How to Find New Powerful Business Perspectives To Impact Business Growth
Summary: You've tried everything and you still can't seem to get ahead in your business?
It's easy to feel like you're stuck in a rut when it comes to your business. You may feel like you've tried every trick in the book, and you're just not seeing the growth you want.
By exploring new perspectives, you can open up new opportunities for growth that you never would have thought of before. In this video, we'll show you how to find them and put them into action so you can actually have growth impact in your business.
When you’re wearing all of the hats in your business, it can be challenging to develop new business perspectives that result in true and authentic growth.
You might even feel like you’ve tried every trick in the book and you’re STILL not seeing the results you want and feel like you deserve.
Chances are you’re falling back on what you feel comfortable with. You’re relying on the same people, the same resources, the same sides of the coin to get the answers that you want when it comes down to making business decisions. Unfortunately, what this does is shut you out from up-to-date, innovative, and game-changing information that would help you take the strategic steps you need to see that needle finally move.
But don’t worry, friends. We’re going to figure out a way to get you out of this rut.
Check out the following tips on ways you can find the new and powerful perspectives you need to grow your business in the ways you’ve always imagined!
Why New Perspectives Matter in Business
“A thought is merely just a thought, but when you repeat that thought repeatedly, that thought becomes a belief. When you take that belief and repeat it over and over again, that belief becomes a truth. If you take that truth and repeat it over and over again, that truth becomes a reality.”
The number one reason new perspectives matter is that you need them to help you battle the voices of your ever-so-loud echo chamber.
When a business owner gets stuck here (in the echo chamber, I mean), they often describe feeling like they’re stuck with their wheels spinning. This is an indication that change is needed. The earliest you want to create this change for yourself is between that thought and belief stage …before those thoughts and beliefs become truth. It’s when a truth is formed that it becomes more difficult than ever to do the necessary re-wiring.
When you are able to expand the pool from which you’re getting your ideas, inspiration, and perspectives, you’re putting yourself in a place of making more objective, strategic decisions. You’re developing the skill of “discernment”-- the ability to take it all in, sort it all out, and make sense of all of the different information you’ve gathered in a way that also matches up with your:
These various factors can make a decision complicated in a small business, but it can be done, and it can be done effectively. In the end, doing so will yield ease, exponential growth, community, collaboration and the joy of doing what love on a daily basis.
How do we find these new perspectives?
Seek out information from people that have a different frame of reference than you.
For example--
1. Employees
You’re the closest to the problem…and your employees are one step away. They’re going to see things differently than you do. They can often pinpoint simple changes here and there that could make their workflow more productive.
Suppose you look at your entire staff and choose the employees that are the most effective, most profitable, and always have excellent customer reviews.
Ask them:
This is valuable input that you can take into your business. Note that I am not encouraging you to do everything your employees or clients ask you to do. Sometimes their ideas will be in alignment with your goals and sometimes they won’t. However, simply being aware of these alternative perspectives can be useful.
2. Clients
My favorite question to ask clients is:
“If we were the #1 company doing what we are doing, what would we need to do differently than what we are doing today?”
Your clients have different points of view on the relationship. Valuable ones at that. So. you need to be receptive to this feedback, no matter how discouraging it might feel sometimes.
3. Vendors
They're exposed to more people who do what you do, making them a great source of best practices.
Ask them:
4. Competition
I don’t want you to do exactly what your competition is doing, but you have to be aware of what is going on in the marketplace so that you can see:
5. Outside Experts
Before you seek this help, be clear about what you're looking for and what you need.
Clarity on this will help you hone in on the right person, firm, or service to help you.
For example, YBR offers business audits that review the past three years of your business performance. We shift through all relevant information and tell you what message their business is trying to send to them but is failing to get through. We keep a keen eye out for red flags and opportunities.
We then help align those opportunities to where you want to take the business next. We show you where potential growth opportunities are and either help you unearth the source of your problem or reveal an unseen opportunity.
The clients who take it and run with it have a completely different business than before…in the best possible way. This we can promise.
Bottom line: There is a value in having an outside set of eyes that can bring to the table.
What do we do when new perspectives find us?
Set aside your instinctual response and practice active listening:
There’s a book called “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith. In this book he talks about a study he and his team conducted on a group of successful people and asked the question, “Why is it that successful people struggle with being successful again?”.
The answer?
They fall into the “I know” trap…AKA the kiss of death in business. Yikes!
If a good idea is brought up and your response to the idea is, “I know” or “that didn’t work,” then you are not listening. You are responding. As the business owner, the first thing I need you to do is put aside your pride. And your instinctual, gut response. Because the reality is that you don’t have to have the answer right now.
This can be a difficult concept to grasp when you’re so accustomed to making all of the decisions, but if you can set aside the temptation to speak and, instead, listen…THAT’S when things really start to change.
Things To Avoid
Asking leading questions.
You want to ask very consistent and probing questions that go deeper into people’s responses. Follow up to people’s responses with:
- What does that mean?
- What does that look like?
- How would that play out?
- Can you give me some examples?
These are the types of questions that get you to the meat of it all.
Ignoring their perspective.
Take some level of action, even if it is simply, “This is a really good idea, and I can see its value, but now might not be the right time. I will review this at the beginning of the third quarter.”
Closing the loop.
If you don’t respect their input – even if it’s input that you cannot take action on right now – that input will dry up and, in the end, the growth you’re looking for will never come.
Go back to the source, thank them for their input, and tell them what you did with the information.
A Lesson Put Into Action
I had a mastermind call with a client. And on this call she expressed her disappointment with her sales conversions. I asked her to explain to me what she does, and before she was able to finish, I spotted the problem. She was sending her proposal in an email instead of getting on a call with a potential client to go over the proposal together. We then discussed sending the proposal right before her and her client got on a call together.
Since changing that small action, she has had her best year yet in business!
This is the value of getting another set of eyes on even the most simple of situations. Often times, you are too close to the problem to see the solution.
Final Thoughts
We covered a lot of ground here, friends! Cheers to you for making it through to the end.
What I hope you can take away from this is that we WANT to find new business perspectives because the echo chamber we’re so often stuck in does not serve our goals. We want to find new perspectives by reaching out to the stakeholders around us– employees, clients, vendors, competition, and outside experts – to gain new ideas that fill in the blanks in ways that we can’t always do on our own.
What we can’t find within, we can find without! And there’s such beauty, such power in that.
If I can help your business in any way, feel free to reach out! Find some time on my schedule and let's chat!