Are You Solving the Wrong Problem… on Purpose?

build your brilliant business business dino tartaglia her business issue 67

Woman with long silver hair reviewing documents in a calm, minimalist workspace, reflecting thoughtful decision-making, business analysis, and the importance of clarity over assumptions in entrepreneurship.

By Dino Tartaglia.

You’re in a Facebook group. Someone’s just shared a post about lead generation, and a thought fires in your head.

“I read that I should message everyone who interacts with my posts. Should I message the people who liked a post as well, or just the ones who commented?”

It’s a fair question. Practical. Specific. The kind of thing you’d expect a straight answer to.

So you type it out, hit ‘Post’, then wait…

And someone – maybe a coach, maybe a fellow business owner, maybe some influencer with a blue tick and way too much confidence – gives you an answer.

“Nah. Just message the people who comment. Don’t bother with anyone who just liked your post.”

Great! Now you’ve got a rule. A clear, simple instruction you can follow without thinking too hard. And it came from a source that seemed trustworthy.

Except… It’s the wrong answer.

Not because it’s bad advice per se, but because you asked the wrong question.

And here’s the bit that might sting a little: my guess is, you asked the wrong question on purpose.

The Comfort of the Blueprint

Let’s be honest. We all love a good rule or clear instruction.

It provides comfort in a sea of discomfort and uncertainty.

“Post three times a week.” “Follow up within 24 hours.” “Use this script.” “Run this funnel.”

Rules are comforting. They’re paint-by-numbers for your business. Someone else has done the thinking, and all you have to do is colour inside the lines.

The trouble is, paint-by-numbers doesn’t produce art. It produces a (usually poor) facsimile of someone else’s picture. And when it doesn’t work – when the colours don’t match, the lines don’t fit, and the result looks nothing like the version on the box – you don’t blame the system.

You blame yourself.

“I must be doing it wrong.”

No. You’re doing it exactly as instructed. The problem is that the instruction was never designed for your situation. It was designed for someone else’s – and probably for someone else’s numbers and sure as heck for internal ‘wiring’ that’s very different from yours.

This is the blueprint trap. It’s something I took apart in my book, MIS/ALIGNED, and if you’ve been in business for more than five minutes, you’ve almost certainly fallen into it at least once.

But here’s what I want to dig into today. It’s not just that blueprints and rules don’t work. It’s why you keep reaching for them – even when some part of you already knows they don’t fit.

The Question Underneath the Question

In my old profession, electronic engineering, we’d talk about “the fault masking the fault”, meaning there was invariably a root cause one or more layers below the fault we were sent to fix. A monitor that was switching on and off randomly might have a faulty power-on/off button. You’d fix it, then find that the power supply had caused the on/off switch to fail, and that was the actual culprit. So you had two things to fix: the surface ‘result’ of the problem and the actual problem itself.

Thus it is in business (which is actually a good thing. More on that another time...)

Let’s go back to that likers-vs-commenters question.

On the surface, it’s a tactical question: Who should I message? Give me the rule.

But underneath it sits a much more useful question. And it sounds like this:

How many real conversations do I need to be having each day for my business to hit its revenue target?

Stay with me. Because this is where things get interesting.

Let’s say your goal is £10,000 a month and your offer is £2,500. That means you need 4 clients.

Now, let’s say you close 1 out of every 10 conversations. That’s a 10% close rate, which, for that level of investment, is actually reasonable (over time, aim for 20%).

4 clients ÷ 10% close rate = 40 conversations a month.

40 conversations ÷ 20 working days = roughly 2 conversations a day.

Now the “who do I message?” question answers itself. You need two people a day worth talking to. That might be the two who commented. It might be someone who DM’d you last week. It might be a prospect from three months ago you never followed up with (and yes, we’ve all got those lurking in our inboxes).

Two meaningful conversations a day? That’s entirely doable – provided you’re actually paying attention to where they’re already sitting.

But what if your target is £30,000 a month?

Same offer. Same close rate.

Now you need 120 conversations a month. That’s 6 a day.

Suddenly, the commenters alone aren’t enough. Now the likers matter. Now your old DMs matter, as does your email list.

Now, every touchpoint matters.

Same question. Completely different answer.

Because the answer was never about likers or commenters. It was always about the number of conversations your business actually needs from you each day – The Daily Floor. And until you know that number, every decision you make is a stab in the dark. Dressing it up in someone else’s structure… clothing it in a blueprint… wrapping it inside a handed-down rule doesn’t hide this stark truth.

It Works the Same Way Everywhere

This isn’t just a social media thing. The same pattern shows up right across your business.

Take webinars.

You announce that you’re running one.

Forty people register. You’re pleased.

Twelve show up.

Four stay to the end.

One buys.

Was the webinar an unmitigated failure?

Well, that depends. What did you actually need from it?

If you needed 3 sales from that webinar to hit your monthly target, you’ve got a problem. But where IS the problem? Is it the registration numbers? The show-up rate? The drop-off? The offer? The follow-up?

You can’t know unless you’ve done the maths first. Unless you’ve worked backwards from the outcome you need and mapped the numbers required at each stage to get there.

Without that, you’re just guessing. And then you ask someone in a Facebook group to hand you a rule so the guessing feels more structured.

Which brings us to the uncomfortable bit.

Why You’re Really Asking for the Rule

OK, here’s the thing…

You’re not asking for a rule because you can’t do the maths. The maths isn’t hard. A calculator and ten minutes of honest thinking will get you there.

You’re asking for the rule because the maths tells the truth.

And the truth usually points somewhere uncomfortable.

It tells you that you need more conversations than you’re currently having. It tells you that your show-up rate is poor. It tells you that your follow-up is patchy at best. It tells you that your pricing might need to change. It tells you that the thing you’ve been avoiding – the cold outreach, the direct ask, the tricky conversation with yourself about what’s actually working and what isn’t – is exactly the thing that would move the needle.

And you really don’t want to see that.

Not because you’re lazy. Not because you’re stupid. But because looking at the data removes the comfortable ambiguity you’ve been hiding behind.

Like pretty much everyone you know who – like you – is frustrated by a lack of meaningful progress in their business.

When you don’t know the number, you can tell yourself, “I just need a better strategy.” When you DO know the number, you can’t hide behind the strategy argument (or anything else) anymore.

You have to act.

So instead, you reach for the blueprint… the rule… the paint-by-numbers instruction that someone else can hand you. Because the blueprint lets you stay busy without that mirror being held up, without being confronted by the stark reality that you’ve been – perhaps unwittingly – avoiding for way too long.

And that, my dear reader, is the most expensive avoidance strategy in business.

This Isn’t a Character Flaw

Let me be clear about something: this pattern is deeply, fundamentally human.

We are wired – genuinely, neurologically wired – to avoid discomfort. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize, essentially proving that we’ll work harder to avoid a loss than to chase a gain. We avoid looking at our own data for the same reason we avoid stepping on the scales after Christmas.

Not because we can’t handle the number, but because the number demands a response.

It’s like keeping the energy bill in the drawer unopened when Spring arrives after a tough Winter. You know roughly what it’s going to say. You know you’ll have to do something about it. So you leave it sealed and tell yourself you’ll deal with it next week.

Except in business, ‘next week’ turns into next month, then next quarter, then next year. And the gap between where you should be and where you are doesn’t get smaller while you’re not looking.

So if you’ve been doing this – asking for tactics or fresh strategies when you should be checking your data, buying blueprints when you should be running your own numbers – please hear this: it’s not because you’re weak, or not cut out for business.

But it IS your responsibility to recognise this, and stop.

Because once you’ve seen this pattern – once you understand that the question you’re asking is often (unconsciously) designed to protect you from the answer you actually need – you can’t unsee it.

And that’s where things start to change.

The Real Shift

Your business is a living, breathing entity that has needs.

Once we know what needs to be done, we have a responsibility to the business – even before we think of ourselves – to make that happen.

Better Thinking doesn’t start with Better Answers. It starts with Better Questions.

And the best question isn’t “what should I do?” It’s “what do I need to know about my own business that I may have been avoiding?”

That question won’t be comfortable. It’ll point you towards your conversion data, your pipeline numbers, your actual (not assumed) close rate, your daily activity levels, your pricing reality… and your behaviour through all of it.

But here’s the thing about discomfort: it’s temporary, and it’s incredibly useful. The clarity & growth on the other side of it? That’s what changes everything.

When you know your numbers – really know them – you stop guessing. You stop reaching for blueprints. You stop asking for rules. You start making decisions based on evidence, not anxiety or FOMO.

And that is the difference between running a business and being run by one.

The Takeaway

Before you ask anyone for a tactic, a rule, or a template, ask yourself:

What’s the question underneath the question I’m about to ask?
Do I actually know the numbers & data in my business that would answer this for me?
Am I reaching for a blueprint or rule because I genuinely need guidance, or because I’m avoiding data that might make me uncomfortable?
What would change if I spent ten minutes doing the maths instead of an hour or three seeking out someone else’s answer?

The maths isn’t hard. It’s just honest and – critically – crystal clear.

And clear is where progress lives.

What’s Coming Next

We’ve built something inside the Success FORGE, our community of glorious humans just like you, that takes this thinking and makes it practical – a way to help you identify the data you actually need, face it without flinching, and use it to make better decisions that move the needle.