I know how to do farming wrong. I spent 5 years as a farmer. Even though I enjoyed the lifestyle a lot, I was not a successful farmer. There is so much potential for farming on small acreages. But I didn’t do it right.
I got into farming for the lifestyle it offered and because I wanted to promote farming practices that were better for the environment. The chance to be around animals and work with my hands appealed to me. I wanted to be my own boss.
Here’s what I did not do: I did not start by identifying a problem and determining if that problem aligned with my passions. And since I didn’t do that, I did not find solutions for that problem. I just started the business for my own reasons and then tried to find commercial avenues that I could fit my vision into.
The problems were there. Solutions that I could be passionate about were there. Those problems are important and they need to be solved. But I spent my energy and resources in a different way. I didn’t solve any problems that were important to me. I learned a lot of cool things, but I didn’t solve any problems. Because of that, people were not gladly handing me their money and I did not continue solving problems related to sustainable agriculture.
Businesses are meant to solve problems.
A Common Business Mistake
We all do this sometimes. We launch ourselves into a project or business without first asking “What problems need solving here?”. Each of us hear things like “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” So we say to ourselves “I really like pottery so I’ll open a pottery shop” or “I enjoy working with numbers so I’ll open a bookkeeping business.”
We start with the perspective “Here’s what I want to do.” Then we say “let’s find the people that want me to do it.”
But not enough people come by the shop. And low cost remote labor from other countries are taking the bookkeeping clients.
Sometimes the market changes and we’re still stuck in our old way of doing things. We used to solve a problem, but now we don’t. An extreme example of this would be if we were still trying to sell yellow page ads in a physical phone book.
There are over 33 million small businesses in the US. And 44% of those report that they are struggling to make ends meet. Every year about a million of us go out of business and another million start. What is the reason?
One reason is that we aren’t solving problems. We aren’t solving enough problems. We aren’t solving the right problems.
Our businesses are meant to solve problems.
What do I mean by the “right” problems?
We may be solving problems in a general sense. If we say “It’s a problem that people don’t have enough insurance and so I provide insurance.” That’s true on a surface level. But we haven’t done any critical thinking about the nature of the problem or the various forms it takes. We haven’t done any thinking about what ways the consumer feels that problem. So we haven’t tailored our solutions in any specific way.
Businesses Are Meant To Solve Problems
All of the problems in the world can be solved by business. Yes, all.
I’m talking about all of the important problems and all of the less important problems
We could clarify that and say “good” businesses solve problems. But then the statement starts to lose its bite.
Business is just problem solving. If the problem is that you want to better remember your daughter’s wedding day, then a wedding photographer has solutions to help you with that.
Your neighbor’s yard is trashy and you don’t want to look at it anymore? Fence builders have solutions to that problem.
Problems arise when the solution a business employs causes other problems while solving the first one. Businesses that pollute are an example of this. They are solving problems, but they are creating other problems that are yet unsolved.
Problems arise when businesses apply solutions that don’t align with the true problem. They promote their own product/service when it’s not a good fit. Or maybe the problem has changed over time and the product that used to be a good solution is no longer one. If these businesses are pushy enough they can probably make sales. But nobody likes those businesses.
Problems can arise when poor government policy incentivizes a business to promote poor solutions.
But these examples of bad business don’t change the underlying truth that all of the important problems in the world can be solved by business.
Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life? This is sort of true, but it is really putting the cart before the horse.
Your Business Is Meant To Solve Problems
If you can get in front of your target audience every day and present good solutions to their problems you will not fail.
Change your business focus to problem solving. Examine your target audience and solve the problems that they have. Lazer in on exactly what problem or problems your business solves.Tailor your solutions to to solve that specific problem. Leverage your network to help you.
Make sure you are attempting to solve a true problem. In addition to that, make sure that the problem is a problem that your target audience feels. If they are not feeling that problem, then you might have the wrong target audience, or you might be wrong about the actual problem.
What if you’re not sure what the problem is? Your target audience will tell you the problems if you ask good questions and listen well.
The Dream Scenario
How would our lives be different if our businesses were solving real problems for people? How gladly would people hand us their money because we helped them out with a problem?
If each of our 33 million small businesses thought of themselves as problem solving entities we would have a very different society. Think about it, 33 million problem solving units in the U.S. alone. The number would grow every year because fewer businesses would fail.
There are 334 million businesses in the world. What if all of them were problem solving units?
If we think of the ability to problem solve as a muscle that can be developed, as a skill that can be refined, then how many impossible to solve problems in the world would become solvable because over 350 million problem solving units get better each year at solving problems?
Conclusion
Our world would be a more desirable place if we all embraced the fact that businesses are meant to solve problems. Big, little, important or trivial, our businesses can solve these problems. People would be happier and healthier. The world would be more just and equitable. The environment would be more sustainable and humanity would make greater progress.
What problem or problems does your business solve? Comment below.