Okay, so maybe it’s not the janitor necessarily. Maybe it’s the secretary. The point is that if you are trying to solve a business problem, go to the people who really see what is happening. I admit that I have been that person who meets with the management of a company to better understand a problem. All you get is generalizations and fluff. To be better equipped to offer a service or product that benefits a certain industry, get in there and really understand the problem they are facing.

I spoke with a businessman the other day who used to run a plant that manufactured socks. Whenever a problem came up where they weren’t meeting quota or they were wasting resources he would call in the supervisors and drill them only to come up with empty responses. He told me that he finally learned to go talk to the people on the production line. They saw where machinery was hurting rather than helping and where the people loading fabric were losing time. Just like anytime you are selling a product and you go to where the target market is, when you have a problem you need to go to where the people who have the most comprehensive assessment of the situation are.  You will never get a complete understanding from the person who sits behind the desk all day.

To truly understand the problems that companies are facing (and how you can fix them), get face-to-face with the people on the front lines. That might just be sitting down for coffee with someone who does the “dirty work” at a company, having lunch with someone’s secretary to understand the struggles their boss faces, or just listening to your neighbors who work in the blue collar areas of a company rather than in management positions. Never underestimate what people know and how their insights can benefit you. Who knows, their insights could be the spark for your next million dollar idea!