Your Fun & Profitable Online Business · Episode 77
Become a Business Detective
When something in your business makes a strange noise, your first move does not have to be rebuilding the engine. Observation gives you a chance to understand what is actually happening before you spend time, money, and energy fixing the wrong thing.
Press play and investigate before you fix
Having trouble? Open the audio directly.
Something feels off, surprising, difficult, or unusually easy.
Describe exactly what happened without adding a story.
Look for timing, repetition, context, responses, and patterns.
Ask what explanation the evidence actually supports.
Choose the smallest useful response to the real problem.
One of the most expensive habits in business is solving a problem before you are sure what the problem is. A quiet launch becomes a new offer. A missed week of posting becomes a discipline problem. A strange result becomes proof that the whole strategy is broken.
That is the business equivalent of hearing a noise in your car and immediately replacing the engine.
Your first explanation is not the same as an observation
It sounds decisive, but it skips over the evidence you would need to know whether the offer, visibility, messaging, timing, or something else caused the result.
Now you have facts you can investigate. Nothing has been labeled a failure yet, and there is still room to learn.
The difference looks small, but it changes everything that comes next. One version sends you toward an expensive reaction. The other gives you a better question.
Borrow the order from people who investigate for a living
Doctors, scientists, and detectives all have different jobs, but their best work shares the same basic principle: observation comes before the answer.
Symptoms first. Questions next. Diagnosis after that. Treatment comes after the diagnosis.
Observe. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis. Run an experiment. Learn from what happens.
Collect evidence before naming a suspect. Look for clues and patterns before reaching the verdict.
Business owners often reverse this order. We sentence first and ask questions later.
Observation is neutral. Criticism is not.
“I posted twice this month” gives you information. “I am terrible at consistency” gives you a judgment.
“I did not finish the project” is an observation. “I never follow through on anything” is a story about who you are.
The first kind of sentence can help you investigate. The second often creates shame, and shame is not particularly useful business data.
One clue is interesting. Repetition becomes a pattern.
One client asking for a payment plan is a clue. Seven clients asking for one is a pattern. One day avoiding your sales page is worth noticing. Avoiding it every time you reach the selling stage deserves a closer look.
You do not need to panic over every observation. The goal is to collect enough evidence that the business starts showing you what deserves attention.
Those two words create just enough distance to replace judgment with curiosity.
“Interesting” is one of the most useful words in business
It is interesting that you stop posting after Tuesday. Interesting that you procrastinate when it is time to sell. Interesting that coaching gives you energy while bookkeeping drains it. Interesting that every inquiry mentioned the same problem.
You have not diagnosed anything yet. You are simply paying attention.
Better observation creates better decisions
You cannot improve what you have not noticed. You cannot simplify what you have not identified. And you cannot remove friction you have not seen.
Observation slows you down for a moment so you can move forward with much more confidence. Your experiments become smarter, your decisions become calmer, and you stop throwing big solutions at imaginary problems.
Your seven-day Business Clues experiment
For one week, pretend you are not the CEO. You are the detective assigned to investigate the business.
- Create a note called Business Clues.
- Write down anything you notice without trying to explain it.
- Include friction, energy, avoidance, questions, sales, surprising wins, and repeated behavior.
- Do not fix anything yet. At the end of the week, look for what repeats.
Questions about becoming a business detective
What is the difference between an observation and a conclusion?
An observation describes what happened. A conclusion assigns meaning to it. “Two people bought” is an observation. “Nobody wants this” is a conclusion.
Why is neutral language useful in business?
Neutral language gives you information without adding shame or certainty that the evidence has not earned. That makes it easier to investigate what actually needs attention.
How many observations do I need before something is a pattern?
There is no magic number. The point is to avoid treating one isolated event as definitive. When the same behavior, question, or result appears repeatedly, it deserves a closer look.
What should I put in a Business Clues note?
Capture things you notice: tasks you avoid, moments that give you energy, repeated client questions, unusual sales behavior, surprising results, recurring friction, or anything that makes you think, “That’s interesting.”
Does observing mean I should delay taking action?
No. It means making sure the action is aimed at the real problem. A short observation phase can prevent much larger, more expensive reactions later.
Give yourself space to notice before you react.
CEO Hour is Wendy’s free weekly focused work session for stepping out of reaction mode and intentionally working on your business.
Read the full episode transcript
Episode 77 transcript: Become a Business Detective
Hey there, and welcome to episode 77 of your fun and profitable online business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Wendy Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses by reducing friction, simplifying the way they work, and making business decisions with confidence. Now, let me start by asking you something. I want you to imagine you’re driving down the road and suddenly your car starts making a strange noise. Would your first reaction be to replace the entire engine? Maybe, but probably not. You’d likely do what most of us do. You’d start by paying attention. When does it happen? Is it only when you’re turning? Only when you’re braking? Or does it happen at high speeds? You’d observe first, because you know that if you skip straight to the fixing part, there’s a good chance you’ll solve the wrong problem. And yet, that’s exactly what so many of us do in our businesses. Instead of observing what’s actually happening, we jump straight to conclusions. We decide we need a new offer, a better funnel, a new website, another certification, or maybe even a whole new strategy. And maybe we do, but maybe we don’t. Over the next several weeks, we’re going to go over one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a business owner, observation. Then we’ll talk about how to ask better questions and how to make decisions based on evidence instead of guesses. All right, let’s get started. You know, I think one of the biggest reasons entrepreneurs stay stuck isn’t because they don’t know enough. I think it’s really because they’re trying to solve problems they don’t actually have. Now, our brains love certainty. When something feels uncomfortable, we want an answer immediately. It often sounds like, why didn’t anyone buy? Clearly, something is wrong with my offer. Or, why haven’t I posted all week? I just am not disciplined enough. Or even, my launch didn’t go as planned. I guess people just don’t want what I have to sell. But the problem is, these aren’t observations. They’re all conclusions. And conclusions made without evidence can send us down some very expensive rabbit holes. Maybe we buy another course, or rewrite our entire website, or change our prices, or create a brand new offer. We start over again. Now, the problem is the real issue may be something much smaller or something completely different. Now, imagine two business owners who launched the exact same offer. Both of them make two sales. But the first business owner immediately says, well, nobody wants this. There’s no reason for me to do it. But the second one says, hmm, that’s interesting. Two people bought. 30 people clicked. Several people replied to my email, almost nobody opened email number two. I wonder what’s going on. They both have the exact same results, but a completely different response. One makes assumptions, the other gathers evidence. Now I want you to guess which business owner is going to improve the fastest. I’m putting my money on number two. Because observation creates better decisions. And better decisions creates better businesses. This is especially important right now because we’re about halfway through the year. And this is usually the time people start asking themselves how they’re going to be able to hit their goals. If they stay there in that place of observation, they can find a way to reach their goals. But I think there’s even a better question here. What has my business been trying to teach me this year? Because your business is constantly leaving you clues. The question is, are you paying attention? So how do you become a better observer? I think we can learn from some other professions first. Let’s start off with the doctor. Doctors don’t walk into the room, hand you medication, and hope for the best. They ask questions. What are your symptoms? How long has this been happening? The list goes on and on. Observation comes first. Diagnosis comes second. And treatment comes third. Scientists work the same way. They observe. They ask questions. They create a hypothesis, then they run an experiment, not the other way around. And detectives? They collect evidence before naming a suspect, usually. They don’t walk into the crime scene and immediately decide who it is. They look for clues. They notice patterns. On the other hand, business owners often do the exact opposite. They sentence first and ask later. So I want to give you a framework you can borrow whenever something isn’t going the way you expect it. Instead of jumping to why isn’t this working, I want you to ask yourself what exactly is happening. Notice something here. This isn’t judgment, it’s curiosity. And curiosity is a much better business partner than criticism will ever be. Here’s a distinction I think is important. Observation is neutral. Criticism is emotional. For example, I posted twice this month. That’s an observation. I’m terrible at being consistent. That’s a criticism. I didn’t finish the project. Observation. I never follow through on anything. Criticism. These are very different conversations. One creates information. The other creates shame. And I know this for certainty. Shame rarely helps us make better business decisions. I see it again and again in my clients. What we’re looking for is patterns. One observation doesn’t tell us much, but patterns will start to tell us everything. One client asked for a payment plan, that’s interesting. Seven clients asked for a payment plan, that’s a pattern. Patterns are where your business starts revealing what it needs. Now, one of my favorite words in business is interesting. Instead of saying I failed, try saying, hmm, that’s really interesting. It’s interesting that I stop posting after Tuesday. That’s interesting that I procrastinate when it’s time to sell. That’s interesting that coaching gives me energy, but bookkeeping drains me. That’s interesting that every inquiry mentioned the same problem. You see how this tiny shift creates distance? You’re no longer judging yourself. You’re simply observing. An observation gives you something incredibly valuable too. Data. Because you can improve what you haven’t noticed. You can’t simplify what you haven’t identified, and you can’t remove friction you haven’t seen. Sometimes we’re just too busy trying to fix it to actually listen. But when you become the kind of CEO who notices instead of assumes, things start changing. Decisions become calmer, your experiments become smarter, and you stop randomly throwing solutions at imaginary problems. Imagine building a business based on evidence instead of emotion. All right, with that, let’s get to your action step this week. For the next seven days, I want you to pretend you’re not the CEO. Now, I know this is not the norm for me to say, but I want you to think that you’re the detective assigned to investigate your business. Start taking notes wherever you generally take them. It could be your notes app. It could be a notebook. It could be whatever. And I want you to label them business clues. Then every time you notice something, write it down. I keep avoiding writing my new sales page. That’s it. I checked my email 20 times this morning. I got really excited talking about whatever offer it is. Don’t analyze it. Don’t fix it. Just collect evidence. Remember, detectives don’t solve mysteries by guessing. They solve them by paying attention. All right. Today, we talked about how incredibly valuable it is to observe in your business. Before you change your offer, observe. Before you buy another course, observe. Before you tell yourself a story about what’s wrong, just observe. The more you learn to notice these things, the easier it becomes to make decisions that actually solve the right problems. And next week, we’re going to take this a step further. We’re going to talk about the internal observations every entrepreneur should be paying attention to. You won’t want to miss it. And if you enjoy having a space each week to think more intentionally about your business, I’d love to have you join us at our next CEO Hour. It’s a free co-working session where we spend focused time working on our business instead of constantly reacting to it. It’s one of my favorite hours of the week, and I’d love to see you there. You can learn more and grab your spot at wendymuzzy.com/ceo. All right, that’s it for today. Until next time, happy building your fun and profitable business.