As humans, when we see a problem, we’re actually pretty good at coming up with solutions. Just because we’re good at it, it doesn’t mean that our solution-focused activities are effective at producing value.
If our desire is to profitably grow our business, jumping into solution mode is not the best place to start. Why? Because what we often come up with are solutions that don’t produce any value because they’re solutions to poorly defined problems, they’re solutions to the wrong problems, they’re solutions to problems that don’t really exist. Or, worst of all, they’re solutions to problems that aren’t worth solving, because doing so does not influence any customer behavior change.
If potential customers won’t change their behavior and buy our offering instead of whatever they’re doing now, there is no growth. There is no profit.
Is the problem we’re trying to solve high enough on the customer’s priority list that they’re aware of it and willing to spend money to solve it? It’s a waste of time and resources trying to solve a problem the customer sees as either low priority or unimportant.
It’s not a problem worth solving until the associated pain is so intense that buyers are willing to not only change their behavior, but adopt and pay for our new solution. And, the amount they’re willing to pay exceeds our cost of developing and delivering that solution.
Innovation is not just about coming up with bold, new ideas. It is also about spotting economically viable opportunities towards which we can apply our elegant solutions.
Solving a problem gives us a nice, warm feeling. But we grow, we profit by being opportunity-oriented; by exploiting the opportunities those problems create. The goal, then, is to not start by identifying problems worth solving, but to start by identifying opportunities worth exploiting
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