we miss opportunities.

This way, we end up not finding what we think we should be looking for, and we keep looking for it, blind to the fact that other people with slightly different problems would be keen to get our help.

Secondly, our communications become self-sided, because we have that solution in hand, right?

“Look at this cool solution, and what it can do, and why you might be interested. Are you interested in this, do you not want my solution?”

Your buyer will hear or read that discourse, and they’ll disconnect.

Because nothing in business is ever about us, or even our solution.

It’s always about the other person, and the problem they want solving, and that’s the kind of messaging we ought to be giving them.

Of course your solution is part of that, but only as an instrument, a facilitative device - your solution is not the thing someone buys: what they buy is the outcome of your solution. 

So it’s not "This is an awesome thing, the best I have" - it’s:

"This is exactly for you, for the kind of problem you want to get solved".

When you communicate that, you’re 'speaking into the buyer’s world', instead of from inside your own world.

And that gets people interested, and that makes for sales.

So as you go about your business building and marketing and sales etc, remember:

Don’t be a solution looking for a problem to solve.

Be a researcher, trying to find out which problems exist for those you want to help.

And, learn what those people are like. 

You need to 'learn what it's like to be them'.

Like I'm fond of saying: learn your people.

Don't lead by offering your solution.

Instead, lead by learning people's reality, struggles, and problems.

Only once you’ve achieved that and identified those problems, do you talk about the solution you have for them.

And, if you're dealing with a problem in your business, related to selling more, or not getting ghosted, or struggling to get paid what you're worth:

Maybe Martin has a solution for you.

But tell him about the problems you're dealing with, first - just send him an email and tell him where you need help.