Identify Leverage

Working Harder Is Not Always the Answer

We often respond to disappointing results by increasing our effort.

If sales are slow, we make more calls. If customers aren't responding, we send more messages. If a business isn't growing, we work longer hours. If a project is taking too long, we try to move faster.

Sometimes, this is exactly what is needed. A lack of consistent effort can certainly limit results.

But there are situations where increasing effort simply produces more of the same outcome.

Imagine a salesperson who contacts one hundred potential customers every week but rarely gets a response. They decide to double their activity and contact two hundred people.

If the underlying problem is that they are approaching the wrong audience or sending messages that don't address anyone's real needs, doubling the number of messages may only double the amount of wasted effort.

Now imagine that the salesperson pauses to examine the situation.

They discover that most of the people they contact have no immediate need for the product. They also discover that a particular type of business regularly experiences the problem their product solves.

Instead of contacting everyone, they focus on that group. They change their opening message to address the problem directly. They ask better questions and offer a more relevant next step.

Their results may improve without a corresponding increase in working hours.

The difference is not simply effort. It is where the effort is applied.

Leverage begins when we stop asking only, "How can I do more?" and start asking, "What would make my effort more effective?"

This is an important distinction because our time and energy are limited. We cannot do everything, meet everyone, learn every skill, or pursue every opportunity.

We need to identify the things that make the greatest difference.

Find the Point That Changes the Outcome

Think about a business with a hundred different activities happening every day.

Employees answer questions, update records, prepare proposals, follow up with customers, resolve complaints, manage inventory, and handle payments.

Some activities are essential. Others may consume considerable time without contributing much to the result the business wants.

Suppose the business discovers that a large proportion of potential customers abandon the buying process because nobody follows up after an initial enquiry.

The owner could hire more salespeople, spend more on advertising, or launch a new promotional campaign.

But perhaps the most valuable improvement is much simpler: establish a reliable follow-up system.

The business is already generating enquiries. It is simply failing to make the most of them.

A relatively small operational change could improve the value of work the business is already doing.

This is one way to identify leverage: look for the point where the outcome is being limited.

Ask yourself:

• What is preventing the desired result?

• Where are we losing the most time, money, or opportunity?

• Which recurring problem creates the greatest amount of friction?

• What improvement would make several other activities easier?

These questions are useful because they move attention away from activity for its own sake.

The objective is not to eliminate work. It is to find the work that matters most.

Leverage in Sales: Understand What Others Miss

In sales, one of the strongest sources of leverage is understanding the customer's problem better than the alternatives do.

Consider a company looking for software to manage its customer enquiries.

Several vendors offer systems with similar features. Each can demonstrate dashboards, reports, notifications, and integrations. Each can explain why its product is useful.

The customer listens to the presentations and struggles to distinguish between them.

Then one salesperson asks a different question:

"When an enquiry comes in today, what happens to it? Could you walk me through the process from the moment it arrives until someone follows up?"

The customer explains that enquiries come through WhatsApp, email, telephone calls, and a website form. Different employees handle different channels. Some conversations are recorded in spreadsheets, while others remain in individual inboxes. When someone is absent, enquiries sometimes go unanswered.

Now the conversation has changed.

The salesperson understands that the problem is not merely a lack of software. It is a lack of visibility and consistency across the enquiry process.

They can now discuss how a suitable system might bring enquiries together, assign responsibility, and make follow-ups easier to track.

Their advantage does not necessarily come from having more features than the competition. It comes from identifying the real problem and connecting the solution to it.

This is a form of leverage that cannot always be copied by adding another feature to a product.

It requires curiosity, experience, and the ability to understand how businesses actually work.

And it changes the nature of the sales conversation. Instead of competing only on price and specifications, you can help the customer evaluate what solving the problem is worth.

Of course, understanding the problem does not automatically make your offering the right solution. You still need to demonstrate that you can deliver what you promise. But without that understanding, even a good product can be difficult to sell.

Leverage Through Skills

Leverage is not limited to sales techniques or business systems. It can also come from developing a skill that makes your contribution more valuable.

Imagine two employees who spend their days preparing business reports.

Both work hard. Both understand the reporting process. Both consistently complete their assigned tasks.

One employee learns how to automate the repetitive parts of the process. They build a reliable workflow that reduces manual work, improves consistency, and makes the reports available sooner.

That employee has changed more than their own productivity. They have created a capability that can benefit the wider team.

The value of their contribution may now extend beyond the hours they personally work.

This is an important way to think about professional development.

Instead of asking only, "What skill should I learn next?" ask:

"What skill would allow me to solve a more important problem, improve an existing process, or create value that is difficult to replicate?"

The answer will differ for each person.

For one employee, it might be learning to communicate complex ideas clearly. For another, it might be understanding customers, negotiating effectively, analysing data, or building systems that reduce repetitive work.

The most valuable skill is not always the most fashionable one. It is the one that helps you create meaningful value in the environment where you operate.

There is another benefit, too. Skills can combine.

A person who understands technology and business may identify opportunities that a purely technical specialist overlooks. Someone who understands finance and communication may explain complex financial decisions in ways that help customers act with greater confidence.

Each skill becomes more powerful when connected to another useful capability.

Leverage often comes not from being the best in one narrow area, but from combining abilities in a way that solves a problem unusually well.

Leverage Through Systems

One of the limitations of relying entirely on personal effort is that the result remains tied to the amount of time and attention one person can provide.

A consultant can advise only a limited number of clients if every engagement requires the same amount of individual effort. A salesperson can follow up with only so many people if every reminder depends on memory. A business owner can manage only so many routine decisions if every decision requires their personal involvement.

Systems can change this relationship.

A system captures a repeatable way of producing a result. It might be a process, a checklist, a software tool, an automated workflow, a training method, or a set of clearly defined responsibilities.

Once a useful system exists, the work becomes less dependent on remembering every detail or reinventing the process each time.

Consider a salesperson who keeps all follow-up dates in their head.

They may be excellent at building relationships, but as the number of prospects increases, something eventually goes wrong. A conversation is forgotten. A promised document is never sent. A customer who wanted to reconnect next month receives no call.

The salesperson might respond by trying harder to remember everything.

Or they could create a simple system that records the last interaction, the customer's needs, and the next action.

The system does not replace the salesperson's judgment or relationship-building ability. It protects those abilities from being undermined by forgetfulness and increasing complexity.

The same principle applies to businesses.

If a company repeatedly solves the same problem, it should consider whether the solution can be documented, taught, automated, or incorporated into a reusable process.

The first time we solve a problem, we may be doing a task.

When we find a reliable way to solve it repeatedly, we begin building a capability.

And when that capability allows other people to produce the same result, the value can extend beyond our personal effort.

However, a system is not automatically valuable simply because it exists. A complicated process can create more work than it saves. Automation can make a bad process fail faster. A checklist can become meaningless if nobody understands why it matters.

The point is not to systematize everything.

It is to identify recurring work where a reliable system can improve the outcome.

Leverage Through Relationships

Relationships are another source of leverage, though they are often misunderstood.

Some people approach networking as an exercise in collecting contacts. They attend events, exchange business cards, connect on LinkedIn, and count how many people they know.

But the number of contacts is not necessarily the source of value.

The value lies in trust, mutual understanding, and the ability to help the right people find one another.

Imagine a business owner who has spent years building relationships with accountants, lawyers, designers, suppliers, and other entrepreneurs.

When a customer faces a problem outside the owner's expertise, they may know someone reliable who can help. When a partner encounters an opportunity that fits the owner's capabilities, they may make an introduction.

Those relationships can create opportunities that would be difficult to generate through cold outreach alone.

But this kind of leverage is rarely built in a single conversation.

It grows through consistency. People learn what you do, how you work, and whether they can trust you to act in good faith. You learn about their capabilities and the kinds of problems they can solve.

Over time, a network becomes more than a list of names. It becomes a web of shared knowledge and possible collaboration.

There is an important qualification here: relationships should not be treated merely as instruments for extracting value.

If every interaction is driven by the question, "What can this person do for me?" people eventually sense it.

Stronger relationships emerge when both sides can contribute, sometimes in ways that are not immediately measurable or reciprocated.

You may introduce two people who can help each other without receiving anything directly. You may share useful information simply because it could save someone time. You may maintain a relationship for years before a relevant opportunity appears.

The leverage comes from trust and accumulated goodwill, not from keeping a record of favours owed.

Leverage for an Entrepreneur: Build Once, Create Value Repeatedly

Entrepreneurs have a particular reason to pay attention to leverage.

In the early stages of a business, it is natural for the founder to do almost everything personally. They speak to customers, prepare proposals, build the product, resolve problems, and manage operations.

This may be necessary at the beginning. The founder needs to understand the business from the inside.

But if every new customer requires the founder to repeat every task manually, growth can become exhausting.

The business may generate more revenue while simultaneously demanding more of the founder's time. Eventually, the founder becomes the bottleneck.

At that point, the question is not simply how to work harder. It is how to create something that allows the business to serve customers more effectively without requiring a proportional increase in effort.

That leverage might come from a reusable product, a standard onboarding process, a trusted distribution partner, a strong reputation, or a platform that allows customers to perform routine tasks independently.

For example, a software company might initially build a separate website for every customer from scratch. As it learns which requirements are common, it can develop reusable components, templates, workflows, and infrastructure.

The company can still adapt the result to each customer's needs, but it no longer has to reinvent every part of the solution.

The reusable foundation becomes an asset.

It can reduce delivery time, improve consistency, and allow the team to focus more attention on the parts of the problem that genuinely require individual understanding.

This is one reason a product or platform can have a different growth potential from a service that depends entirely on manual delivery. A well-designed product may serve additional customers without requiring every component to be rebuilt for each one.

But leverage does not mean that every business should become a software product company, automate every interaction, or pursue growth at all costs.

Sometimes a high-value service is exactly what customers need. Sometimes personal attention is the advantage. Sometimes a small, profitable business is a better outcome than a complicated operation built to scale.

The important question is not whether an entrepreneur can create leverage in the abstract.

It is whether the chosen form of leverage supports the kind of business they actually want to build.

Leverage Can Come From Reputation and Distribution

Two businesses may offer comparable products, yet one consistently finds customers more easily.

The difference may not lie in the product itself. It may lie in how the business reaches people and what people already believe about it.

A trusted reputation can reduce the uncertainty a customer feels when evaluating a purchase. A reliable distribution channel can bring an offering to an audience the business would struggle to reach independently.

Imagine two new suppliers entering a market.

One begins by contacting potential customers individually, explaining the business from the beginning each time. The other has developed a relationship with an established distributor that already serves the relevant customer base.

The second supplier may reach potential buyers more efficiently, provided the partnership is well suited to the product and customers.

The distributor's existing relationships become a source of leverage.

Similarly, a professional whose work is consistently recommended by previous customers may spend less time establishing credibility with every new prospect. Their reputation does not eliminate the need to demonstrate value, but it can make the first conversation easier.

These advantages often accumulate over time.

Good work builds reputation. Reputation encourages referrals. Referrals create new opportunities. Those opportunities allow the business to serve more customers and develop further expertise.

This is not guaranteed, and reputation can be damaged just as it can be built. Distribution partners may change priorities, and a channel that once worked well may become less effective.

Still, it is worth asking whether the way you reach people is creating unnecessary friction, or whether a stronger channel, partnership, or body of evidence could make your work more valuable.

Sometimes, the most useful improvement is not changing what you sell. It is changing how the right people discover and evaluate it.

Find Your Own Point of Leverage

Leverage looks different depending on where you stand.

A salesperson might need to understand a particular industry more deeply. An employee might need to develop a skill that helps the whole team work better. An entrepreneur might need to build a repeatable system rather than remain personally involved in every task.

The mistake is to copy someone else's source of leverage without understanding the problem it solves.

A famous entrepreneur's leverage might be capital, distribution, technology, or an established brand. That does not mean the same thing will help a small business owner who is still trying to understand their customers.

The useful starting point is your own situation.

Ask yourself:

What creates value in my work?

Identify what customers, colleagues, or partners actually value about your contribution. Look beyond the activities you perform and consider the outcomes you help create.

What limits that value today?

Perhaps you lack a skill, a system, a relationship, access to the right audience, or a clear understanding of the problem. Perhaps you are spending too much time on low-value work.

What could change the outcome?

Look for an improvement that addresses the limitation rather than merely adding more activity.

Can the improvement create value repeatedly?

A solution that helps once can be useful. A reliable capability that helps repeatedly may be even more valuable.

These questions do not always produce an immediate answer. Sometimes identifying leverage requires experimentation. You try a new approach, observe the result, and learn whether the change made a meaningful difference.

The objective is not to discover a secret shortcut that removes all hard work.

It is to make sure that the hard work you do is directed towards something that matters.

Leverage Must Be Built on Real Value

There is a temptation to interpret leverage as a way to gain an advantage over others, regardless of the value being created.

That can lead to shortcuts: exaggerated claims, artificial scarcity, pressure tactics, or attempts to exploit what a customer does not understand.

Such approaches may occasionally produce a quick result, but they can damage trust and create problems later.

Genuine leverage is different.

It increases your ability to create, deliver, or communicate value. It makes a useful solution easier to find, easier to understand, or easier to access. It improves the relationship between the effort invested and the outcome achieved.

A salesperson who understands a customer's problem can recommend a better solution. A business that builds a reliable process can serve customers more consistently. An employee who develops a valuable skill can contribute more effectively. An entrepreneur who establishes a strong distribution channel can reach people who need the offering.

In each case, leverage strengthens the connection between what someone can do and the value they can create.

This also means that leverage should be evaluated honestly.

A system that saves time but produces poor results is not useful leverage. A partnership that brings many enquiries but no suitable customers may not be worth maintaining. A skill that is impressive but unrelated to the problems you need to solve may have limited immediate value.

The question is not simply whether something gives you more power or reach.

It is whether it improves the outcome that matters.

The Question That Changes Your Thinking

When we are busy, it is easy to measure progress by the amount of effort we expend.

We count the calls we make, the hours we work, the meetings we attend, the tasks we complete, and the messages we send.

These measures can be useful. They help us understand whether we are doing the work required.

But activity is not the same as value.

A hundred conversations with the wrong audience may be less useful than ten conversations with people who have a genuine need. A full day spent manually repeating a process may be less productive than an hour spent improving that process. Learning five unrelated skills may be less valuable than developing one capability that addresses a critical problem.

The challenge is to look beyond the activity and examine what it produces.

The next time you find yourself working harder without seeing the result you expected, pause and ask:

"What can I improve or understand that changes the value of the outcome?"

Perhaps you need to understand the customer better.

Perhaps you need to improve the offer, strengthen a relationship, learn a new skill, build a system, or find a more effective way to reach the people who need your work.

You may still need to put in substantial effort. Leverage rarely appears without work, and the most useful improvements often require patience.

But your effort can begin to compound when it builds something that continues to create value beyond the immediate task.

That is the real opportunity.

You do not have to do everything. You do not have to be the best at every skill. You do not have to personally handle every part of every process.

You need to understand what matters, identify what limits the result, and improve the part that can make the greatest difference.

Leverage is not about doing less for the sake of doing less. It is about making what you do matter more.