How long should you spend understanding your client's problem before you offer a solution?
Einstein famously said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend 55 minutes understanding the problem and 5 minutes coming up with a solution.
Given constraints of time, energy and resources, how long should you spend understanding your client’s problem before offering a solution?
Challenges at both ends of the spectrum
There are two challenges that arise for coaches and consultants around this.
The first is jumping to a solution too early.
Offering a solution before fully understanding the client's need can result in:
the wrong solution – something the client doesn’t want, or ends up not being satisfied with
a part solution – something that’s OK, but doesn’t capture the full value you can offer
an immediate decline – it feels like too much, too soon for your client
The second challenge, common to coaches, is exploring the problem for too long, without offering the client a tangible way forwards.
The Problem vs the Solution space
Any conversation with a new potential client involves two distinct parts of the conversation – the first is about the challenge or opportunity they're facing, and the second involves offering some kind of solution.
Designers have language to describe these two parts of problem solving or opportunity creation. They call them the “problem space” and the “solution space”. Designers commonly spend a lot of time understanding and exploring the challenge before they come up with a solution. In fact, it might be as much as 80% challenge to 20% solution.
The reason they can do that is that most people are pretty happy to speak about themselves and their challenges, especially if they believe you can help them change it.
“Most people are pretty happy to speak about themselves and their challenges, especially if they believe you can help them change it”
As a rule of thumb – the more time you spend understanding someone's challenge or opportunity, the more value you can create when it comes time to create a solution.
Three tips to create more value for your client
Here are three things to consider to help you know how long to spend understanding the challenge before you move to a solution.
Have you explored multiple challenges they're facing, or did you just pursue the first thing they mentioned? Take the time to explore a series of challenges or opportunities before zeroing in on one. Chances are what's top of mind might not be the biggest or most important.
Have you identified their biggest concern? A great question here is: what's at stake? What's at stake if they do nothing? If the answer is: not much, it's probably not something worth pursuing What's at stake if they solve the challenge? You want to know what they expect to happen as a result.
Have you articulated their key challenge – their biggest concern – in a way that's clear for both of you to really understand what it is? so that you can then go on to explore solutions?
In conclusion, next time you speak with a potential client, try spending more time understanding the challenge before you come up with a solution. Think like a designer and really explore it, including what's at stake for them in changing it.
Remember then, that the more time you can spend understanding their challenge, the more valuable your solution is likely to be.
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