What's their problem? đŸ€”

People buy solutions, but do you actually know what problem(s) you’re solving?

Author

Lyndon Bradfield
October 31, 2024 ‱ Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Last week at Taryn’s She’s Going Somewhere retreat (T's retreat takeaway reel) Jo & I gave a presentation on Zero Burnout Offers.

The anchor of our whole talk was the idea that when you’re building out or refining an existing offer, there are three main parts that you need to consider. I couldn’t help myself from making a “fancy” triple Venn diagram 👇

The Problems & Solutions portion of our framework is where we see people take shortcuts or even skip it outright. To that point, even Quora’s AI Bot can tell us where we often go wrong (paragraph 3 hits home đŸ˜ł).

The phrase "If you build it, they will come" originated from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner [1]. However, it is important to note that the actual quote from the movie is "If you build it, he will come," not "they" [1]. The phrase has since become a popular cultural reference and is often misquoted.

Meaning: The phrase is often used as a metaphor to convey the idea that if you create something that people want or need, they will come to you instead of you having to seek them out [1]. It suggests that by building or creating something valuable, you can attract an audience or customers.

However, it is worth noting that the phrase is sometimes used as a business mantra that contradicts the marketing principle of establishing a need before creating something [3]. While the phrase implies that simply building something will automatically attract people, in reality, it is important to consider market demand and establish a need for a product or service before investing in it.

Quora AI Bot, my emphasis

As we evolved our Branding Photography over the years we slowly implemented an increasing number of “customer-centric” elements as we iterated ways to solve more problems in our packages.

By looking at how they evolved over the years it’s fairly easy in hindsight to identify the specific problem that each successful change solved.

Original inception of our branding packages:

  • Problem: A boutique was trying to market their products online, but product photography felt cold to them and they wanted more of a lifestyle approach that would connect with their customers

  • Solution: Working with a photographer that had a background in weddings & portraits and knows how to incorporate people and candid lifestyle moments into marketing materials for a brand

Addition of complimentary Hair & Makeup:

  • Problem: Clients that have never spent much/any time in front of a camera and can be overly self-conscious about how they’ll look in the photos, preventing them from being themselves in their photos

  • Solution: As Jo learned from doing boudoir sessions, a woman’s whole demeanor changes when she has professional hair & makeup done. They love how they look and they’re confident in front of the camera.

Adding b-roll clips to branding packages:

  • Problem: TikTok & Reels (need I say more, lol), clients would be putting in considerable time and effort to a branding session for photos, then find a friction point using high-quality photos with low-quality iPhone videos on feed, it felt dis-connected (this was the high polish IG era circa 2021)

  • Solution: We were already taking behind-the-scenes content for our own marketing and sharing, that some clients were already using as b-roll, what if we just took a b-roll clip at the same time as taking photos of the exact same thing - aka super easy b-roll and very little extra effort

Okay cool, cool, I don’t have 4 years to iterate myself to a good offer


Earlier this year we made this slide for our Capturing Luxury group program to help walk our students through a process of “drilling down” a general problem in a specific & unique problem to their clients.

One note: your job isn’t to have an offer for every single problem you identify, a good offer is made up by combining the collection of problems & solutions you identify that you’re uniquely skilled at doing - but that’s a different part of the 3 part framework, maybe an email for another day


If you’re struggling to identify problems, $100m Offers by Alex Hermozi has an entire chapter (ch.9) dedicated to finding the Problems & Solutions of your Grand Slam Offers.

We’ve started walking our coaching clients through a Google Docs template to identify their problems, go three levels deep, and pair a solution to them. This does 2 amazing things:

  • Helps you get into the headspace of what you’re customers actually need. Presenting tons of new options for potential ways you can serve through “upgrading” your offers, creating add-ons, or even new offers.

  • Makes creating content that resonates infinitely easier since you now have a much clearer picture of what your clients are thinking about & currently stressing over.

Below is a small excerpt of what our client, Hayley of @afterwordsstudio’s, insights look like as she’s exploring leaning into the Techy side of website development & systems (she put out this awesome YouTube video this week about using Honeybook, Zapier, & Google Docs to automatically reply to & create Google Docs for an inquiry process)

When was the last time that you set aside focused time to think about the actual problems of your clients?

What are they actively looking for solutions to, and what are their “hidden” needs that they’re not voicing, but make for a “HELL YES” when they find an offer that solves them?

If you want the exact Google Docs template we walk our coaching clients through, hit reply and I’ll share a link for you.

đŸŽ€đŸ«ł Lyndon

Are you (or someone you know) feeling stuck, burnt out, or lost with their offers? We’ve got coaching offers here specifically for you. Even if you’re not looking to invest at this moment hit us up in DMs, we love nerding out over offers!

Ps if you’re looking for a new website our coaching client Claire of @bloomingdesign.co officially opened doors to her Custom Website in a Week offer this week to her waitlist this week, and has 3 spots open. If you ask nicely she’ll probably let you in before rates increase on Monday with the announcement to her full email list đŸ€«

Introducing Referral Perks! You get free things just by inviting your friends, it’s a win-win!

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