Draining Time, Profit, and Energy: Fix Your Blind Spots for Good - Ep 212

 You can't fix what you can't see. And in business, the most dangerous problems aren't the ones screaming for attention. They're the ones quietly draining your time, money, and energy while you're busy putting out fires elsewhere.

Most business problems aren't obvious. They hide in plain sight though. And the biggest risk to your growth isn't the problem you see, it's the one you don't.

Today, we're going to unpack the four blind spots you might be missing and look at how to surface them before they derail your progress.

Welcome to the Budding Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm Randy Bridges, business advisor, consultant, coach, and trusted partner to service-based business owners who are serious about performance, profit, and progress. 

This podcast exists to do one thing, help you solve the real problems that stall your growth, kill momentum, and burn out the very people who built your business. So let's get started, shall we?

All right, all right. We are on episode 212 of the podcast, and today is Wednesday, August 13th, 2025. 

Now this episode is for every business owner who feels like they've been firefighting the same issues over and over again. If you ever wondered, why does this keep happening? Chances are you've been solving symptoms instead of root causes. In all my years of working with business owners, I can't tell you how many times someone has come to me swearing they knew exactly what was wrong in their company.

They'd point to the obvious, the loud problem, the one causing the most headaches right now. And yet, in most cases, that wasn't the real problem. That was just the surface, the symptom of something much deeper.

So here's what we're going to cover today. We're going to look at the four blind spots that cause problems to hide in plain sight. We're going to look at how to spot each one before it creates bigger issues. 

We're going to do a quick case study for the day. And finally, we'll look at a simple framework for surfacing the real problems so you can actually fix them. So let's start looking at those four blind spots that hide in plain sight.

Number one is the assumed problem. Now this is the one you think is a problem, but it's really just a symptom. For example, a client told me their sales problem was that their reps weren't closing enough deals. 

Now I dug in and found that their lead qualification process was virtually non-existent. It really didn't have anything. They thought they did, but they couldn't actually point to where it was or how it was written or actually anybody follow it the same person to person. 

See, the reps weren't bad at selling, but they were chasing unqualified prospects. So that's kind of a twofer there. They had a little bit of a problem in both areas. 

Now if you want to spot something like this, you know you fixed it before and it keeps coming back. And the fix that you implemented, it seems to create new unexpected issues. Now that's kind of the way that it is for problem solving as a whole, is that the minute you fix something, it creates a new problem. 

It may not be the same type of problem, but it's kind of like, oh, all of a sudden I have extra money and then I have to figure out how to deal with increased taxes. Great example of a problem that comes from having something work in your advantage. In many cases, people can't clearly explain why the problem exists.

So if you want to make a shift in this area, always ask yourself what's causing this, and do it at least three times before you start solving. Really dig deep and find out what's really happening under what you assume is the main problem. The second blind spot matching up with the assumed problem is the accepted problem.

Now this is a problem everyone knows exists, but nobody questions it anymore. It's just a given that it's going to continue. Nobody's going to really try to solve it.

For example, I had a business that spent three hours every Monday pulling manual reports from four different systems. When I asked why they were doing that, the answer was, that's how we've always done it. No one had considered automating the reports.

I stepped in, mapped the program out, figured out what was happening, and ended up cutting it down to 10 minutes a week. So how to spot this kind of oversight is phrases like, it's just part of the job, or that's how it's always been. That's my peeve. 

I really dislike that one because it's taking a step back and not accepting any responsibility for what you're really dealing with. And another way to spot it is no one can name the last time it was reviewed or improved. And you can also spot it because the process is slow, frustrating, or unclear, but it's normal. 

So make a shift in saying, why do we do it this way? And make that a standing question in your team reviews. You'll be surprised what you uncover that you didn't realize was actually happening before. Blind spot number three, the avoided problem. 

This is the one that's really uncomfortable to address. It might involve the person, policy, a relationship, something that you'd rather not touch. I had a client whose top salesperson was also the biggest source of drama and turnover. 

Everyone tipped around him until the rest of the sales team started underperforming. That's when leadership finally dealt with the behavior because the team's numbers rebounded within weeks after adjusting that. So they got complete review and visibility into where it was and how it was actually impacting people. 

It wasn't a guess anymore. So for the avoided problem, how to spot it, obviously people avoid discussing it in meetings. Conversations about it carry emotional weight and everyone knows it's an issue, but it's been that way for months, sometimes years. 

So to make the shift on this one, deal with the high impact, high discomfort problems early. They only get harder to fix later. And the fourth blind spot is the hidden in data problem. 

This is the problem that's buried in your numbers and you only see it after it's caused damage. One client's revenue looked really steady until I sat down with him and broke it down by product line. Now they had a core offering that was quietly losing market share and it was masked by growth in another area because they were blending these two together. 

They thought they were related so they put all the numbers together and by the time they spotted the problem they've lost months of opportunity to fix it. So in spotting this blind spot, this is where you rely on lagging metrics like total revenue. You can't really see what's driving it. 

The leading indicators are non-existent or you don't track leading indicators at all, like maybe a pipeline stage volume. How about a customer response time or project cycle times? How many redos have you had to do? These are all things that give you insight that something is happening ahead of this. So to make the shift, pair every lagging metric with a leading one. 

That way you can catch your problems before they get big. Now looking at our mini case study, I wanted to really see what was broken in a client's business because they kept telling me everything was fine but the numbers didn't play out. And so when they came to me initially, they were convinced that their biggest problem was low lead flow. 

And that's not uncommon. I mean, you know, you can have low lead flow and it's not something you can really spot every single time when it's happening. But these people were ready to double their ad spin to launch new campaigns and hire another salesperson because they thought that the lead flow was low because they weren't getting out the word. 

I sat down with them and really dug into the numbers and what we found was kind of amazing. Their lead flow was actually steady. There had been no drop at all. 

But conversions had slipped by almost 20%. The cause? Lack of follow-up. They had no follow-up process. 

They had no documented process to follow up. And nobody was actually doing it. No one else was asking why they weren't.

See, no one was clearly responsible for chasing down leads after the first conversation. Everyone thought someone else was doing it, but didn't actually take the initiative to make sure. So I sat down with the owner and we started reassigning ownership of this process and we built a simple three-step follow-up process. 

Within 30 days, their conversions were back without spending a single extra dollar on ads. Lesson learned? You might not be able to solve a problem when you've misdiagnosed it. And the faster you identify the real cause, the faster you'll fix it. 

So let's go into our closing framework. And in this, we're looking at a three-step blind spot check. These are basically all the types of questions that you should do in order to avoid these blind spots.

Number one, ask why three times before solving. Why is this happening? Why is it occurring this way? Why haven't we done anything about it before now, for example? Number two, challenge the statement that that's how we've always done it. And number three, match every lagging metric with a leading one.

When you do this regularly, the real problems stop hiding. You stop wasting time fixing the wrong things, probably spending money on things you don't really need to do. So as a closing reflection, the real problems in your business aren't hiding because they're sneaky.

They're hiding because you've learned to work around them. Blind spots aren't a sign you're failing, they're a sign you're human. And spotting them requires stepping back, questioning your assumptions, and digging deeper than the obvious.

Because when you surface the real problem early, you solve them once and move forward for good. Remember the saying, build it smart, run it clean, stay aligned.

That's it for this episode. I hope you picked up some valuable insights and maybe even sparked a few new ideas. If you want to keep the conversation going, or maybe even explore partnerships, don't hesitate to reach out. And hey, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who needs to hear it. 

The steps you take today could be the start of something big tomorrow. For the budding entrepreneur, I wish you the best in your health, your wealth, your business, your family, everything about you. Take care, and we'll see you back here next week.