The Costly Mistake of Solving the Wrong Business Problems

 Why CEOs Waste Time Fixing the Wrong Things…

One of the biggest time-wasters in business isn’t admin work, bad hires, or inefficient meetings, it’s solving the wrong problems with the wrong solutions.

As a CEO, every decision you make either moves you closer to scalable growth or deeper into inefficiency. And the most expensive mistakes happen when decisions are based on gut feelings instead of real data.

Let’s look at two common ways businesses misdiagnose their real challenges, and how to fix them.

🚨 Misdiagnosed Problem 1: "Our Clients Are Inconsistent"

 Many CEOs assume their clients lack motivation or discipline when they aren’t engaging as expected. They think the solution is more reminders, more coaching, or more hand-holding.

🚩But here’s the real issue: Your onboarding process overwhelmed them from the start, creating a ripple effect in their ability to engage, implement, and keep up.

What That Leads To: Clients either give up entirely or you end up spending extra hours chasing and cajoling them toward results, training them to feel dependent on you instead of owning their own progress.

🦩The Right Solution: Audit your onboarding and delivery process. Where are clients hitting friction points early on? Where do they fall behind or disengage? Simplifying onboarding touchpoints and expectations can increase engagement without extra effort from you.

🚨 Misdiagnosed Problem 2: "Revenue is Stuck Because of Competition"

Many CEOs blame market saturation, economic downturns, or consumer spending dips when they hit a revenue plateau. They believe the solution is to work harder on sales and marketing to fight for visibility.

🚩 But here’s the real issue: Your business doesn’t have the capacity to serve more clients, so you’re subconsciously stalling sales efforts to let client delivery catch up.

What That Leads To: A business that plateaus because you’re trying to outsource and automate on the fly, duct-taping a few quick fixes together, which only overcomplicates the business even more.

🦩 The Right Solution: Instead of trying to push more leads into a bottlenecked system, step back and audit your delivery process. If you suddenly got 10X the clients tomorrow, would your business handle it smoothly? If the answer is no, scaling sales won’t fix it, streamlining operations will.

The CEO's Path to Better Decisions

Rather than making decisions based on gut feelings and assumptions, CEOs who scale successfully make decisions based on hard data and facts. And that's exactly what we do in the Pink Flamingo Club's CEO Like a CEO!

How can you start?

Start with a Client Delivery Audit:

- Identify the biggest bottlenecks causing delays.

- Find where clients disengage or struggle most.

- Simplify or automate the right steps before adding more volume.

When you solve the right problems, you’ll be able to serve hundreds of clients at a time, without long hours or a massive team.

Your growth isn’t blocked by competition or client engagement, it’s blocked by friction in your own systems. Fix that first. Want some support as you step into your CEO role effectively? Check out our CEO Like A CEO mentorship, our high-touch, small group offer for newer CEOs.

Make it a great day!

Danielle 🤘🏼