The 3 Questions to Ask Before Fixing it Yourself

One of the more expensive habits business owners develop is trying to solve every problem themselves before they decide to pay someone else to solve it.

I understand why. Sometimes it's about saving money. Sometimes it's about control. And sometimes they know they're capable of figuring it out, so paying someone seems unnecessary.

But figuring it out yourself has a cost, too.

I worked with a founder whose business was growing quickly. Her books were clean, but she had very little financial clarity.

Receivables were scattered across client portals. Contractors needed to be paid. Every week brought another spreadsheet as she tried to figure out what money was coming in, what was going out, and what she could safely commit to.

She wasn't ignoring the problem. She was spending a considerable amount of time trying to solve it.

But she wasn't getting any closer to the visibility she needed.

She didn't need another spreadsheet. She needed someone who could take responsibility for producing reliable financial information.

She needed to buy the answer.

3 questions to ask before fixing it yourself

1. Is this a one-time problem or something that keeps coming back?

If you're dealing with a one-off issue, figuring it out yourself might make sense. But if you're rebuilding the same spreadsheet or putting out the same fire every week, you're not just paying for the solution once. You're paying for it over and over with your time.

2. Is solving this the best use of my attention?

You might spend three hours on something a specialist could handle in thirty minutes. Or weeks researching something someone else has already solved a hundred times. Even if you get the result, what didn't get your attention while you were working on it?

The real cost is the work only you could have done instead.

3. Do I need an extra pair of hands, or someone to own the outcome?

Paying someone to help with the work isn't the same as paying someone to take responsibility for the result. If you're still figuring out the process, coordinating everything, and checking that it gets done, the problem is still yours.

That founder needed reliable financial information, delivered every month, by someone accountable for it.

There's nothing wrong with being resourceful. It's probably one of the reasons your business exists. But as it grows, you have to get better at choosing which problems deserve your attention and which deserve someone else's expertise.

The question isn't simply whether you can afford to pay someone to solve it.

It's whether continuing to solve it yourself is the more expensive choice.

Why Should You Care What AI Says About You?

Because if your business sells your expertise, you have prospects asking AI about you before they reach out.

The prospect's journey includes due diligence.

Let's take a referral for example.

A prospect who gets referred to you has obviously spoken to the person who referred you. They're probably going to check out your LinkedIn, and before they feel comfortable enough to reach out to you - they're going to Google you and/or ask AI about you.

That last step is the pivotal one. I call it the Google-Me Moment. And even though now it's more than just a Google search, it's still a key moment.

Up until that point they were getting information from within your sphere.

That moment is the first time they see for themselves whether what the world says about you matches the expectations they had formed.

That raises the fair follow-up.

Prospects have been doing this for years, so if you never cared about search before AI, why care now?

Because the answer they get back changed. The margin for error is even smaller.

I'll make up an example to illustrate.

Before AI: Google presented a ranked list of results. An old interview buried on page two was unlikely to get much attention. Even if someone found it, they could see it alongside other sources and judge it in context.

Now with AI: That same outdated interview can contribute to an AI-generated answer alongside information from your current website. The result can present both as equally current and credible, without giving the prospect a reason to question either.

I've been through it. When I started advising founders across industries after selling FR in 2024, nearly everything online still described me as the CEO of a fitness business coaching company.

A prospect could be given my name as a business advisor, start doing their research, and the web would have them wondering if they had the right Nick Berry.

They could've taken the results at face value, never seen my new website, and I'd never have known they looked.

It wasn't easy, but I got it fixed. I had to, because when your business depends on your name and reputation, your online presence is absolutely critical.

How you show up to prospects when they do that research either gets their buy-in or they say bye-bye.

You don't have to care about getting recommended to strangers by AI. But you should know what it says when someone searches for you by name.

Try it. Ask Google and an AI tool who you are and what you do. Is the person right? Are the facts right? Is your past work clearly in the past? Does the answer describe what you do now?

You need to know, because prospects will be seeing it.

Season 4 Drops in Two Weeks

Season 4 of The Business Owner's Journey starts two weeks from today. Catch up on past episodes while you wait.

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