#30 Elevate the problem

Hey there,

Today we’re back after a brief hiatus, and we’re tackling something we’ve been sitting on for months:

How to elevate the problem.

This is one of those concepts that sounds simple but changes everything once you see it. And it goes a layer deeper than just “market the problem.”

When Nick first went solo, he made a classic mistake. He marketed to agencies by saying things like: you have no leads, your pipeline is dry, you’re going to have to lay people off. And he got a ton of inbound from it. The problem? Those buyers didn’t have the money to pay the rates he wanted to charge.

So we started asking: what if we framed problems through success indicators rather than failure indicators?

Instead of “your sales team keeps missing quotas,” try “your sales team is hitting quota, but you’re leaving money on the table because your top performers can’t scale their approach.”

Same service. Completely different buyer.

We break down a bunch of these examples in the episode, plus we talk through how this applies to your hooks, your offer positioning, your sales pages, all of it.

And we share our own shift from Full Stack Solo to Duo Consulting and why elevating the problem was the key to going upmarket.

The mini book on this is almost done and goes into way more detail. For now, the episode should give you plenty to chew on.

Cheers,
Nick and Erica

(00:00) Intro
(02:46) Elevating the problem framework
(03:20) Story time: marketing the problem
(09:15) Failure vs. success indicators
(11:59) Practical examples and hooks
(16:34) Moving upmarket and client psychology
(20:33) Paranoid parenting gadgets
(21:24) The value of discretionary spending
(22:32) Understanding business problems
(24:22) Targeting the right market
(27:43) Marketing strategies and pitfalls
(32:31) Pricing and market fit

Ready to standardize your offer and scale your consulting services to $50k+ months? Apply to work with us here: https://duoconsulting.co/