How To Solve Problems

In today’s email I want to discuss the art of solving problems in your business, so you can move the needle faster and reach your income goals more efficently. 

I’ll separate today’s email into four key components.

The Four Core Components Of This Email:

1. Common Problems You’ll Face In Info-Marketing

2. How To Think About Solving Problems

3. How To Solve Problems

4. Real-Life Examples Of Me Solving Problems

Let’s go ahead and dive in.

Common Problems You’ll Face In Info-Marketing

As an info-marketers you’ll experience many problems in your business such as:

• Traffic 

• Sales

• Operations

• Product Development

• Customer Support

• Automation Bugs

• Optimizing P/L

• Scaling Paid Ads Profitably

• Fixing Sales Process Bottlenecks

• Inefficient Client Communication

• Client Frustration 

• Refunds

• Payment Processing Issues

• Domain Issues

• Email Sending Issues

• Tasks Management Issues

• Product Fulfillment Issues

Keep in mind these are a few of the many problems you can face.

With this being said you need a universal framework to solve these problems.

So in the next section of this email - we’re going to discuss how to universally solve these problems with a simple thinking framework, as well as how to conduct a “scientific experiment”, and real life examples of me solving problems.

How To Solve Problems

I typically follow this simple 6-step framework when thinking about solving problems:

1. What Is The Problem? - Before you can solve any problem you must identify what the problem is in the first place. If you can’t even identify the problem, that’s a problem in itself. Ex: Looking at your data tracking sheets - and you find a 25% decline in the show rate this week compared to last week.

2. What Is The Cause & Effect Of This Problem? - Every action has a 2nd, 3rd, and forth order consequence. By understanding the cause-and-effect relationship of the problem - not only can you identify what the problem can lead to , but you can also isolate the root cause of the problem in the first place. Ex: You’re presented with a problem, and that problem is that there isn’t enough leads filling out your application form in comparison of the application page views. You understand the consequence of this is less throughput in the funnel and less booked calls, and closed deals. So the first thing you do is check the application form , and see what questions you can add or take away to increase the throughput.

3. What’s My Hypothesis? - Before you can test if your conclusion actually works you need to create a hypothesis on what you think will happen. This will help you come to a conclusion on if your test was positive or negative..

4. What Don’t I Understand About Solving This Problem? - To solve a problem implies you don’t know how to solve the problem or find a solution, therefore you must identify what you don’t understand, isolate that, and research it. Get in a habit of doing research, through Google, YouTube, and chatGPT.

5. How Can I Test My Hypothesis? - Once you’ve came up with your hypothesis on your potential solution, before you brute force scale it, you need to test your theory in some sort of controlled environment. Example: Your calendly page isn’t working, before changing the entire setup on your live calendly page where paid traffic is going, maybe test it on a test calendly page.

6. What’s my conclusion? - This is simply concluding if you’ve found the solution to your problem.

As you can see - I solve problems by conducting a “scientific experiment” similar to a science class.

Now let’s look at real-life examples of me solving problems.

Problem Solving Examples:

Scenario #1: Your No-Show Rate Sucks

1. I’d check my data sheets and view our All time show rate, MTD show rate, each specific week show rate for last month, and this week’s show rate and identify the drop-off

2. I’d find out what caused this issue in the first place. By looking at my data sheets I can see what we were doing differently previously compared to now that caused the drop-off

3. I’d create a hypothesis on what can increase our show-rate from my findings. For example I could’ve found that we don’t have a sales admin calling the leads this week because he’s sick, so my solution could be having closer call all the leads instead and send them a new SOP

4. Let’s say for example I didn’t know how to add my closer to the power dialer so he can call the leads who booked a call. In this situation , I’d google the specific power dialer software I’m using and locate the documentation on adding users.

5. Once my closer is added to the power dialer, I’d book a call as a test and have my closer call my number just to ensure the dialer is working properly for him and there’s no spam.

6. I’d view the data after a few days and find if we’ve made an improvement

Scenario #2: Your Closing Rate Sucks

1. I’d check my data sheets and view our all time closing rate, MTD closing rate, each specific week closing for last month, and this weeks closing rate and identify the drop-off

2. I’d find out what caused this issue in the first place. I can view our sales call recordings and find what’s causing the drop off this week compared to the rest of the month.

3. I’d create a hypothesis on what can increase our closing-rate from my findings. For example I could’ve found that my closers aren’t pitching the offer properly and are being lazy. So my hypothesis could be daily sales team training instead of 3x/week.

4. Let’s say for example I didn’t know how to conduct daily sales team trainings to be efficient , I could look up the best sales management coach in my industry let’s say Cole Gordon and view his internal sales management process.

5. Once my sales management process is designed for daily calls, I can start by testing my workflow out for a week before making it a new company policy permantley. 

6. I’d view the data after weeks and find if we’ve made an improvement

Scenario #3: Your Refund Rate Is Extremely High

1. I’d check my data-sheets in the morning and view our all time refund rate, our MTD refund rate and identify the spike in refunds.;

2. I’d find out what caused this issue in the first place by contacting all of the fulfilment coaches, and checking all of the 1v1 chats with the private mentorship students to see how we’re fulfilling for clients. Additionally I’d send ask those who requested a refund why.

3. From my feedback, I’d create a new fulfillment solution or policy to decrease the amount of refunds. This could be adding more coaches to the private chats to assist students when other coaches aren’t available, if the problem was response time.

4. Let’s say I don’t know how to incentivize the coaches properly by assigning each coach to a private chat with all students - I can pay the top CSM in my industry for a free consultation call.

5. Once I’ve created my new fulfillment structure I can test it with the next 20 existing students who enroll before adding this new structure for all new clients.

6. I’d view the data after a few weeks and find if we’ve made an improvement

Scenario #4: Your Payment Processor Gets Banned

1. I’d check my email inbox to find an email notifying me that my processor has stopped accepting my payments

2. I’d find out what caused this issue by contacting the support team of the processor, additionally I’d research how to resolve this issue. Additionally I’d brainstorm on how I can get around this if the processor won’t unlock my money.

3. Let’s say for example the processor won’t budge on unlocking my funds. I’d create a hypothesis on how I can get around this. In this case my hypothesis would be if i were to find a lawyer maybe I could scare them into giving me my money.

4. Let’s say I didn’t know how to get a lawyer to deal with an issue like this. I’d simply research it on Google, YouTube, ChatGPT, and ask my resources

5. In this case, I’d find if the lawyer has done this before so I can validate my test. If he has I’d have him conduct his process.

6. After threatening my processor with a lawyer, I’d see if I got the results I wanted. If not I’d conclude on another potential strategy.

That’s it for today’s email,

Talk soon.

Malcolm

Btw: At the time of this writing i’m working on 100+ modules I’ll be creatng this week for my new info-product - “How to solve problems” happens to be one of the modules. I’ll keep you guys updated for more details.