There is a story I keep coming back to. It is about a hockey coach, but it is really about you.
Marc Lammers coached the Dutch women's hockey team to Olympic gold. Years before that, he had a striker who kept missing. Her backhand was weak. So the team did the obvious thing. They drilled her backhand for months, trying to lift it from a 4 to a 6.
It was not working. And while everyone focused on her weak side, her real strength, a natural forehand at an 8, was quietly getting worse from neglect.
Close to giving up, he asked her a simple question. How would you like the ball played to you? On my forehand, she said. So they stopped fixing the backhand and fed her forehand instead. Her scoring took off.
Nobody fixed her weak side. They just used the strong one she already had.
Most owners are coaching their own backhand
This is the trap almost every owner falls into. Something is not growing, so you hunt for what you are bad at and try to fix it. More effort goes into your weakest area, where the returns are smallest and the work is hardest.
Meanwhile the thing you are genuinely good at, the thing that already works, sits there underused. You stopped noticing it because it comes easy. And the stuff that comes easy is exactly the stuff you assume is not worth much.
It usually is the whole reason someone should choose you.
The strength is already there. It is just not routed at the gap.
When I look at a business that has stalled, the bottleneck is rarely a missing skill. It is a strength sitting one step away from where the growth would happen, never connected to it. Three of the most common ones:
- Happy customers, but no reviews. A pile of people who would gladly vouch for you, and nobody ever asks them. The proof exists. It is just invisible. Here is how to route it.
- Real authority, but a silent website. Results, names, and experience that would make a buyer choose you on the spot, left off the page entirely. Here is what to put back.
- Loyal clients, but no repeat path. People who already bought, already trust you, and never hear from you again. The cheapest growth you have, ignored while you chase strangers. Here is the simple path most skip.
Notice the shape of each one. You are not short of the asset. You are short of the wiring that points the asset at the gap.
Why playing the strength beats fixing the weakness
Fixing a weakness is slow, hard, and caps out low. You drag a 4 up to a 6 and call it a win, while the work feels like swimming against the current.
Playing a strength is the opposite. You take something already at an 8 and push it to a 9, and it feels natural because it is. The returns are bigger and they come faster. You are working downhill.
This is the same idea behind finding your one bottleneck. You do not fix everything. You find the single change that lifts the most, and you do that one first. The difference here is where you look. You look at what is already working and ask why it is not connected to your growth yet.
What to do first
- List what comes easy. The parts of your business you are quietly proud of and rarely mention. That is your forehand.
- Find the gap it could close. Pick the one place growth is stuck. More leads, more trust, more repeat sales.
- Route the strength at the gap. Ask the happy client for the review. Put the proof on the page. Send the message to the people who already bought.
If you are not sure which strength is yours, or which gap it should close first, that is exactly what the free Breakthrough Map shows you. It looks at your business the way an outsider would, names the strength you are sitting on, and points to the one thing capping it.