3 DANGEROUS BELIEFS that PREVENT business owners from succeeding… The cost of Solution Hopping

Summary

• Solution hopping can hurt your business growth and cause unnecessary headaches; it's key to recognize and avoid this practice.
• Business owners often look for painless and quick solutions to challenges, much like "diet hoppers" who switch from one diet to another; this approach also permeates business strategies.
• The myth that a perfect, easy, and immediate solution exists can cause frequent and unproductive changes in business strategies.
• I've identified three false beliefs that encourage solution hopping: 1) The solution must be perfect. 2) It should solve the problem entirely on its own. 3) It needs to be easy, frictionless, and fast.
• Reframe your mindset to accept that no solution is perfect, total problem resolution might require multiple solutions, and that setbacks and difficulties are part of the process.
• Staying with a chosen solution long enough to properly evaluate its impact is key to actually benefitting from changes made.
• To effectively select a solution for your business: 1) Rank potential solutions based on ease, friction, and speed. 2) Consider alignment with company values. 3) Test the solution for a set period before full commitment and define what success looks like in that context.
• Reducing the frequency of solution hopping is a mark of success; longer periods between strategy shifts suggest smarter decision-making and solution evaluation.
• Continual change incurs costs and stress on your business financially, on your team, and on your systems.
• Educate yourself and your team on the pitfalls of solution hopping and better ways to approach problem-solving to reduce stress and financial burden on the company.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by understanding the concept of solution hopping. It's when you quickly jump to new solutions without giving time to see if the old ones work. This can make your business suffer. So, here's what you can do:

First, believe that no solution is perfect. Wrong ideas can make you switch solutions too fast. You may believe that the perfect solution must solve everything, be easy to use, and work fast. But that isn't how real solutions often work.

Next, stick with a choice long enough to see its results. Quick changes waste time and money, and stress everyone out. To pick a good solution, rank your choices. Look at how easy they are, how much they change your routine, and how quickly they work. Pick the one that fits your business values best.

Then, test your chosen solution for a while. Decide what success means for this test. It could mean fixing a big problem, even if it makes small new ones. The key is to see what it solves, not that it makes everything perfect.

Last, talk to your team about the downsides of solution hopping. Teach them to think this new way too. If everyone understands, it’ll be easier to make better choices.

Remember, less solution hopping shows you're making smarter decisions. So, your goal isn't to never change your mind but to take longer to do so each time. This means you're learning and getting better at choosing and sticking with solutions.

In short: Avoid quick fixes, choose solutions wisely, test and stick with them, and involve your team. This way, you'll grow your business with fewer headaches.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"There's never a solution that comes without problems"

– Leila Hormozi

"It's not which solution would you prefer, it's which problem would you prefer"

– Leila Hormozi

"If the solution is not perfect, then it is not a solution"

– Leila Hormozi

"No solution is perfect ever"

– Leila Hormozi

"Every solution comes with its own set of problems"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

what is up in this video today what i want to talk about is solution hopping how this is hurting your business and how to stop doing this so that your business can grow faster with less headache this kind of came forefront to mind because i was having a conversation with the business that we were looking at taking on the other day and this business particular just installed a sales team and they were looking at basically how that would increase current versions across the board for their company based on um the cost of you know webinar sales uh continue to rise the traffic that they were getting was more and more expensive which you know that's why they wanted to insert a high-ticket phone sales team actually pretty typical right now just because costs are going up and so this uh particular entrepreneur uh was basically saying that he didn't actually want to continue with the solution and the reason that he didn't want to is you know it's just become much more of a headache than he expected it to be and you know it's not uh happening as fast it's too much of his involvement et cetera et cetera you didn't realize how much of a pain in the ass having a sales team wants and it is obviously if you don't know how to do it you've never done it before and so this is something that i noticed actually was a trend because another company that we talked to about a week ago we set out a strategy for how they were going to monetize a skill that they had the skill is based in brick and mortar business and we basically said you know there's three ways that we can monetize this we picked one and they were actually just questioning if that way of monetization was the right one or not and considering going back to a different one that we had presented about a year ago and what i want to explain is this is incredibly common and we all do this and the reason that it is something that i see so clearly is because i have trained myself to see it in myself and i think that this goes back to looking at other uh if if you could look at a different way or a different area of life that people do this an example would be weight loss you see people they call them diet hoppers right and they go from keto to low carb to you know carb cycling to fasting to intermittent like they try everything under the sun and the reason for that is because oftentimes more than not they're not experimenting because that's a fitness person will experiment but somebody who doesn't know they usually just go to a solution they realize that there's still pain there's still discomfort it is still hard and then they jump to a different one hoping that it will have no pain no discomfort and will be hard and we do the same thing in business and it's not because there's anything wrong with us it's because we're humans and this is how our brains are programmed and it's a lot of how society has brought us up right we just continue to go one thing for another seeking comfort seeking to not have any obstacles that forbid us from having what we want and so um what you have to realize and what i have uh realized myself is that there's never a solution that comes without problems and so you're not actually deciding on what solution you want you're deciding what problems you want in actuality uh say the first company i was talking about the cost of the webinar sales was rising and so the problem that they had there was that their uh return on ad spend was going down the problem that they have now is that you know say the return ad spend is now back to what it was but now they have this pain in the ass essentially of what they have to deal with right it's more management more oversight etc and so it's not which solution would you prefer it's which problem would you prefer would you prefer to make less money would you prefer a pain in the ass right and so i think that if you can switch your frame to thinking in that uh from that point of view that can help you and that will frame the rest of this video so what i have realized is that there's three beliefs that prevent us from sticking with a solution and these are the three beliefs that if you can break them for yourself and if you can continually reinforce the three that i would replace them with then you will be able to stop yourself from continuously solution hopping continue to break your business and not actually improve anything because you have no continuity if you switch solutions every three months and so the first belief that people tend to hold when they solution hop is if the solution is not perfect then it is not a solution okay that's the first one so really think about this when's the last time that you found a perfect solution that wasn't something that would only be a solution in the short term not the long term right because i think a lot of people they'll be like well i could do i could drink a bottle of bourbon or i could take this pill or whatever yes short-term solution not long-term though when's the last time that you found a solution that was actually perfect and completely solved the problem second belief that holds people back is that they believe that this solution alone should solve the problem in its entirety what people are looking for is an off-the-shelf solution they're like i want to pick this solution and it solves this entire complex problem that's the second piece the third piece is that this solution needs to be easy frictionless and fast and if it's not it's not a solution those are the three beliefs that tend to hold people back and tend to create this very frenetic cycle of going from one solution to another to another to another they're seeking something that is frictionless it's easy it's fast it this one solution can solve seven of your problems the whole problem in its entirety with all its complexity and all the years that have created the problem and they believe it should be perfect which means this problem should never rise again it should we should never have setbacks and it should always work so when i say it out loud it sounds ridiculous right but we do this in most areas of life and we do it in business all the time and it creates a lot of whiplash for your team here are the beliefs that you can replace those with and this will help you make better decisions about what solution you want to pick slash what problems you want to pick and how to stick with something so the first one is that no solution is perfect ever underlined ever there is no perfect solution perfect solutions do not exist in life i think we could all agree upon this anything that you pick you will always have setbacks problems will always rise again there will be new problems that come with that solution and so it would be logical to say that no solution is ever perfect the second belief is that this solution may only solve a part of the problem and not the problem in its entirety i may need multiple solutions to solve one problem okay so say that you don't know why your business isn't growing and you're like i think i need more marketing and so you go and you hire a marketing firm and they get you more leads but you're not making more sales because actually your sales team doesn't work well either they don't know how to work leads okay so you're trying to fix the problem growing your business but in actuality you realize that it's not just marketing it's not just sales oh and then there's customer service which doesn't serve as many customers there's like six other things you need to fix and so is it the marketing firm's problem is it their fault that this isn't working or is it that you haven't really thought through the solution in its entirety and you haven't realized the scale of how many solutions you need to employ to fix this one problem that's the second belief so i think it'd be logical to say that a lot of problems that we have in life need to be hit with different angles and there are multiple solutions to help solve one problem and then the third belief is that this solution will come with its own set of pain in the asses problems obstacles friction right and it will fail somewhere on the spectrum in terms of at some point in time it may not work and that doesn't mean it's not a good solution right that's just the nature of problems in life and so if you look at this you would say somebody who's on a diet right and they're like they're doing this diet and it's working really well and then you know say they're doing intermittent fasting and they just get so hungry one day and then they just end up eating a ton in the morning and then they say ah intermittent fasting doesn't work i need to go try something else it's not that intermittent fasting doesn't work it's that you were really hungry one day and you're a human and you're fallible and you fell to you failed to adhere to the plan right and so it's not that the solution doesn't work it's that you had a setback setbacks are to be expected in normal with any solution you pick to any problem and so um if you constantly solution hop then what happens is that your company your business and your team are going to constantly incur the cost of change without ever realizing the benefit of the change because you don't stick with it long enough to see it through and so that is why this is so costly and it keeps businesses small because you can't follow through with anything because you have these irrational beliefs that these uh solutions that you are picking these strategies that you're deciding on will solve everything be easy have no friction no obstacles etc and that's just not how life works and so if you can change yourself and if you can change your mindset to reframe this and understand that problems always exist and every solution comes with its own set of problems then it is much easier to pick which solution you want to go with and so here's how you actually pick a solution um to go with one you want to rank each solution that is an option in your mind on a scale of one to ten in three areas those three areas are one the spectrum at falls of easy to hard right so to execute this how easy is it versus how hard is it where do you fall in that spectrum based on the strengths and weaknesses of your team and company that's the first one the second one is where does this fall on the spectrum of friction no friction tons of friction okay so like say um you know something where a tool that you want to use but in order to use this tool you have to completely integrate a new software into your crm okay that causes a lot of friction versus there's something that just is an api plug-in that you can plug in that's not much friction at all right so where does it fall on the scale of one to ten in terms of friction and then lastly speed is how fast or how slow is this solution and so if you rank all of the options that you have what you'll probably see is that each one has one outlier which is one that it is uh geared towards like it might be the fastest solution but then it's weaker on the other two it might be the most frictionless solution but weaker on the other two and so then you have to decide which one aligns with your company values okay so looking at where they fall on the spectrum which aligns with the strengths and the competitive advantage and the values of your company and that's the filter that you have to filter that through now once you've done that and you're like i think this is number one here's number two here's number three then you want to say okay how can i test this solution without fully committing to it how long will i test it for to know if it works or doesn't work and then set that predetermined period period of time say i will try this solution this solution and this solution and here's how long i will try each of them for and then here's how i will determine what success is so you have to determine what is success okay and so what success might be is that you solve this problem over here even though you created three other little problems but what's the biggest problem that you're trying to solve for and which one solves it to the greatest degree because the ability to solve a problem it's not finite you don't just solve a problem it's how to what extent does this solution solve this problem to what extent do you have friction in solving this problem to what extent is this fast or slow in solving this problem to what extent is this um easy or hard for my team to execute in solving this problem and so that is how you actually solve problems now where most people fall short and where almost everyone has does and will again because we are valuable humans is that they don't stick with the solution that they pick right eventually and a lot of times what you're actually doing is that you are solution hopping and what happens is that you are first doing it very frequently so you might be doing every couple weeks every couple months then it might be every quarter and then every two quarters and then every year and so in taking the learnings from this video i also want you to understand that success doesn't mean that you never solution hop again success means that the time uh between doing so increases that's what you actually want to focus on is how less frequently can i change my mind and switch strategies that's what you actually want to focus on and that is how i would measure success for myself and how i would ask you to also measure it so to recap this okay there are three beliefs that you often hold when you continue to solution hop in your company the first one is that if the solution is not perfect it's not a solution which we know isn't true no solution is perfect ever period the second is that the solution alone should solve the problem in its entirety wrong we know that most solutions solve part of the problem but not the problem in its entirety and you often need multiple solutions to solve one complex problem and then lastly is that this solution needs to be easy frictionless and fast reality is no solution is all easy frictionless and fast to what extent is it easy frictionless or fast is what you have to measure and then determine based on that which solution is best for you and your problem and your company and so i hope you take those three insights and you look at yourself right now and you say where am i solution hopping where is my team solution hopping and how can i communicate this to them share this video with them train them to think differently about how to solve problems so that we have less whiplash less financial stress less infrastructure stress all in our company because guys every time you switch and you don't get the benefit you're incurring that cost of change and you're putting stress on your business usually it's financial stress by spending resources and allocating resources where they're not needed you just team stress by basically giving whiplash to your team because they feel like they're going in every which direction they feel lack of clarity they feel stressed they feel overwhelmed and then lastly it's system stress which is you add in usually lots of different uh pieces of infrastructure whether it be people systems processes software to solve something and then all of a sudden it's essentially irrelevant the next day and then you have all this leftover excess in your company and so that is why it's so important to be able to make that frame shift and understand how to actually find and implement solutions and probably set your expectations if you found this video valuable hopefully you share with your team also go ahead hit subscribe and i will see you on the next one