Your business is a machine. Not in a cold, robotic sense, but as a system of moving parts—people, technology, and processes—working together to produce results. And like any machine, it needs regular maintenance, smarter components, and sometimes a full-on redesign to keep running at its best.

When something isn’t working, treat it like an engineer would: identify the pain point, adjust the parts, and tinker until it works. Here’s how this mental framework has helped us and others:

1. Find the Pain Points

Every business has bottlenecks—those moments when things slow down or feel frustrating. Maybe it’s a team member spending hours on repetitive data entry, or missed opportunities because client follow-ups aren’t consistent.

For example, one of our clients realized their estimate approvals were slowing things down. We built them the tech to submit approvals with the press of a button. Now, the estimator clicks a button to request approval, and the manager is instantly notified to review and approve. Once approved, the estimator is notified right away, keeping everything moving smoothly.

Where are the pain points in your business? Mapping out your workflows is a fast way to find them (we covered this idea in a recent newsletter).

2. Pull the Right Levers

Once you’ve found the problem, the next step is deciding which lever to pull. In most cases, it comes down to these three:

• People: Could this task be better handled by someone else?
• Technology: Could this process be automated or made easier with the right tool? For example, we helped one business centralize website form submissions and set up automatic notifications to ensure leads were never overlooked.
• Processes: Is there a simpler way to do this? (the workflow)

Pulling the right lever is about experimenting. If one doesn’t work, move to the next.

This is all about solving one problem at a time. Start small: find a pain point, pull a lever, and tinker until it works.

What’s one area in your business that isn’t running the way it should?