Take Profit-making Actions Based On Your New Vantage Points

ACT DIFFERENT BECAUSE OF YOUR NEW VANTAGE POINTS!

Yesterday, I suggested you do some homework - namely, to assess your business from new vantage points.  Those new perspectives or lens you were to view your business through included your prospects, customers, employees, competitors, and vendors/suppliers.
 
If you took that challenge you likely saw some new things, thought of some new ideas, and identified some changes that you need to make.  Today we talk about following through with action to apply the revelations from your new “Vantage Points”.

” We have the power to choose and to exercise that power without giving

control of it to situations.  We cannot change anything but our own perspective and response, yet in that changing we change the world around us by becoming an instrument of insight and awareness.” — Gail Pursell Elliott
 
The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.”  — William James
 
Use New Vantage Points to Prompt Better Questions

In the
book “Thinkertoys” by Michael Michalko, it is explained that in the 1950s, experts proclaimed the ocean freighter industry was dying.  Costs were skyrocketing and delivery times kept getting pushed back later and later.  Executives at the shipping companies kept focusing on ways to cut costs while ships were sailing. They developed ships that went faster and needed fewer crew members to run.  It didn’t work. Costs continued to spiral out of control and it still took too long to get the merchandise shipped.
Then one day, a consultant changed the perspective. Rather than ask the question: ” In what ways might we make ships more economical while at sea?” executives asked: “In what ways can we reduce costs?”  - Presto, wham-o, change-o - a better question gives a better answer!

Ships are not big money-sucking machines when they are at sea actually doing their job, rather it is when they aren’t working - siting in port being loaded and unloaded that operating costs are huge.
 
So, the industry came up with way to preload merchandise on land. Now a ship comes in, the container carrying the cargo rolls off, a new container already loaded with cargo rolls on, and the ship heads back to sea.  That one innovation saved an entire industry. And it happened because shipping executives changed the way they viewed their problem.
 
So, how can you change your perspective and solve your business/marketing problems?
 
Try doing what the shipping industry did and change the question.  Instead of looking at a narrow part of the problem (”In what ways can we make ships more economical while at sea?”) broaden the question (”In what ways can we reduce costs in general?”)
 
Need a more relevant example for your business — Maybe your question is “how can I obtain  more customers?” What if you started broadening the question like so:
How can I obtain more customers?  becomes 
How can I grow my business? which becomes
How can I make more money from my business in less time?  which becomes
How can I make more money period and work less?  which becomes
How can I be happier in my life?
 
Maybe one of those questions is a better place to look for a solution.  Maybe one of those questions is the “real” question you want to solve, but since you never took a step back to look at the big picture, you’ve never discovered the right question to ask.  And if you don’t ask the right question, you will never come up with an answer that actually solves your real problem.
  
Reframe Your Life  
“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it!”
  — Mother Teresa 

DAILY PRAYER  
Lord let us use new and different vantage points to see new, different and better questions.  Reveal truth’s that we are currently blind to.  Shine Your light on a new direction.  Please provide us with knowledge, wisdom and understanding which helps us find the best questions to ask and answer as we guide our business and lives onward and upward.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Stretch yourself to use the different vantage point insights that came about because you looked at your business through the eyes of your employees, prospects, customers, competitors or vendors.  Seek that different, broader, better question.  A profit soaring breakthrough, a revolutionary change or even an industry saving answer may await you!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.