Common Business Problems That NOBODY Talks About (You're Not Alone)

There are countless online forums, groups, and resources available today to help CEOs overcome supposedly all of their business challenges.

However, if those resources were effective and addressed every challenge at hand, there wouldn’t be a single business flaw today.

But, that is obviously not the case.

With that said, what’s missing in the equation?  

And, why are CEOs still hitting what feels like countless walls when there are seemingly so many solutions available today?

The truth is, there is a set of unspoken problems that almost every business leader faces throughout their career.  While pervasive, these problems feel almost forbidden to be spoken of in the professional world.

Not only that, but almost all of these problems can be traced back to one single root cause that is even more forbidden to be spoken of.

As a result, many business owners experience these problems and believe that they are the only ones facing them!  

It’s an isolating experience to say the least.

Now, we’re addressing some of these unspoken problems as well as their root cause, AND providing viable solutions to each of them.

If you believe that you are alone in your business problems, odds are that you aren’t!

These are the most common business problems that almost all CEOs experience but never talk about!  Overcome them to take your own business to the next level.

What Are Most Common Business Problems Caused By?

Not only are there many common business problems that nobody wants to talk about, but there is also a single root cause of most of these problems. 

The root cause itself explains why nobody ever wants to discuss these problems in the first place.

The root cause of the most common business problems that nobody talks about is fear.

Regardless of how strong, competent, or successful you think that a business leader is, they no-doubt experience fear to at least some degree!

And, it is very rare for them to want to discuss their fears because it makes them feel vulnerable.  

As a result, they end up facing some of their biggest fears and problems alone, and nobody ever knows their struggle.

Thankfully, spotting fear in yourself is usually fairly easy to do.  Not only that, but overcoming your fears is in your hands alone, so you have complete control over the situation.  

You and only you can quiet your fears.  Once you overcome them, the odds that you develop one of these all-too-common problems decreases significantly.

If you ever feel alone in your business problems or fears, you absolutely are not.  And, if other business leaders can overcome their’s, so can you.

Just because nobody wants to talk about their business fears or problems doesn’t mean that they don’t have them!

Common Business Problems That Nobody Talks About (& Viable Solutions)

Got a business problem that you don’t want to talk about because you think you’re the only one with it?

The truth is, if you’re got a specific challenge in front of you, we guarantee you aren’t the only one with it!

You just don’t realize it because it's one of those problems that nobody ever wants to talk about.

And, more likely than not, that cause of that challenge for not just you, but for everyone, stems back to the basic human emotion of fear.

Here are the most common business problems that companies face today that NOBODY talks about, and simple solutions to overcome them!

The Future Business Leadership Team

So, you're a large or small business owner, and things are going well for your company.

Short-term goals are being met, budgets are balanced, and your customers are happy.

On the outside, things are looking great.

But, you as the business owner aren’t focused on the present.  The truth is, you can't help but think about what is going to happen ten, twenty, or even thirty years down the line.

More specifically, you can't help but think about who will be doing the decision-making in your business when you are no longer there to lead it.

Will they care about the mission as much as you?  Will they be competent enough to overcome all of the business challenges?

You could go on and on about all of your concerns over the future, especially your fear that the business leaders won't be strong enough to hold things together.

Sound familiar?

Solutions:

It's extremely common for entrepreneurs to be worried about their business being in somebody else's hands.

But, trying to control a future situation before it even happens is not only impossible, but extremely toxic for your mind.

While you can't control the future, you can control what you do today.

And, if your concerns are about the competence of your future leadership team, then you can take steps today to empower your people with the skills and knowledge they will need to lead in the future.

But, you need to go beyond just the basic training.  Think things like:

• Industry seminars
• Networking events
• Online courses (and not your basic LinkedIn Learning ones)

The idea is to not just give your future leaders information, but rather empower them to make decisions and come up with processes on their own!

For example, anyone can read a book and gain information about being a CEO.  But, that doesn’t mean that they will make a good CEO in the future.

On the other hand, what does make someone fit to lead is being able to make use of information, even when they don’t necessarily know what to do with it.  

Knowledge is not power unless it is put to work!

The only legit way to prevent a bad situation from playing out in the future is to do everything you can today to stop it!

And, the best way to do that is to empower your team with the knowledge on how to make decisions, take initiative, and come up with processes on their own!

Overcomplicated Business Strategies

In this day in age, it's exceedingly normal to ask someone how they're doing, and hear them respond with, "I'm just so busy."

In fact, being able to say that you are busy is almost like wearing a badge of honor that symbolizes life is good for you.

The same is true in the business world: When someone says they are busy, we automatically assume that things are going well for them.

However, the opposite is often true!

Being overly busy is a common sign of a life full of overcomplicated problem-solving strategies.

Overcomplicating things in business is guaranteed to lead to frustration, burnout, and poor results.  It’s the feeling that your wheels are spinning, but you’re going absolutely nowhere. 

Remember: You can be busy and get absolutely nothing done.

Running around doing unnecessary and overcomplicated tasks accomplishes close to nothing.

Solutions:

The solution to overcomplicated strategies is not complicated at all: You simply need to create processes that do the problem solving for you!

More likely than not, the challenges in front of you are complex, but not complicated.

Moreover, your challenges are multi-layered, but there are straightforward solutions to solving each layer.

The issue is that people assume that their problems aren't straightforward, and end up taking wildly overzealous approaches to solving them.

Instead of going overboard with your problem-solving strategies, do this instead:

1. Ask yourself what your biggest challenges are
2. Focus on creating processes that solve those challenges
3. Delegate accordingly

The key to effective problem solving is to create processes for solving those problems.

Processes break down the many layers of your challenge, and solve them one at a time.

Rather than getting bogged down with problems and trying to solve them as a whole, create processes that solve the small pieces of those problems on their own!

In the end, your challenges will be solved with significantly less effort and in less time.

A business strategy that has legitimate processes removes the complications in each situation.

Processes = a stratified approach = less complication = more time and peace of mind for you = personal and business success.

Feelings of Incompetence

There's a difference between knowing and being competent.

And, many entrepreneurs feel like they and their team members are very knowledgeable, yet are still incompetent. 

What's the difference between knowing and being competent?

Knowing is simply having information about something, while competence is knowing what to do with information.

As we mentioned above, you can have all of the information in the world, but having information isn't enough.  Until you know what to do with your information, you don't have any power!

Knowledge = knowing about something = nothing happens. 

Knowledge + knowing what to do with it = competence = potential progress.

So many successful business owners fall in this gap of having knowledge, but are unsure of what to do with it, or are afraid of doing anything with it.

Bridging the gap between knowledge and competence can open countless doors to new business opportunities and growth.

Sitting around with knowledge and not doing anything will surely lead to business demise.

So, the real question is: How do you cross the bridge from knowing to being competent?

Solutions:

The truth is, most entrepreneurs and business owners know what to do with the knowledge they have, but they stand in their own way of doing anything with it!

Why?

Because they are fearful of what will happen if they take action.

At the end of the day, they know what they need to do!  It’s just that their mind tries to tell them that they don’t know what to do because it fears uncertainty in taking action.

It is impossible for a CEO to feel competent until they stop fearing all of the things that could possibly go wrong.

While scary at first, business owners need to take action if they want to start to feel competent.

Nothing works unless you do!  Similarly, you won’t feel competent until you do something with your knowledge.

If you are completely new to the business world, know that fear is like a chihuahua: it barks a lot but is completely harmless.

If you are a seasoned entrepreneur, reflect back on your startup days when you had to jump over the cliff without seeing a trampoline on the ground.  Harness that fearless energy that you know you had back then.

Competence lies in action and action alone!

Useless Marketing Strategy

You and your marketing team have put together what you believe is the perfect marketing strategy.

It reflects all of the many facets of your business, and you think that it is going to change the game for your growing company.

As time goes by, you realize that you clearly missed the mark.  Not only are you not gaining any new customers, but your existing customer base isn't coming back to bite.  Your new marketing strategy has proved virtually worthless.

What gives?

So many business owners complicate the heck out of their marketing strategy.  They are under the assumption that bigger and more elaborate is better in marketing.

They believe that their business vision is out of this world, and their marketing strategy should reflect that.

However, it's the opposite that tends to be true. 

Using overly complicated marketing strategies is the most common and detrimental marketing mistake a business, especially a growing one, can make.

What business owners don’t realize is that people have exceedingly short attention spans.  When they receive marketing messages, their brain realistically internalizes only a minute fraction of what is being sent to them.

Therefore, the longer and more elaborate the message is, the smaller fraction of information they take away from it.  And, more likely than not, they probably have no idea what the message is even about.

Because business owners don’t realize this, they are often left scratching their heads as to why their elaborate plan isn’t working.

Solutions: 

Your business vision is worthy of the most elaborate marketing plan in the universe.

But, if your goal is to be a functional business, then going the elaborate route probably won’t do the most for you.

In fact, it will more likely than not prove worthless, or even take your business backwards.

Therefore, scale back your marketing efforts to refine your marketing message to a T.

By scaling back your marketing, that means pinpointing the single most important aspect of your business and driving the heck out of that through your marketing channels.

The goal is to get the viewers of your marketing to know exactly what you do the moment their eyes meet the content.

Don’t let all of the alluring marketing strategies in the world consume your company.

Instead, focus on your message and use effective sales processes for delivering that message.  

Pinpointed marketing + proper selling techniques = an improved customer experience and stronger growth.

Evolving The Business Model

Do you ever stop and think about how rapidly the world changes these days?

New technologies, social media, and solutions come about in what feels like the blink of an eye.

While so many changes occurring in such a short amount of time is miraculous, there is an aspect of the change that makes business owners feel increasingly uneasy.

In short: The rapidly changing world causes so many entrepreneurs to question how often they need to update their business model to fit the changing times.

Why would the business model need to change?

The faster the world evolves, the more rapidly markets change.  

What your target market needed a minute ago might no longer be relevant to them the next minute.

Therefore, the major challenge of being a business owner in this day in age is being able to stay up to pace with changes, and evolve the business model accordingly.

Not only that, but it's about knowing whether or not your pull to change is based upon fear or a legitimate change in the market.

Solutions:

How do you decide whether or not your business model is actually in need of a change, or if your uneasiness about changes is simply rooted in fear? 

The most obvious sign that you actually need a change is hitting a business plateau.

A plateau is the point at which your business growth begins to stagnate.  

How do you know if your growth is stagnating? 

The most obvious sign is that your sales growth remains the same from month to month, 

Another sign is a general feeling as a business owner that you and your company aren’t in touch with modern times.

So, if you find your business plateauing, then there’s a good chance that your uneasiness over changing times needs to be reflected in an updated business model.

However, if you don’t find any reason to believe that your business is plateauing, then odds are that your fears of the changing world are becoming too powerful.  More likely than not, you don’t need to update your model at the current time.

Don’t let the changing world convince you that you need to change your model unless you see an actual sign that change is needed. 

Learn to take a step back and look at things from a broader perspective: Are there actual signs present telling you that change is necessary?  Or, is it all in your head?

Every entrepreneur will have to update their business model at one point or another, but doing it only at the necessary times is key to staying on track with the changing world.

Time Management & Lifestyle

The truth is, we can’t talk about business without talking about life beyond business.

Entrepreneurship takes an insane amount of commitment and time, yet it is impossible to do it successfully without finding at least some level of balance.

Don’t be fooled by social media: No CEO grinds for 24/7 and reaches their maximum potential.

While every entrepreneur’s needs for balance will vary, it must exist to at least some degree for everyone.

Not only that, but in a post-pandemic world, many of our ideas as a culture about what is and isn’t really necessary in the business world are being proven outdated and are slowly fading away.

Feeling like you’re running on thin ice when you don’t really need to be?  

Odds are that your company culture could use an update in terms of how you all approach work, time, and life.

In the end, one’s personal world and business world influence one another.  If the personal life sucks, the business one most likely will too. 

The good news is that you more likely than not don’t need to keep running on thin ice.  The world today offers a multitude of options to solve almost all of your time and lifestyle-related problems!

Solutions: 

More likely than not, you and your business team can take advantage of the cultural changes that came about post-pandemic.

Afraid to take the leap and make changes that will make your entire team both happier and more successful?

As we mentioned above, business leaders often overcomplicate the heck out of their processes.  What they think is necessary truly isn’t.

Therefore, business leaders must be willing to experiment with their options.  They have to be willing to let go of the edge in order to see what will improve the lives of the people in their business.

The only way to know what will make you and your team members better off (and resultantly produce better results), is to try out your options!

Cultural norms mean nothing if they make your team unhappy!

Final Thoughts on Business Problems That NOBODY Talks About

If you’ve got a business problem, the odds that somebody else is experiencing the same thing is very high.  

Even if nobody says that they’re going through it, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t!

Be the business leader that you are capable of being by overcoming every obstacle in your way.