🎯 Is Your Coaching Solving the Right Problem? 

Hey friend—let’s talk about something that can completely transform how your coaching business performs.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the things—posting consistently, going live, emailing your list, showing up with heart—but still wondering, “Why am I not getting more traction?” this post is for you.

Because here’s the truth: it might not be your consistency, your branding, or even your strategy that’s the issue.

It might be the problem you're trying to solve.

💥 Why Solving the Right Problem Matters More Than You Think

I just wrapped up a powerful high-performance coaching session with my Experts Network clients, and something came up that I had to share with you. It's something that’s made a massive difference in my own journey from struggling coach to building a multi-six-figure business with a tiny list and a small community.

It’s what I call the Problem of Appropriate Magnitude, or PAM.

Now, what does that mean? It means that the problem you’re solving as a coach has to actually matter to your audience. Like, deeply matter. We’re talking about the kind of problem that keeps them up at night. The one they’re secretly Googling at 2 AM when they feel stuck. The one that’s draining their confidence or holding them back from the life or business they really want.

Because if you’re solving a vague problem, or one that isn’t urgent, or one they don’t believe is solvable… you’re going to struggle, no matter how good your offer or how amazing your heart is.

🧪 The 3-Part PAM Test

Here’s how you know whether the problem you’re solving is actually a PAM.

1. Is it Urgent?

When we’re new, we sometimes believe that all problems are created equal. They’re not.

People invest in fixing what’s urgent. Not what’s interesting, not what’s “nice to have.” Urgent.

If someone’s struggling to fill a webinar, convert their posts, or close a sale—that’s urgent. Especially if they’ve left a job, invested in certifications, or are trying to prove to themselves that they can make this business thing work. You want to solve the now problems, not just the someday ones.

2. Is it Specific?

Ohhh, this one. So many coaches fall into the vague trap. “I help people get aligned.” What does that even mean?

We need to be super clear about what we do. I’m not talking about jargon—I’m talking about describing it in a way that someone can see themselves in.

Here’s an example I gave in the livestream: “I help coaches attract premium clients in 90 days with a message that actually converts.” That’s clear. That’s specific. It says who it’s for, what they get, and in what timeframe. Boom.

3. Is it Solvable?

This is the one that sneaks up on a lot of us.

It’s easy to say, “I help people be happier.” But that’s not tangible. It’s not measurable. And because of something called the hedonic treadmill (which basically means we’re never satisfied for long), your client may not believe happiness is even attainable.

Instead, ask: What would make them happier right now?

For many of my clients, it’s signing that next client. And guess what? That’s solvable! We can implement systems, use the right scripts, and create content that resonates. That’s something we can actually fix.

📉 The Lesson I Learned the Hard Way

I’ve been there too, friend. I created this offer once—an incredible training on writing long-form sales letters. I’d poured my experience into it. I knew it worked.

But it flopped.

Why? Because my audience wasn’t ready for it. They weren’t lying awake at night thinking about how to write better sales copy. They were earlier in their journey. They needed to learn how to get leads, make their first few sales, and build confidence. Not perfect their copy.

I made the mistake of thinking my audience wanted what I was interested in. Big oops. Always validate what they want and need.

☕ Want Help With This?

Here’s the thing—I don’t want you to keep spinning your wheels, solving the wrong problem.

That’s why I offer free “coffee chats.” It’s 20 minutes. You buy me a metaphorical cup of coffee, and I help you figure out if you’re really solving a PAM. No sales pitch. Just clarity. (Okay, maybe a little tough love too. You know how I roll.)

And if you’re more of a DIY-er? That’s totally cool too. Fire up ChatGPT and walk through what you learned here. Use these questions:

• Is this urgent for my ideal client?
  
  

• Is this specific to their situation?
  
  

• Can they see how this is solvable?
  
  

You’d be surprised how much clarity you can create by just dialoguing it out.

✨ You’re Closer Than You Think

Listen, if you’re showing up, putting in the hours, doing the learning, and still not seeing the payoff—don’t quit.

You’re probably just a few degrees off. And when you adjust your message to solve a Problem of Appropriate Magnitude, everything starts to shift.

Better engagement. More “heck yes!” energy from your audience. More sales. More impact.

You’ve got this.

Chapters List

00:00 Identifying the Right Problem to Solve

02:56 Criteria for a Problem of Appropriate Magnitude

05:50 The Importance of Specificity in Problem Solving

08:26 Making Problems Solvable for Clients

Full Transcript

Amanda Kaufman (00:00)

is, this problem that you're helping people with solvable? Like, can you solve this problem?

something that a lot of coaches and consultants, they mess up, they choose problems that are really not solvable.

Hey, welcome to this live stream we're talking all about, is your coaching solving the right problem? Because when you are really, really clear about the problem that you solve, then you are going to have an easier time making content, you're gonna have an easier time showing up to it. I just finished a high performance coaching session with some of my clients in the Experts Network, and we were talking about evaluating your progress, evaluating success. And one of the things that I did in my business, I've been in business for about eight years,

There was a season where I had to change a lot. I had to change a lot about how I was marketing, where I was spending my money. And when I did that evaluation, I realized like, my gosh, I'm gonna have to be better with my organic content, with what I am putting out there in the world. So I've spent the last year getting like way better than I used to be at organic content. And I wanna share with you something that has made the biggest difference in being a multi six figure coach and expert.

even though I started with a really, really small list and a really, really small community. So if you love this, let me know. If you can see me and hear me, let me know that too. Let's get into it. So if you've ever said to yourself, I'm showing up, I'm doing the things, I'm posting like a maniac or I'm emailing like a maniac or I'm doing all of the outreach and I still don't feel like I am getting the return on my effort.

then this is gonna be an awesome little livestream for you. So thank you so much for tuning in, thank you for being here, and I really, really appreciate it. you know, here's the truth. If the problem that you're solving as a coach is not what I call a problem of appropriate magnitude, you're always going to be struggling, right? So, you know, when I first started building my business, this is so interesting.

I'm like looking at how all of this is working. I'm also simultaneously streaming on TikTok for the first time. excuse me. But your goal as a coach and as an expert is not just to solve a problem, any problem, any problem for somebody with a wallet and a heartbeat. Your goal is to solve the problems that cause people to stay up at night. Like the challenges that are insidious, the things that have been

challenging for a really, really long time. And you're building this movement around what you're doing. And so when you're operating from that place, you're in a much more likely scenario to get bigger opportunities to be able to sell more coaching packages, to be able to solve problems. So here's kind of some beginner kind of criteria of, I solving a problem that's actually of an appropriate magnitude? Is this actually keeping people up at night?

Is this stealing from their confidence? Or is this blocking them in some way from their desires? Because if that's true, then you might be on your way. Okay, so here we go. Three PAM test questions, problem of appropriate magnitude. The first criteria is, is this thing actually urgent? Is this an urgent problem? So when a lot of coaches get started, they think, okay, well,

If I solve any problem, all problems are created equal. Nope, nope. People will pay you when it's important and urgent. So would they pay to fix this problem right now or is this something that they can just like leave it? Can it wait? In other words, is it lower priority for the person? So is this an urgent problem? And for my clients, not having...

posts that resonate, not having emails that convert, not being able to fill a webinar, make a sale. This is actually really urgent because in most of the experience of most of my clients is they have probably invested in a certification of some kind, or they've been working in a career that is not aligned anymore, that they're not feeling like they're doing their best work or having their highest impact. And that is really, really important. So the second thing,

is the problem of appropriate magnitude specific? So again, this is where a lot of people really fall down with choosing what to focus on as a coach or an expert, is they're not specific. So they're very vague in their language and how they describe the problem. So it might be like, I help my clients get more alignment. What the heck does that mean?

Right, like alignment for you is probably very different than alignment for me. What matters to me probably matters very differently to you, you know what I'm saying? So can we be more specific? So I help coaches and experts to have confidence that when they make a post that it's going to help them build their brand, build relationships, and bring more business to them, right? That's better, that's a little more specific. How about this?

I help coaches to have a marketable message that they will be able to attract their next stream clients over the next 90 days. Ooh, that's even more specific, right? So if we can get even more specific, the better, right? The better. So the more specific you can be, the better. The third big criteria is, this problem that you're helping people with solvable? Like, can you solve this problem?

And this is again, something that a lot of coaches and consultants, they mess up, they choose problems that are really not solvable.

So a really common one is I help people be happier. And it's like, okay, but what does it mean to be happier? Like, can they believe that working with you is actually gonna change this? And I think about things like happiness and fulfillment as being like cups that people are trying to fill.

And those cups are never ever gonna be filled, especially like happiness. There's this psychological phenomenon called the hedonic treadmill. And so if you've ever been happy and you were happy for a little bit and then you set a new goal, a harder goal, a further goal, then you know that it's hard to really achieve that level of happiness. Instead, ask what would make you happy right now.

What would make you happy in the near term? So for a lot of my clients, what would make them happy is getting their next client in the door. That would make them a lot happier. And they would love it if that was a stranger that they met online, right? That's a solvable problem, right? Because if we have the right systems, the right structure, the right scripts, the right approach to it, it's a solvable problem.

What many people do is they're talking in really vague and esoteric kind of things, or they're talking about stuff that's frankly just not all that urgent. I'll give you a really good example from my own business. As I was developing in my entrepreneurship, I'm a few years down the path, I got really interested in how I could use written words to make sales. So I got really interested in how to be really good at writing long form sales letters. And so then I got to this place where

I could actually teach that and I could teach you like, here's the frameworks, here's the templates, I've developed all these things, I've got all this experience under my belt. I launched it to my audience and it fell pretty flat. Like people didn't want to learn from me how to build a long form sales letter. Now, were there examples of other people out there who had for sure and certainly been successful at doing this thing? 1000 % but that audience was...

really cultivated around direct response marketing, around funnel building, around all of those kinds of things. My audience had been cultivated around coaching and expertise and high performance and all of these kinds of things. So because of that, when I launched something that was successful in a different market, in my market, without validating that the people that I was helping, that they were staying up at night thinking about, can I make money with my words? They weren't thinking about that. Not yet.

right, because my person was more of a beginner. They hadn't encountered a lot of the more advanced marketing strategies just yet. So wasn't urgent for them to learn it. It also was not specific enough to their circumstances. So if I had taken that exact same program and I was very specific about, you know, how to write words that sell on your behalf,

without you having to have sales calls, and I was really specific about the value that it offered instead of just saying it's a long form sales letter, which was of course marketing jargon, then that might've helped. The other thing is that their perception of whether it was solvable was pretty weak, right? If they hadn't made any sales before, if they had never had consults that worked out before, then...

it was so long and far away to talk about these challenges of a long form letter. It was interesting to me, but it wasn't something that was a problem of appropriate magnitude for my particular audience. So if you're not getting heck yes energy from your audience, what might be happening is one or more of those three things are missing. And just to kind of recap that again,

It's not urgent as in it's not something they need right now. It's not specific enough as in it's not clear that it's for them and not for other people, for them and not for other people, and or it's not solvable. You haven't mapped out the exact step-by-step framework that they need to follow. Now, if you have been kind of working on this for a long time and you're just like...

I need some help, I want some feedback. want you to know that I do free, at this time, do free coffee sessions with people where I will sit down with you, you buy me the equivalent of cup of coffee, and then you get onto my calendar, and 20 minutes, sales free zone, I just help you. Now of course, I do that because some people ask for more help after that experience, but I do really actually wanna help as many people as I can in the month of June, and so if you wanna have coffee, you can just head over to my...

link and bio my profile and you can request coffee. This, I find that dialoguing it out can be a really helpful way to make sure you've got that problem of appropriate magnitude. But if you prefer not to talk to me, if you prefer to do it on your own, open up the chat GPT, share with them what you learned in this live and you can work through it yourself. The other thing is, is if I was going through something in this live and you're like, my gosh, I missed it or I want to rewind or I want to go back.

I have a free community called Clients Over Chaos where you can get the full transcript, the full recording of this live. And I go live every single Monday at nine o'clock in the morning. And you are super welcome to join me live to capture whatever you can for free. And if you wanna join our free community, you can either go to my link in the bio or you can send me a message that says DWM, do what matters, DWM.

and I'll know what that means and I will send you the link to the community. You can check that out on your own. Just remember, you you're not far off. If you're somebody who's been committed, you're spending hours per week on your business, you're doing all the learning, you're showing up in all the ways and you're just not there yet, like don't lose heart. This is like a tiny tweak that can swing huge doors open. So when you go from vague solutions to specific problems, once you make that shift, then everything else starts to really click.

Now you've got this, we will see you in another stream. Thanks so much for joining me and we'll catch you in another video.