One of our doors wouldn’t latch.

So, naturally, we investigated the latch.

We Googled the unusual handle and lock. We removed pieces. We adjusted things. We put pieces back. There may have been some highly technical banging involved.

Nothing worked.

Eventually, I got down on the floor because I wanted to see exactly how the latch was meeting the frame. From that angle, I looked up and saw the actual problem.

One of the hinge pins was almost completely out.

That tiny shift had allowed the door to lean just enough that the latch no longer aligned with the opening in the frame. We put the pin back in. The door worked.

There was nothing wrong with the latch.

It was simply where the problem became visible.

Marketing problems often behave the same way.

When ads stop generating leads, we change the ads. When email opens fall, we rewrite subject lines. When a website stops converting, we change the landing page. When proposals stop closing, we rewrite the proposal.

Sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen.

But a symptom tells us where something became visible. It doesn’t necessarily tell us where it began.

If a landing page stops converting, the page may be the problem. Or the traffic may have changed. The offer may have shifted. Visitors may be arriving earlier in the buying process. The message that sent them there may no longer match what they find.

If a proposal doesn’t close, the proposal may need work. Or the person receiving it may not understand the problem yet. There may not be enough trust. The wrong person may be making the decision.

The point isn’t to invent a complicated root cause every time something goes wrong. Sometimes the latch really is broken.

The point is to test whether the obvious explanation actually explains what we’re seeing.

Before changing the thing that appears to be failing, ask what has to be true upstream for that thing to work. Then ask what changed before the problem started.

And if you’ve been staring at the same problem for too long, change your angle. Look at the customer journey backwards. Ask someone outside the project what they see. Experience your own process as though you know nothing about the business.

Sometimes the information has been there the entire time. You just couldn’t see it from where you were standing.

So before you rebuild, rewrite or rebrand, ask yourself:

What am I trying to fix at the point of failure that might actually be breaking somewhere else?