I often draw someone's business on paper as a chain: attract → persuade → collect payment → deliver → operate → retain.
It sounds simple, but it changes how you see your problems. Because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link — one jammed link slows the whole chain.
The problem usually isn't where you think
When revenue stalls, the first reflex is usually "run more ads" — pouring more into the attract link. But if the link that's actually jammed is persuade (a weak sales page) or deliver (customers buy and then wait forever for nothing to arrive), pouring in more traffic just exposes the jam faster.
I learned this most clearly in logistics: thousands of orders a day, and one bottleneck in sortation backs up the entire system.
How to use it
Next time your business feels "stuck," don't rush to add more effort. Walk down the chain and ask each link one question: are we losing people / orders / money here? The link losing the most — that's the one worth fixing first.
Fixing one jammed link usually produces more results than trying harder at every link at once.
Systems beat effort. Fix the machine first, then add speed.