If you spend your time running a business, providing a living for your employees, taking risks, and trying to deliver value to your customers or clients, odds are that you’re a thoughtful, focused individual.
That being said, even you will have your blind spots. After all, when it comes to your business and its success, you have a very deep and necessary bias. Ultimately, you will do almost anything to ensure this enterprise is both successful and robust, and that your investment pays off.
In some cases, this can lead even well-meaning people to de-prioritize problems that need addressing over others that might only seem more important. It can lead to a leader simply assuming their business is easy to understand and use, even if that’s not the case for new customers. You may also be inclined to dismiss criticism from customers who might not know as much as you do about the industry, even though it’s ultimately those people you have to court to keep the lights on.
Let’s consider, then, how to switch off your business bias and how to focus on that in the first place:
A Robust Complaints/Feedback Procedure
After all the effort you’ve gone to in developing a brand, the last thing you want to hear is people moaning about it. But of course, that “moaning” may involve very real and necessary feedback, and this isn’t an impediment to you, it’s actually a very helpful benefit. Be grateful that some take their time to make you aware of issues. It might just be that your parking zone is hard to park and quite chaotic due to a lack of markings, and so investing in Everline Coatings can be the best step forward. Without a good, robust complaints procedure, your efforts in cycling to work may never have revealed this truth.
Use Secret Shoppers
Secret shoppers and mystery guests allow you to gain an impartial view of how your business is to operate, what its weaknesses are, how your front-facing staff behave, and any improvements along these lines to consider. Using these resources can help you curate a more focused and attentive view, which you may not have been able to gather yourself.
Give Yourself Very Objective Goals & Measure
It’s easy to convince yourself a tough situation is better than it is, or that a great situation is fraught with difficulty. In other words, your perspective can be flawed as can anyone else. That’s why it’s good to give yourself very objective goals you can use to manage your path forward. After all, a weightlifter doesn’t get an “opinion” on if he can lift 200kg, he simply can or can’t do so well. Certain metrics, then, such as staff and client retention, revenue generated, investments and their goals made, and how many hours of training given can help you see which targets need to be hit, and those results can be the final evaluation of how well you’ve been doing.
With this advice, you’re certain to see the value of switching off your business biases.