Business Blind spots: what you don't know can hurt

 

Business blind spots take many forms

Though newer cars now have preventive tech measures to keep us on the straight and narrow, we all know the dangers posed by blind spots while we are driving on the road.

The same blind spots happen in your business as well, impacting its opportunity to thrive, with similarly devastating results. 

Clinical reasons for business blindspots

I often talk about story telling in branding but if we did deeper into how our mind processes information, we find some interesting clinical reasons for them.

I won't go into all of them, but Daniel Kahneman literally wrote the book on this. We all have these blind spots: limiting beliefs, patterns of behavior and unproductive ways of thinking that are obvious to others but invisible to us.  This is especially true for for small business owners like us.

We have such a strong expectation for our own success that our desire to be “right” about things clouds our ability to see the “success equation” fully. 

The nature of a blind spot is that while others clearly see it, we can’t. Warren Buffet explains “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” 

How I learned to overcome my blidspots

One of my biggest mistakes early on was thinking that the same reasons that I pursued web design and internet marketing were the reasons that others would find my services valuable.  While every business owner is attracted to the idea of connecting with their customers online and implementing technology in a practical way, very few will be engaged by a complicated explanation of metatags or CSS. They don’t want to become a full-fledged “Geek”, they just want technology to help their business grow and reach a wider audience.  

Finding your business blind spots

It is evident that finding blind spots is key, but how do you find your blind spots or know when you’ve got them (you probably do?)  The very best way is to connect with other people. We all have a certain set of eyes, filters through which we see things. Other business owners will share a lot of the same pain points, have dealt with the same problems and have a unique perspective that can lead to extremely valuable “aha moments.” 

It is vital to get outside of your own head in order to get a fresh perspective, trigger your creativity, review information objectively and add new context to the data you are gathering so that you can use it effectively. Going beyond what you do and see each day to explore collaboration can be inspiring and help you think in a new way.

Networking is unique in that it provides you an opportunity to share your business with the expectation of feedback.  While we are used to presenting our business to our customers, we rarely get honest and complete feedback. With all the websites I have built, I have never had anyone submit a contact form inquiry detailing the reasons why they passed on my offer or leave helpful feedback on how things could be improved or ideas for better presenting my service.

At networking meetups this is par for the course. One of the best Community Networking Events happens all the time in the app Clubhouse.  It is natural to network with similar people that we know, but networking events expand our exposure to people that can offer new ideas and fresh insights. In Clubhouse, for example, if you get to the right rooms, they even set time aside to allow anyone to briefly present their business and get feedback.  Though there are some shyster in there you should avoid, you can get tremendous insights from CLubhouse if you curate carefully.