Andrew Griffiths
When you visit the same place every day, year after year it is very easy to walk in and out with blinkers on. Throughout this manual I have made the recommendation that you stop what you are doing and go and really look at certain aspects of your business – whether it be your front entrance, your signage, your staff, your customers, whatever. Well this tip is really to reinforce this message.
We all need to become more observant in our businesses. We need to not only look more closely at every aspect of our business but we also need to be able to make changes that will improve the business.
As a business grows it is easy for the owners to lose touch with a lot of the every day events going on. Whilst it becomes impossible and in some ways unproductive for the business owner to know all of the nuts and bolts it is important for them to have a very clear understanding of how things work. The more they understand the more they can look for ways to make things run better.
We all need to get out of our work space and just walk around. Clear your head, open your eyes and try to look at the business without your normal blinkers on. Talk to your staff, talk to some customers. Go across the road and look at your business, have a good look at your website – read through your own brochure. Look at the products that you have on display.
There are so many aspects of the business that need to be reviewed on a constant basis that it can be daunting but the first step is to remove the blinkers and open your mind to becoming an observer. After a week of doing this it will become second nature. The habit of walking in and out of your business with blinkers on has probably formed over many years.
Once you become a keen observer you can then start to make the business even better – and that can take it from mediocrity to magnificence.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY? Stand up and take a walk around your business and really look at it. Often you will be amazed by the things you see that you haven’t noticed before. It is all about shifting your perceptions and opening up the mind. The benefits to you are that your business will improve by you paying attention to the smaller details.
