Life Lesson

Decisions are easy when you have the right information. What I’ve found it takes to make the right decision is to retrieve information from three sources.

1. Your own subjective view of the situation. It’s business and it’s personal. Don’t discard the knowledge and experience about a situation that no one else can understand. The bigger the decision, the more knowledge only you have, and you’ve gotta come to terms with the fact other people will not be able to “get it.”
2. The perspective of those doing the grunt work. Those “below” you, if you will, are the ones keeping you alive. The first to know a new plate isn’t working for customers is the wait staff. Ask a few of them what’s working and what’s not, and you’ll have acquired information critical to making the right decision.
3. The objective insight of someone smart, but removed from the business. A fresh, untainted perspective is usually the final nail in the coffin of a poor decision. They’ll be able to tell you if you’re in too deep and are bias about the decision you’re leaning toward. Take their words to heart.

 

Stay Positive & A Right Decision Requires Three Perspectives, Do You Have Them All?

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Time and time again, the best place to find an advantage over your competitors is in your target.

Yesterday we tackled the idea of differentiating yourself not by what you have that your competitor doesn’t, but by giving more to the customer than your competitor can.

Today we look at having an advantage by having better data of your target.

The quickest way to get ahead in your market is to know more about the market (specifically your target) than your competitors. An inch of insight can give you a mile of an advantage.

Consider the first company to realize getting food on the table wasn’t just a decision based on budget, but on the emotional need of mothers to hear their husbands brag to their friends about how well they are fed. Dinner became an ego-booster. “Save 5 cents” was a lot less effective.

What more can you do on the end of target research?

That’s where you’ll find how to gain an advantage.

 

Stay Positive & Know The Most About Your Target

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Through the life of your business you’re sure to be prodded toward differentiating yourself from your competitors if you haven’t already been.

Most commonly this comes from price. Your competitor lowers their prices so you retaliate by lowering yours. You enter a race to the bottom.

If you’re going to differentiate yourself, don’t do so with the sole purpose of being at an advantage over your competitor.

What’s important is what you do to give your customer a substantial advantage.

You must be asking yourself, “What can I give to my customer that my competitors can’t.”

You don’t create a differentiator by being different from your competitor, you create a differentiator that matters by giving more to the customer than any competitor can.

 

Stay Positive & Customer First And Always

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Insecurity.

When we assign ourselves an important task, we immediately become insecure about the work. After all, right now we have total control of the situation we’re in. Once we start going down the unfamiliar path of a potentially remarkable idea, we exchange control for instinct.

Laziness is easy because we remain in 100 percent control, but creativity doesn’t show up when we stand still.

 

Stay Positive & Notice The Fear And Dance With It, But Don’t Stop Doing The Important Work

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There’s no such thing as accidental creativity.

You may think two items were accidentally combined to create something remarkable. You may think that an idea came out of no where while you were in the shower. You may think your recent success was luck or good timing.

It wasn’t.

Creativity is earned, and it’s not always apparent how (thus our fascination and curiosity around the roots of creativity).

What is clear is there needs to be forward movement, momentum if you will, in order for creativity to appear. Sure, sometimes it arrives in a moment of respite, but you worked to deserve that respite (and that creative “accident” too).

 

Stay Positive & Build Your Momentum And Creativity Will Appear

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When you look at all the little things you can change to be a better you, it actually looks big.

Better to ask yourself today (right now?), what is the one little thing that I can change?

Too often we settle for listing all the little things and changing none of them.

Why?

 

Stay Positive & Find The Little Thing, Change It, Then Find Another

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Situations can easily constrict your creativity.

“We’re not going to make it through third quarter” is a preventing mindset that puts a stop to “What can we do differently to succeed past third quarter?”

Instead, better to say, “Given our current situation and how we do things, we won’t make it through third quarter.”

That opens up a dialogue, it invites creativity, it provides some breathing room for people to alter their previously held beliefs of standing still to begin moving forward in a new direction, toward a new situation.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Stand Still

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