Most founders think their growth problem needs a marketing solution.

After 20+ years of diagnosing businesses, I’ve learned they’re treating symptoms while the real disease goes unnoticed.

Here’s what actually happens: Founders below $300k or trying to break through that barrier don’t know what they need. They have various ideas about what they believe will fix their growth.

But they’re missing the foundation.

The ABC Diagnostic Framework

Every business needs three things to grow: Attention, Buyers, and Cash.

No ABC, no growth. Simple as that.

The power isn’t in the framework itself. It’s in using ABC as a diagnostic tool to pinpoint exactly where your business breaks down.

Maybe you have attention but it’s not converting to buyers. We start diagnosing: Are these unqualified people, or do you lack a system to turn eyeballs into buyers?

If you have interested buyers but they’re not turning into cash, you probably have a sales problem.

The average conversion rate across industries sits at just 2.9%. Most businesses lose 95-98% of their attention.

The Ideal Customer Filter

Here’s how you diagnose attention problems: Write down your ideal customer profile.

If leads coming in match that profile but aren’t converting, you know the issue. If leads don’t match that profile, you’re attracting the wrong audience.

Every experienced business owner already has their ideal customer in mind. Not because they did research or brainstormed, but because they’ve had enough bad experiences to know who they want to work with.

The knowledge just needs to be clarified, refined, and passed down to the team.

The Hidden Gap

But here’s where most founders get stuck: They know their ideal customer in their head but still attract the wrong leads.

The gap lives between internal knowledge and external execution.

You can know exactly who you want to work with, but if your positioning, messaging, and market signals don’t communicate that clearly, you’ll keep getting attention from the wrong people.

This is why 52.8% of business owners agree that long-term bottlenecks have the greatest impact on growth. They’re stuck in cycles, treating symptoms instead of root causes.

The Real Solution

Stop asking “How do we get more marketing?”

Start asking “Where is our ABC breaking down?”

Use your ideal customer profile as the diagnostic filter. Match it against your incoming leads. The gap will show you exactly what needs fixing.

Most businesses spend $92 on customer acquisition for every $1 on conversion optimization. They’re pouring money into attention while their conversion systems leak.

The ABC framework doesn’t just identify problems. It reveals the sequence for fixing them.

Fix your roots first. Then watch consistent growth flow naturally.