Simply Business Coaching

Changing Lanes

Driving home the other day, I was forced to brake hard when a 4x4 suddenly changed lanes as we were both negotiating a large roundabout. No warning, no indicators - I don't think they even looked first. Fortunately I reacted quickly enough to avoid being side-swiped and let the other driver know my feelings with a couple of long blasts of the car horn.

As my heart beat gradually returned to normal, I began thinking that changing lanes without looking to see who, or what, else might be affected happens in business too.

Don't get me wrong, change is generally good and it's essential for businesses to keep evolving if they are to avoid getting stuck in the slow lane while everyone else overtakes them!

But changes need to be carefully thought out. For example, have you ever noticed how some businesses one day start to offer a new product or service that bears no relation to what they've done in the past? I'm not talking about adding a few additional streams of income or targeting a different market - I mean a total change of direction. Such sudden and apparently unconnected changes can undo months or even years of careful marketing work.

I'm itching to make some quite radical and exciting changes to my business - but am holding back until I can work out how to fully integrate the new ideas into what I've already built - before I mirror, signal, manoeuvre and change lanes!

Have you noticed businesses suddenly changing lanes?  Do let me know in the comments!  If you enjoyed this post, please share it - thank you.

New Ideas need New Thinking

As Einstein famously said, you can't solve a problem with the same thinking that caused it in the first place!

So why do we think we can come up with new ideas for our business when we keep doing the same things or mixing with the same people.

Even those of us with notebooks full of ideas need to revisit them to see if they really are 'new'.

Now that it's so much easier to find out what the latest trends are, what the thought-leaders are thinking it can be easy to be swept along the same path as everyone else.  To become a 'me-too'.

Original thoughts and ideas are much harder to come by, and all the more precious for that very reason.  And if it's true that there is nothing really new in this world, then coming up with a new twist to apply to an existing idea is maybe a better place to start.

Let's take a common problem facing small businesses - that of charging what their product or service is worth - and not discounting!

Rather than only listening to what fellow business owners within your networking circle might say, how about getting a different opinion from, perhaps a

Dentist
Musician
Farmer
Barrister

These people may not know anything about your business, but they will be able to tell you about charging for your product or service - from their viewpoint.

How do you come up with new ideas for your business? 

What I like about copycats!

In previous posts I’ve had a good moan - and the odd rant - about people who copy ideas, designs, offers and generally jump on the latest bandwagon, regardless of where it might take them – just so long as there could be money somewhere along the way!

As soon as you put an idea ‘out there’ it really is fair game isn’t it?  Whether people model it respectfully, or just downright copy it wholesale without even bothering to change the words.  I suppose it’s kind of a back-handed compliment even if very annoying.

But there could also be a benefit.

The people who came up with the original ideas are the real achievers and winners.  Being copied forces them to keep thinking of new ideas that are even better than before.  In fact, often they’ve already moved on from the original idea and leave the copycats standing in the dust as they power ahead.

I’m certainly not condoning copycats or plagiarists, just smiling slightly at how they’ve unwittingly raised the bar for the rest of us who can’t resist a challenge.

Do you remember when?

I heard on the radio last week that some ‘old fashioned’ sweets are making a comeback. The news immediately triggered memories of choosing sickly pink ‘shrimps’, blackjacks & fruit salads (always popular because you got lots for your precious pocket money!), and bonbons (guaranteed to dislodge any slightly loose fillings). Ah, nostalgia!

Then I started wondering why we regard the past so fondly? From repeats on TV, retro furnishings and fashions to cookery recipe revivals – we lap them up and reminisce about experiencing them the first time around (showing my age here!). So if they were so great in the first place, why did we abandon them in favour of the latest trends? And why do we now seek to recapture snippets of the past? Here are my thoughts.

Constant changes and improvements have enabled enormous progress to be made, affecting every part of life and business for those of us living in the developed world. While such changes satisfy our natural human desire for variety, they also eat away at another very basic need for security and stability.

Adapting to the speed of innovation is rather like riding a roller-coaster, exhilarating and a bit scary both at the same time! And even though it’s fun to do, we also need to get off the ride and slow down occasionally. But slowing down from life isn’t so easy.

Could it be that reconnecting with a time when the pace of life was more gentle is one way of temporarily switching off the seemingly never-ending rush of change? And could revisiting old favourites be an attempt to regain an element of control and find comfort in what has become an uncertain world?

What do you say?  And how could you use this in your business?