Too many people are getting world-class at solving the wrong thing.
A woman at my event last week was DEAD set on using AI for customer support.
She runs a med spa. Doing about $1.5M a year.
And she walks up to ask: “Dan, how do I build an AI agent to handle all our patient messages?”
Fair question. The messages FELT like a waste of time…
But I stopped her right there.
“Let’s reframe your question:”
- where are you at?
- where do you want to go?
- what do you think the bottleneck is?
Two minutes later, the whole thing flipped.
The messages sounded like a fun AI project… but they were NOT her problem.
She had clients lined up out the door… and not enough service providers to help them.
So she was about to spend months building an AI tool. To fix a problem that wasn’t even her real problem.
(I’m, guilty. Done the exact same thing.)
Here’s what I’ve realized:
AI is enabling people to get faster at solving the wrong problem.
That’s why their business struggles to grow.
That’s why, asking better questions is half the answer.
Find Your Real Bottleneck
Picture a little car factory.
Every day it cranks out 8 tires. 2 engines. And 1 chassis.
How many cars can it build in a day?
One.
Doesn’t matter that you’ve got 8 shiny tires sitting there. You could have 800. The chassis is still the bottleneck.
So you don’t hire more tire guys. You don’t buy a fancy AI tire machine.
You grab the WHOLE team and point them at the chassis problem.
Fix that and you double output with ONE fix.
That’s called the Theory of Constraints.
Draw the Line Before You Fix the Line
Every business on earth is the same machine.
An idea goes in one end… cash comes out the other.
The trick is mapping every step in between.
Lead → call → close → deliver → keep’em around.
You can’t spot the bottleneck if you can’t see the whole line laid out in front of you.
Ask The Right Questions
Now you see the path. Go back and ask the question like this:
- where are you at?
- where do you want to go?
- what do you think the bottleneck is?
The med spa thought it was messages. It was providers.
A guy scaling his coaching business thought it was leads. It was conversion.
He was leaving millions on the table in the funnel he already had.
Ask the right question. Give it to your team. Your coach. Your mentor. Or even yourself.
Chances are, you probably already know what to do.
Then go attack the right problem like your life depends on it.
-DM