In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick explains why business leaders must distinguish between a customer’s perceived problem (the symptom they are aware of) and the underlying cause (the reason they experience the symptom). He argues that the problem is what should be addressed in marketing and sales messaging, while the cause is what should be tackled through education and teaching. Gubernick illustrates the concept with concrete problem‑cause pairings—procrastination vs. distraction, obesity vs. poor diet/exercise, overwhelm vs. ambiguity, loneliness vs. low self‑confidence or lack of intimacy, fatigue vs. insufficient sleep, and underperformance vs. inconsistency. He stresses that focusing only on the problem yields products that treat symptoms, whereas targeting the cause opens larger, more valuable opportunities. The episode ends with a reflective question urging listeners to assess how much time they spend analyzing problem versus cause in their own businesses.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. As business people, one of our core objectives is to understand the problems that our consumer, our customer, our prospect is experiencing and in understanding that problem, come up with a solution. And that solution is ultimately the service or the product that you are selling. That's, that's how business works. It identifies a point of pain and then from a business perspective, capitalizes on that by providing a solution. Now, if that's the case, which, which I believe to be, and I'm assuming you do as well, I think it's really important that we understand how to separate the problem from the cause, right? Because the problem, uh, is oftentimes a symptom, right, of a core cause. And we've got to understand the relationship here, especially if our intention is to design a product or a service to address these various problems. We've got to understand what's what the underlying condition happens to be. So, we've got to delineate between the problem from the cause. And I want to give you some things that, that I've learned and that I think around when I'm separating the two, and then maybe some strategy around how to attack both of them. So, first, understand that the problem is what the consumer or the prospect is struggling with. So, the problem is what they're struggling with? And I want to emphasize that word "what" because the cause is why they are struggling with it. So, the problem is what they are struggling with; the causes—why they're struggling with it. The problem is something that they are aware of. Emphasize the word "aware." The problem is something that they're aware of. The cause is likely something they're unaware of. The problem is what you address in your marketing or your, your sales pitch. The cause is what you would address in your teaching. We're going to come back to that one. The problem is what you address in your marketing or in your sales pitch. The cause is what you address in your teaching, in your education. In marketing, if you can help the consumer or your prospect see the impacts then you could help your consumer, your prospects see the problem. So that people can see the impacts, like what the actual impact is from this problem, then it actually helps them see the problem itself. That's in marketing, that's in sales. If you could help people see the impacts, then you could help people see the problem. But in teaching, if you could help people see the cause, then you could help people solve the problem. Stick with me here. Okay. So, let's go through some problem versus cause analysis. I'm going to give you some problems and then I'm going to give you the underlying cause, things that we are aware of or we see regularly or we're experiencing personally. I'll give you an example. A problem is procrastination. If I'm a procrastinator, like when I procrastinate, that is the problem. When I delay the work that I know I need to get to, when I'm taking my time or dilly-dallying and not attacking the most important problem, you know, the most important issue. I'm procrastinating. That's the problem, procrastination. But what's the cause? The cause of procrastination is really, more oftentimes than not, just distraction. I am distracted by other things, are usually less important things, and therefore I procrastinate. So the problem is procrastination, but the cause is distraction. If the problem is obesity, the cause is likely poor diet and exercise. If the problem is overwhelm, the cause is usually ambiguity. The problem's overwhelm. So I've got too many things going, I've got too much on my plate, I'm overwhelmed, I'm even paralyzed. The cause is actually just ambiguity in that I'm not clear on what matters most, or I'm not attacking what matters most. If the problem is loneliness— this is an interesting one, right? The cause is likely low self-confidence, or maybe lack of intimacy. But there's a cause for that loneliness. The problem is the loneliness, but there's a cause, and that's that lack of intimacy, lack of, of self-confidence. If you think around the problem being fatigue, the cause is not enough sleep. That's an obvious one. If you think around the problem of underperformance, the cause is likely inconsistency. So, you can see this problem versus cause relationship. And I wanted to just call it out today because I think it's important that as business people, we analyze what's the real problem But what's the underlying cause? And when we can figure out the problem, design products and services for that, we might be, you know, coming up with, with a great product or service that addresses something at a solid level. But if we understand the cause, and that's in fact what we're teaching around, there's potentially an even greater opportunity. So just something for you to think around as you think about problem versus cause. Oftentimes in business and in leadership, We go after the problem and we're not always as effective as we wish we were, we could be. But the reality is we're not as effective because we're only getting something at, you know, a byproduct. We're getting a symptom, but we've got to really focus on the cause. So the focusing question for you, are you spending enough time analyzing problem versus cause? Are you capitalizing on problems but understanding the bigger opportunity may be in solving for the cause? That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
