Business Solutions
Worksheet

PLANNING & ORGANIZATION TOOLS

Map the gap between what your customers struggle with
and the solutions you bring to the table.

Where This Tool Helps

Most executives describe their products and services in terms of features. What it does, how it works, what makes it better. The customer, meanwhile, is thinking about a problem they need to go away. The distance between those two frames is where offerings lose traction - built for what the team wanted to build, not for what the buyer actually needed solved.

This worksheet slows that process down. Instead of jumping from "we have a great product" to "here's why," it asks you to sit inside the customer's problem first. What are they dealing with? What does it cost them to leave it unsolved? Only after that does it ask what you bring to the table - and then it pushes further: what evidence do you have that your solution actually lands?

Leaders who work through all four fields per problem tend to notice one of two things. Either their solution maps cleanly to a real problem with clear evidence, or a gap opens up - the problem is assumed rather than verified, the impact is vague, or the evidence is thin. Both are worth knowing.

How to Use This Worksheet

  1. Start with the customer, not your product. Write the problem as the customer would describe it - in their language, about their day. If you can only describe the problem in your own terminology, that's a signal worth paying attention to.
  2. Fill in Impact before moving to Solution. The temptation is to jump straight to what you offer. Resist. Staying with the problem long enough to name what it costs the customer - in time, money, missed opportunities, frustration - clarifies whether your solution addresses the right pressure.
  3. Be specific in the Evidence field. "Customers love it" is not evidence. A retention number, a quote from a buyer interview, a usage metric, a case study outcome - those count. If you cannot point to something concrete, that's information too.
  4. Use all four slots. Most leaders have one solution they know inside out and two or three they describe in generalities. The later slots are often where the weaker product-problem connections live.
  5. Compare across all four when done. Which solutions have the strongest evidence? Which problems have the most impact but the thinnest response? That comparison is where strategic priority lives.
1

Problem-Solution Map

Problem-Solution 1
Problem
What specific problem does your customer face? Describe it from their perspective - what they feel, notice, or lose.
Impact
What does this problem cost them? Consider time, revenue, reputation, opportunity, or morale.
Solution
What do you offer that addresses this problem? Be concrete about the mechanism - how does it actually help?
Evidence
What tells you this solution works? Customer feedback, retention data, usage patterns, case results.
Problem-Solution 2
Problem
What specific problem does your customer face? Describe it from their perspective.
Impact
What does this problem cost them?
Solution
What do you offer that addresses this problem?
Evidence
What tells you this solution works?
2

Problem-Solution Map (continued)

Problem-Solution 3
Problem
What specific problem does your customer face?
Impact
What does this problem cost them?
Solution
What do you offer that addresses this problem?
Evidence
What tells you this solution works?
Problem-Solution 4
Problem
What specific problem does your customer face?
Impact
What does this problem cost them?
Solution
What do you offer that addresses this problem?
Evidence
What tells you this solution works?
3

Before Your Next Session

Now that you can see it - use these questions to surface what the worksheet revealed.

1
Evidence Quality

Look at your Evidence fields across all four. Where is the evidence based on data and where is it based on assumption? What would it take to close the gap on the weakest one?

2
Customer Perspective

Which problem did you find hardest to write from the customer's perspective? That difficulty usually points to a solution that was built from the inside out rather than the outside in.

3
Competitive Vulnerability

If a competitor filled out the same worksheet for the same customers, where would their Evidence column be stronger than yours? That's the vulnerability worth discussing.

Notes & Observations
4

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