Transcript
The worst professionals in your industry are probably making more money than you are. And it's not an accident.
I watched a designer spiral into self-doubt recently because a branding agency with a terrible website was outselling them. Wrong colors. Unreadable text. Everything they teach clients not to do. And yet, clients were lining up. The designer asked the wrong question. They asked: "Why are incompetent people winning?"
The real question is: "Why do buyers keep rewarding people who promise shortcuts over people who solve actual problems?"
And the answer is going to make you uncomfortable. Because it's not just about them. It's about you too.
This pattern repeats across every industry I've touched. In consulting, I watch people with decades of experience lose projects to smooth-talking generalists who've never solved that specific problem before. In healthcare, patients choose the surgeon who confidently recommends surgery over the internist who suggests more diagnostic work. In technology, companies buy enterprise software from vendors who've never asked what problem they're actually trying to solve. The question isn't why incompetent people sell so well. The question is why competent people keep being surprised by it.
Let me be clear about something: People do not buy websites. They don't buy branding. They don't buy CRM systems or business processes or consulting engagements. They buy the feeling of having dealt with their problem. And here's the uncomfortable part - they'll pay more for that feeling than they will for an actual solution.
Think about that designer's competitor. The agency with the terrible website. What are they actually selling? They're selling confidence. They're selling the belief that branding is simple enough that even someone with a bad website can fix yours. They're selling the promise that you don't need to think too hard about this.
And for most buyers, that's exactly the product they want.
There's a framework I use to think about problems: simple, complicated, and complex. Simple problems have obvious solutions. If you need to hang a picture, you need a nail and a hammer. Complicated problems require expertise but follow predictable patterns. Building a bridge is complicated, but engineers have solved it thousands of times. Complex problems are different. They're contextual. They're unique to your situation. The solution that worked for someone else might make your problem worse.
Here's what I see happening: People are treating complex problems as if they're simple ones. And sellers are happy to pretend along with them.
Someone thinks they need a new website. So they hire a web designer. But they never asked why they need it. Is it to generate leads? Close sales? Establish credibility? Build community? Those are different problems requiring different solutions. The website is just a tool. And a tool without a clear problem to solve is just expensive decoration.
I had a client recently who was convinced they needed a CRM system. They'd done their research. They were ready to buy ActiveCampaign. Except ActiveCampaign isn't a CRM - it's marketing automation. They were about to spend thousands solving a problem they didn't have while ignoring the problem they did have. When we actually examined what they needed, we built something completely different. Simpler. Cheaper. Actually useful.
Another client wanted help migrating their server infrastructure. They asked for a security solution. After one conversation, it became clear they didn't want security software. They wanted a step-by-step guide to make their existing setup more secure. Different problem. Different solution. They would have paid ten times more for the wrong answer because it sounded more sophisticated.
A business owner I know got sold an SAP implementation by a consultant he met on a golf course. Six months in, his HR team had no idea how it was supposed to solve their actual problems. Because it wasn't designed to. It was designed to be sold. And it sold beautifully.
There's a saying often attributed to Einstein: "If I have one hour to solve a problem, I would spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes implementing the solution."
Most people today want to skip the fifty-five minutes. They want to jump straight to implementation because thinking feels like waste. It feels like delay. It feels like the opposite of progress.
But here's what actually happens when you skip the thinking: You solve the wrong problem. Then you create new problems. Then you need solutions for those problems. Then those solutions create more problems. And somewhere in that cycle, you forget what you were trying to accomplish in the first place.
The SAP consultant will sell you SAP. The surgeon will consider surgery. The web designer will build you a website. The branding agency will develop your brand guidelines. This isn't malice. It's specialization. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But you're not a nail. Your problem isn't a nail. And the solution isn't necessarily a hammer.
Henry Ford understood this. He said if he'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. They knew they wanted to get somewhere quicker. They didn't know they needed cars. If Ford had been selling shortcuts, he would have bred faster horses and called it innovation.
The hard truth is this: If you haven't spent real time understanding your problem, you have no idea whether the solution someone's selling you will work. You're buying theater. You're buying the performance of problem-solving. And sometimes, that's enough to make you feel better even when nothing actually improves.
I see this in my own work constantly. Someone asks for a better Microsoft Form. We dig into why they need it. Turns out, they need a membership site. The form was a symptom, not the problem. If I'd just built them a better form, they'd have been happy for a week. Then frustrated again. Then looking for the next solution.
This is why people with less knowledge sell more than people with deep expertise. They're not burdened by knowing how hard the real work is. They can promise simple solutions because they genuinely believe problems are simple. Or they don't care whether they're simple because they've learned that confidence sells better than competence.
And buyers reward this. Every time someone chooses the consultant who promises quick results over the one who asks difficult questions, they're voting for oversimplification. Every time someone picks the vendor with the slickest presentation over the one who wants to understand their context, they're choosing comfort over clarity.
You cannot shortcut your way to the top of a mountain that no one has climbed before. There is no lift. There is no helicopter. There is no secret path that lets you skip the hard parts. You have to walk there. You have to figure out the route. You have to understand the terrain.
But people keep looking for the lift. And sellers keep promising there's one just around the corner.
Here's what this costs you: Money, obviously. You'll pay for multiple solutions because the first ones didn't work. Time, because implementation without diagnosis is just expensive procrastination. Trust, because eventually you stop believing anyone can actually help you. And worst of all, you lose the ability to recognize when someone is actually trying to solve your problem versus trying to sell you their solution.
The branding agency with the terrible website isn't your enemy. They're a symptom. They exist because buyers keep rewarding people who promise certainty over people who offer clarity. They thrive because thinking feels like delay and implementation feels like progress.
So if you're on the buying side of this equation, ask yourself: When was the last time you spent fifty-five minutes thinking about your problem before jumping to a solution? When was the last time you paid someone to help you understand what you're facing rather than paying them to implement what you've already decided?
And if you're on the selling side, struggling because you refuse to sell shortcuts - because you know that real problem-solving is messy and contextual and hard - I see you. I struggle with this too. It's harder to sell thinking time than it is to sell implementation. It's harder to sell diagnosis than it is to sell solutions.
But here's what I know: The people who skip the thinking will keep buying solutions until they finally realize they need to understand their problems. And when they're ready for that conversation, they won't go back to the people who sold them shortcuts. They'll look for someone who was willing to slow down and think with them.
The shortcut tax compounds. People pay it in installments. Multiple vendors. Multiple implementations. Multiple failures. By the time they're ready to do the hard work, they've already spent more money, time, and trust than it would have cost to think clearly from the beginning.
There is no shortcut to solving complex problems. There never was. There never will be. And the faster people accept that, the sooner they can stop paying for the illusion of one.
And there's your opposition. The uncomfortable part isn't what I said - it's what you do next.
Until then, see you next week.
