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Many businesses rely on internal personnel to generate ideas and procedures to grow the company. While internal people are critical to the success of any business, an innovative business will seek ideas and input from individuals outside the company to strengthen the business.
Unfortunately, many business leaders fall into the trap of believing that the company founders and other business personnel are best suited to identify all ideas related to growth of the business. In many situations, these business leaders fail to seek (or simply ignore) input from people outside the company. However, people outside the company’s day-to-day operations typically have a different perspective. They are not caught-up in the systems, procedures, and other activities that dominate the lives of individuals working within the company. Instead, these outside people look at the business with a fresh view and don’t bring with them the “baggage” collected by working inside the business.
I recently took this advice in my own business. I worked with an outside business strategist to review my existing business and give me new ideas. Although she knew nothing about my business before we started, she gave me a long list of great ideas to take my business to the next level. Being an outsider to my business, she was unaware of the internal workings of my company. Instead, she approached the systems and products I had created and questioned those systems. During our discussion, she asked whether I had considered other approaches to expanding my business. She shared her experiences with other companies where different business procedures were successfully implemented. I would not have come up with many of the ideas she proposed, because I do not have the same experiences or the same background.
This is true of any business. Regardless of the expertise of the business’ leaders, there are always other people outside the business with different experiences and backgrounds. Additionally, these outside people are not distracted by the internal workings of the business. Instead, they can view the business as something brand new and begin questioning everything the business is doing (or not doing). An outside person does not get stuck in the “this is how we have always done things” syndrome. Often, in a short period of time, an outside individual can suggest improvements that otherwise would not have been discovered by people working “inside” the business. Examples of outside people who can help your business include consultants, vendors, customers and colleagues in other companies.
If you are looking for new ways to expand your business, consider getting a fresh perspective from someone outside your business. Please share your own experiences with outside analysis in the comments below.