Finding Out What You Don’t Know Long Before You Find Out You Needed to….

I’m going to start this blog post with a quote from author of “Start with why”, Simon Synek’s blog.

I would say this is excellent advice, certainly the type of advice that makes a tonne of sense when you are building a business

Whether you are building a brand, corporation or lifestyle biz, when we embark on the small business journey, we are constantly thrown new challenges.
These new challenges are often ones where we have absolutely no background knowledge that would assist, and quite often what is worse, is that these challenges become time reliant with a need to be resolved quickly or they require a good decision in order not to throw up problems further down the road. So how do we overcome this?

JUSTAS JANAUSKAS in an excellent article on “Real Business” sums this up rather well:

For business leaders and entrepreneurs trying to build and grow their businesses, it is the how and why questions that they need to address? rather than the who, what, where and when.
Answers to these questions mostly depend on your context, and multiple true answers may exist at the same time. Often there is no single answer to such questions.

For instance, if you are trying to figure out the best way to raise capital for your start-up, or to find a working growth model for your business, Googling, reading or watching videos can only get you so far. You will ultimately still be left to solve the problem by yourself.

To truly answer how and why questions it remains essential to talk about your problem to people who have raised capital multiple times, or people who have built growth models in the past.?

Of course, such people often will not have a straight solution to your problems. But the context, experience that these human connections provide are incredibly valuable. In conversation, you can far more easily see different perspectives that were unavailable to you previously.Such conversations are transformational because they are about transferring knowledge, not information?

“What do you think about this?”

One of the things I have found particularly true in business is where business owners ask those they trust in their personal life, for opinions or advice on matters where the person being asked has no perspective or background of any kind.

Faced with a question such as “What do you think about this?” most people will attempt to at least offer their ideas and thoughts but they are ultimately being asked the wrong question. it should be “What do you know about this?”

More often than not the type of responses business owners get from their friends and family serve more to confuse than assist.

Self Development is Key

I got back into the reading habit a few years ago. I seek out books on all manner of subjects but they are firmly in the “Self Help” section of Waterstones. Developing a good library in your office in my mind is one of the most positive things a small business person can do.

Just browsing subjects and finding weak areas can be an excellent way to find out things you had never even considered. There are probably 5 or 6 books I have now bought multiple copies of for multiple people over the last ten years.

Whilst some books with obvious business subjects are fundamental, there are others which may give insights to weaknesses you had no idea you even had, long before they become an issue. One such one for me was “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss.

I had no idea how weak my negotiating skills were until I read this book. I actually used the method and then continued to practice using it over and over until it has become second nature. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses so my library might not be useful to you, but overall this practice I genuinely believe to be a winner for all small business owners.

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’

Another option is of course finding the right help at the right time. The problem with this only becomes clear after you have had the experience of being led down the wrong path, at least once by a business support professional.

Like the Bernard Shaw quote goes, the hazard here is taking your information from someone who is less than able to deliver the correct advice.

A turning point in my career was on meeting a young guy at a conference, I was there representing a digital marketing firm. The cocky young fella made the observation that people who were truly good at E commerce and Online marketing did it for themselves rather than hiring themselves out to others. I thought long and hard about that statement.
Now, this may not be entirely true all of the time, but he had a point.

The major issue with this is where we started, you still don’t know what you don’t know. So taking advice from the wrong person can be hazardous, paying a lot of money to take the wrong advice can be much worse.

The only antidote for this in my view is to at least obtain enough background information on any given subject to ask searching questions of the professional you need. My experience of many business advisors has been that I needed to know more before I picked the right one, sometimes I was lucky, but more often than not I was not.

Mentors, The Ultimate Solution

A good mentor, or several is really what most small business people need. Seeking them out and engaging them will give untold benefits, the advantages of having people with a more neutral standpoint and external perspective are endless.

When you look at the story of very successful people you often find their mentors are consistently pointed to as the secret of their success. They may not be obvious or easy to find, you may need more than one, but if you can find them they can make the journey to success much easier and potentially much quicker.

If you are interested in more posts like these check out my Lifestyle Business VLOG on YouTube HERE