3 Common Bottlenecks in Business (and How To Eliminate Them)

You’ve been doing everything you can to increase sales.

Customers are abandoning you for competitors.

You’ve been stuck at the same revenue numbers for months or years.

If any of these problems sound familiar, you need to find and eliminate the bottlenecks in your business ASAP.

Bottleneck #1: Operating like you have a job (instead of a business)

If you want to grow your business, you need to spend time working on your business instead of just working in it.

A lot of “business owners” get stuck spending too much time working in their business. They think they are business owners, but they’ve actually just created a job for themselves.

Here’s a simple test to see whether you have a business or a job: If you stepped away from your business for two weeks, would it still function properly?

If not, you still have a job.

A good way to stress test your business is to remove yourself and see what “breaks” so you can improve it and make it run more smoothly.

The biggest fix to this business bottleneck is figuring out what to do yourself and what to delegate to others or automate.

There’s no getting around it: At the beginning of building your business, you’ll wear many hats. 

You will have to deliver the product or service yourself. Handle support tickets. Act as the head of marketing, sales, customer support, and client success—all at the same time.

But as your business grows and makes more money, you can use those resources to take certain tasks off your plate. Then, you can spend more time doing activities that will help your biz grow even bigger.

The question is…what do you delegate?

For most business owners, it makes the most sense to delegate a lot of the “busy work” involved in your business.

You want to focus on the things that make money, so you should stay in charge of marketing and sales for a while. You can, however, start identifying less important (but necessary) tasks that are creating a bottleneck in your business.

Here’s how you do it.

First, run a time audit to see exactly where you’re spending your time.

For two weeks, simply track what you’re doing every day without changing your behavior.

(Here’s a detailed post with a step-by-step breakdown of how to perform a time audit.)

After looking at the results, you’ll have a better idea of what you can either delegate or automate.

I worked on my consulting business as a solopreneur for years, but this year I got help and as a result, my business revenue shot up.

I hired a virtual assistant to handle specific tasks: scheduling calls with clients, booking meetings with prospects, and doing market research for my products.

I run a community that helps writers sharpen their skills and grow their income. I hired a community management team to keep the members engaged, organize the structure, and handle the logistical parts of running the events.

One of my students took on an intern role and helped repurpose my content across multiple platforms. I even hired someone to edit and post my videos on YouTube.

Now that I have a team, I spend more time creating content to grow the business, coming up with lesson plans, developing new ideas for products, creating a better learning environment for students, and securing collaboration deals to bring in revenue and grow my audience.

In your case, as soon as you can afford it, look to offload some of your tasks.

Take advantage of automation and AI

If you run an online business, you can automate parts of it. There’s an amazing software called Zapier that does a lot of the work for you. It helps different apps talk to each other and work seamlessly.

For example, using Zapier, I set up a flow for new students in my program:

Even better, I train my assistant and community team to use these tools to get even more productivity out of their efforts.

I also use AI tools for different aspects of my business like entering a prompt to do in-depth marketing research in mere seconds.

Once you dive into delegating and automating your business, you’ll see endless opportunities to free up more time to work on your business instead of in it.

Bottleneck #2: Running your business without understanding your customers

Weird (seemingly obvious) question for you…

Do you understand your customers?

A lot of business owners would say yes, but one of the biggest business bottlenecks is a lack of understanding when it comes to:

Most business owners just come up with an idea for a business and run with it because they think it’s a good idea without ever asking the fundamental question every business owner should ask:

“Is there a market for what I want to sell?”

Business owners are passionate, so they’ll come up with an idea they think is good. But because they’re so close to their idea, they’ll refuse to change or pivot because they think people should just get it.

This is not how business works.

This is not how marketing works.

Smart business owners understand the process of making products and providing services people actually want.

There are a couple of things you can do to eliminate this bottleneck.

Become a student of markets

Legendary copywriter Gary Halbert once said the number one key to writing good copy isn’t the words themselves, but understanding this:

The very first thing you must come to realize is that you must become a “student of markets”. Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting. Not how to buy space or whatever. Now, of course, all of these things are important and you must learn about them, but, the first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy. And it’s easy. You see, the way to deduce what people want to buy is to simply observe what they DO buy! It’s as simple as that. But be careful. You want to know what people actually DO buy, not what they SAY they buy.

I included the full quote because understanding this concept is the difference between a business that rakes in cash and a business that will soon be out of business because the business owner didn’t understand the market they’re in.

Let’s look at some key concepts and strategies to figure out what to sell and how to sell it well.

The winning factors for a market you can sell to

Say you are running a hot dog stand.

What’s the number one thing you want to look out for to make sure you rake in the big bucks?

❌ Wrong answers: A quality product. Attractive signage. Excellent customer service.

✔️ The right answer: A starving crowd.

You want to look for these factors to identify a market you can sell to properly:

• A growing market
• Prospects with the ability to pay you
• Low barrier to entry and competition
• A burning problem or strong desire to achieve an outcome

I learned this concept from Alex Hormozi. In his book, “$100M Offers,” he tells a story about a friend who had an excellent business idea except for one key factor: His target audience was newspaper companies.

Newspapers are a dying business model with revenue numbers that continue to shrink year over year. It doesn’t matter if you have the best product in the world if your target market can’t pay you because their businesses are dying a slow and painful death.

Become a student of markets and use these tips to make sure you have product market fit:

The rabbit hole in market research goes deep. The bottom line, though, it’s a must if you want to build a real business.

Fix the bottleneck that keeps would-be buyers from enjoying your products

Not every potential customer is ready to buy.

You need to market to different potential customers in different ways.

This is where “awareness levels” come in.

Your potential customers fit into these buckets:

Let’s further break down how you would market to these people.

Problem unaware, solution unaware

This group is not aware they have a problem, nor do they know about potential solutions.

Example 1: Educational content

• Strategy: Create useful content that subtly describes a problem they didn’t know they had.
• Example: A home appliance company could create articles or videos about the hidden costs of inefficient appliances, educating consumers on something they hadn’t considered a problem.

Example 2: Lifestyle marketing

• Strategy: Showcase a desired lifestyle that subtly introduces the problem and the solution.
• Example: A fitness brand might use social media influencers to display a healthy, active lifestyle, which suggests the need for better fitness and positions their products as a solution.

Example 3: Emotional appeal

• Strategy: Use emotional storytelling to create a need.
• Example: A food delivery service could create ads showing families spending more free time together, suggesting that cooking at home is a problem by offering their service as a solution.

Problem aware, solution unaware

This audience knows they have a problem but are not aware of the solutions.

Example 1: Solution highlighting

• Strategy: Be direct and introduce your product or service as a novel solution.
• Example: A cybersecurity company could target businesses aware of digital threats but unaware of specific security solutions, explaining how their product addresses these concerns.

Example 2: Comparative advertising

• Strategy: Compare the problem with old solutions and your new and unique solution.
• Example: A mattress company could compare traditional spring mattresses (problem) with their memory foam technology (solution), emphasizing comfort and health benefits.

Example 3: Expert endorsements

• Strategy: Use experts to validate your solution.
• Example: A new supplement could be promoted through endorsements from nutritionists, targeting people aware of dietary gaps but unaware of this specific supplement.

Problem aware, Solution aware

This group is aware of both the problem and the available solutions.

Example 1: Competitive advantage

• Strategy: Talk about what makes your solution better than others.
• Example: A cloud storage company could emphasize their superior security features and customer service, targeting prospects who are already using or looking for cloud storage solutions.

Example 2: Customer testimonials

• Strategy: Use real customer stories to show the effectiveness of your solution.
• Example: A language learning app could use testimonials from successful learners, targeting those already looking for language learning solutions.

Example 3: Limited-time offers

• Strategy: Create urgency or exclusivity around your solution.
• Example: An online course platform could offer a limited-time discount on certain courses, targeting individuals already considering online education.

Each of these strategies is focused on the specific level of awareness of the target audience, so the marketing approach fits the audience.

Do the one thing most business owners never do

The easiest and most efficient way to better understand your customers and market to future customers is to talk to the customers you already have.

You’d think this is common sense. Unfortunately, most business owners are so focused on acquiring new customers that they don’t properly serve the people who already gave them money.

This makes customers feel unappreciated.

If you run a business with a recurring revenue model like subscriptions, you’ll lose a lot of customers to “churn” because they don’t renew their services.

They don’t renew their services because the business owner doesn’t take the time to check in on them and see how they’re doing.

Talking to your customers solves two problems at once:

You help your current customers feel understood and appreciated; plus, they give you insights to make your product or service even better.

The insights you get from people who already gave you money are way more valuable than insights from people who haven’t bought from you.

Use customer surveys and (better yet) get your current customers on the phone or Zoom. Ask them questions like:

Let them talk. Ask these open-ended questions and continue to ask more questions based on their responses. Get as much information as possible.

When I do interviews with my clients, I use a tool called Otter AI that creates transcripts of the calls and even labels and timestamps important sections of them.

You can use the information you get from current customers in several different ways:

Making time for this step addresses the business bottleneck of not having a good handle on your market, your current customers, or your potential buyers.

The more information you have, the better.

Bottleneck #3: Neglecting your own growth as a business leader

So what’s the biggest barrier to progress of them all?

The entrepreneur who runs the business.

There are three different factors that contribute to your business success (or demise) as an entrepreneur:

• Beliefs
• Character
• Skills

Beliefs: The invisible scripts that make or break your business

Faulty beliefs can ruin your business.

Things like believing your product is better than it actually is. Or that you don’t need to understand marketing and sales. Or that the key to success is in marketing, instead of building good products.

You may have limiting beliefs about the potential of your business—and your income can’t outpace your identity.

Focus on identifying these faulty beliefs and replace them with ones that grow your business.

For example, Jeff Bezos believes that focusing on the customer is the number one key to success. Believe you need to grow as a leader. Or that you need to get better at training your staff instead of blaming them for poor results.

Character: The intangible traits of a successful business founder

When Warren Buffet and the late Charlie Munger looked to invest in businesses, they always passed on a business with a founder who had bad character traits, even if everything else about the business was solid. 

Who you are as a person bleeds into the business. You need the right traits to win. Traits like:

• Honesty and integrity
• Leadership skills
• Diligence
• Willingness to take responsibility
• Adaptability and the willingness to keep learning

Your philosophy runs all the way down the levels of your business and into the minds of your customers.

If you want to grow your business, focus on growing as a person.

Skills: The mastery you need to pay the bills

If your business is struggling, it could be a skill issue on your part.

Maybe you literally need to get better at the service you provide and deliver better results for your clients. There are a staggering amount of businesses that can’t fulfill the promises they make to clients, which is why those clients keep leaving in droves.

Maybe you have a great product, but you need to improve your marketing and sales skills to get better at making people aware of it. It could be time to pick up new skills to grow your business like copywriting, learning to run paid ads, or creating a cold outreach program.

A huge skill, maybe the most important one, is the ability to attract, hire, and retain A-level talent so your business can grow on its own without you needing to micro-manage every aspect of it.

Level up your skills and watch your business grow.

Overcome these bottlenecks and watch your business soar

While starting a business is tough, growing and scaling a business is even more difficult.

There will be tons of business bottlenecks along the way. As you grow as a business owner, you’ll get better at finding and eliminating these bottlenecks.

Give yourself time.

Continue to make your product better, streamline your services, and recruit top talent. Observe your business from a a strategic vantage point to constantly improve. Do these things well and growth will follow.