Why Most Business Solutions Fail Small Businesses — And What Actually Works

The Challenges of Finding the Right Business Solution

Have you ever met a service provider, read a book or discovered a system and have gotten really really really excited (yes! THAT excited) over what it might be able to do for your business?

You were aware that you needed something and this new business solution invigorated you. It gave you hope with something practical to do to solve the issues in your business.

So you invested in the possibility – be in time, money or both – and dove right in.

Then, as the execution became cumbersome and the timeline dragged and the results weren’t anywhere in view, your excitement started to fade. You became slightly skeptical and started to look at every detail to see where the promises made were being unmet, where the oh-so-elegant solution started to crumble. You dragged up the contract, dug back into the initial expectations, reread those once-inspiring chapters and explanations.

No matter how much you revisited the past and looked for the issue, the truth was simple: the promised solution was just not working for you.

Looking back now, you might see that it wasn’t a fit because you needed a more fleshed-out team to make it work. Or maybe you needed to be a little more robustly capitalized to endure the long runway the solution required. Maybe you were focused on the right problem but the wrong solution. Maybe you interpreted the symptoms in your business incorrectly and you were trying to fix the wrong problem altogether.

Regardless of the reason, it’s always painful when the magic is broken.

When hope fades for frustration.

The wasted time and energy and effort. The money spent, the hope expended.

It all amounts to the same thing: heartbreak.

Maybe it’s not polite to say it in business, but when you’re building a company and you lose time, money or both, and you’re the one who called the shots, heartbreak is often the unspoken hidden emotion that pervades your system.

Sadly, we have all been there.

Why Traditional Business Solutions Don’t Fit Small Businesses

Every business owner reaches a point where their business has exceeded their own capacity to build it. We look for answers, for solutions, it can be really tricky to separate the well-marketed for the well-suited.

Business is complex.

Your business is complex.

And so many solutions available in the marketplace were not designed for small businesses from the ground-up. They were built for larger organizations and then were right sized as a small business solution, resulting in options that are either over-engineered or partial. The net result is an ill-fitting system that impedes rather than accelerating our growth.

Partial solutions are typically focused on one specific aspect of the business: finance, or marketing or sales. They make big bold promises that seem as though they are going to impact overall business result. And they do deliver, but the solution isn’t deep enough.

Fixing a sales issue if there is still an operational bottleneck is good, but it’s not enough.

Addressing marketing without improving sales conversion is good, but it’s not enough.

Improving profitability without lead flow – again – good, but it’s not enough.

Small businesses need a well-rounded total solution.

On the flip-side, the operational system tries to address the thing that they see as the biggest issue be it accountability or organization or process. They provide a structure, but they don’t provide the strategy, the steps, the activities that your business needs.

All of these options provide false hope and entice us to expend our energy on something that isn’t truly applicable to us, useful for where we are, or genuinely viable given our stage of business and resources.

A System Built Specifically for Small Business Growth

When we designed ProQ, we designed it for small-business from the ground-up. We looked at the actual realities of small business owners. We considered their personal bandwidth, their expendable capital, each of the departments that need to be improved, the people that need to be attracted, hired, onboarded and retained.

We looked at what it takes to drive short-term progress while enabling and building towards long-term sustainable outcomes.

And then built a flexible framework to meet those needs.

Owners need their organization to progress forward. They need their systems to grow, their processes to evolve, their departments to solidify. They need solid, secure foundations that can handle more work, more clients or customers, more team members.

And, along the way they themselves need to grow. To grow as leaders, as strategists, as visionaries.

It’s a progressive journey. A journey of inches that leads to miles.

A journey of expanding organizational intelligence.

Practical.

Simple.

Guided.

And that’s exactly what we do at ProQ.

When small business owners have the right support, that journey becomes clearer, steadier, and more achievable. ProQ was built to walk that path with you — every step of the way.