Bring me your problems...
Steve Prior
Founder and Managing Partner of Engage | Specialist Marketing for Defence, Engineering and Automotive | Car Enthusiast and Lifelong Learner
I wonder if, like me, your first entry into the world of work quickly introduced the idea that you should never enter the boss’s office with a problem, only with a ready-made solution. Bring me solutions not problems, the middle-manager of the 1990s would crow. Or as one banking executive once pitched it to me: I’m looking for winners, not whingers…
Taken at face value, the idea is straightforward and appealing enough. It appears to delineate those who are proactive, creative and positive, from those who aren’t. The brightest brains are those who think about solutions, we’re fed, not those fixated on the problem.
But wasn’t it the brightest brain of all, Albert Einstein, who once said: if I had only an hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes on the problem, and five on the solution.
If I had only an hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes on the problem, and five on the solution.
Problems is how we shape marketing challenges whether we call them such, or not. Whenever we’re looking for a different outcome, we can frame the status quo as our problem.
?Marketing briefs tend to start with simple questions like:
?Spin those around and we can see them as problems to be solved:
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There’s no fear from addressing the brief as a problem because the circumstances we’ve identified above, aren’t problems at all. Those are the symptoms. The problem lies deeper. Much, much deeper. And if we don’t explore it fully, our ideas are as likely to create more problems, as they are to solve our current predicament.
Take problem number two: we’re not selling enough.
A simple solution might be to reduce prices. But what if the reason we’re not selling enough is because the market already considers us too cheap? What if the real problem is that our service is poor, our product is no good (it’s unreliable or not in vogue), our salespeople aren’t motivated or effectively trained. Or that our product is too complex, badly described, inaccurately named, or our route to market is unnavigable…
What if by reducing prices all we really do is cut our margin even further?
You see, the best marketers don’t look for solutions at all. The best marketers go looking for the source of the problem. And from there, nine times out of ten, the solution reveals itself.
Sure, that solution might need the marketer’s expertise in design and delivery, but it almost certainly isn’t something the marketer could recommend without genuinely understanding the problem.
So, if you have a symptom like those identified above, don’t go in search of solutions. Go in search of people who can recognise the problem, and together let the solution find you.
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1 年Great post Steve. It's insightful. I also think that an environment that allows time and resource to lift the lid on symptoms brings departments and people closer, makes them more collaborative and more likely to design solutions in less time.