I started life as an engineer, designing aerospace control systems.

When we would start to design a new system, the first question we’d ask is, “If this project fails, what happened?” We’d look for the riskiest, most uncertain part of the problem and try to solve that part first.

If we could solve the hardest part, we reduced our risk that the whole project would be a failure dramatically!

What’s the most challenging part of growing your agency?

What if you looked at your current business as a system? Would it look something like this?

People need help > Conversations > Customers > Creative Solutions > Implementation > Find new problems

Stop for a minute, write down your business as a system of steps.

What’s the most challenging part of that for you to get consistently correct?

I’m going to bet it’s not the “creative solutions” part!

Paul Graham, of start-up incubator Y Combinator fame, said;

Stop looking for tricks. There are tricks in startups, as there are in any domain, but they are an order of magnitude less important than solving the real problem. ~ Paul Graham in How to Start a Startup.

How can you solve the real problem?