25 Easy Ways to Get a New Perspective on your Small Business

Do you ever notice that you get more ideas (and get them faster) when you step aside from your normal business routine? I can sit at my computer for what seems like hours struggling to write a blog post or put together a proposal. Then, the moment I step away from my desk to grab a soda, I get all kinds of inspiration.

A change of scenery, even one as simple as standing up from your desk, can do wonders for your creativity — and for your business. As summer winds to a close, there’s no better time than now to break away from your usual routine and try something new.

How to Gain a Fresh Perspective

Even the smallest changes can have big effects on your outlook, freeing you up to see business problems, opportunities and solutions in new ways. Here are 25 ways to “shake it up” and gain a new perspective.

1. Take the afternoon off and use the time to do something you’ve never done before.

2. Take a vacation to a place you’ve never been — better yet, somewhere where you don’t speak the language.

3. Switch places with one of your employees for a day and see what you learn. Choose a job that exposes you to something you don’t normally deal with, like answering customer service calls or handling shipping and receiving.

4. You know that one thing you keep meaning to do, but you “never have time” to do it? Set your alarm for an hour earlier than normal and use that hour to get it done.

5. Take a different employee out to lunch every day.

6. Attend an industry event or conference you’ve never gone to before.

7. Change your work environment. Try working outside or in a coffee house. Paint your office.

8. Move your desk, or relax on the couch while you work. If you work at home, try working in a different room than you normally do.

9. Try standing up while you make phone calls. (That might lead you to invest in a sit-stand desk.)

10. Get rid of the clutter on and around your workspace (you know, all of the things that have been there so long, you don’t even notice them anymore). See how it feels to work in a streamlined space.

11. Switch up your route to the office. Try taking a different way every day for a week. Pay attention to the scenery.

12. If you normally drive to the office, ride your bike or take public transportation instead.

13. Read a book about business by a successful entrepreneur, and see what you learn.

14. Sleep with your head at the foot of your bed for a night to get a new perspective.

15. Take a sabbatical from screens. Disconnect from your email, your smartphone, your social media, your streaming shows, etc., for just one weekend day. Stay unplugged. You’ll be surprised what ideas arise when you aren’t constantly distracted.

16. Commit 10 minutes a day to doing mindful meditation. If you’re too rushed to do it in the morning, try doing it right before bed.

17. Explore a part of your town where you’ve never been before.

18. Choose a TED talk on a topic that interests you (it doesn’t have to be business) and watch it.

19. Find an expert in a subject you want to learn more about. See if you can buy them coffee or lunch (or Skype or FaceTime them) and ask questions.

20. Find a peer group of other small business owners in your area or your industry. Get together to share your business challenges and suggest solutions. Listening to how other people handle problems, even if (especially if) they aren’t in your industry, can be enlightening.

21. Choose a new genre of music you’ve never listened to and explore it.

22. Experiment with different background music as you work and see how it affects your focus and energy.

23. Volunteer for a community organization. Spending some time working with children, people experiencing homelessness, or abandoned animals will give you a new perspective.

24. Mentor another small business owner who’s starting up. You’ll realize you know more than you think you do.

25. Next time you’re trying to come up with ideas, put away your computer and try writing with a pen and paper instead. It can help spur more creative thinking. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Source: https://smallbiztrends.com

Image Credit: Shutterstock

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN THE SMALL BUSINESS EXCHANGE PROGRAM

As a sole-entrepreneur, I am convinced that every entrepreneur should join a group of their peers to help them grow their business.

If you are an entrepreneur seeking to surround yourself with individual who understand the challenges, strengths and weakness of running a business. The Westchester Networking for Professionals Small Business Exchange Program is for you.

Are you familiar with the term “MasterMind Group”?

The Small Business Exchange Program is an online interactive meeting for solo-entrepreneurs, the same format as a mastermind group.  If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s a small group of individuals aiming for a similar target, who come together to mentor, solve problems, give input and advise to help each other reach that target.

The target of the Small Business Exchange Program members is to help each other succeed in business.

Member of the group meets twice a month virtually for an hour and a half for six weeks. If you’re serious about reaching your goals for a successful business you would secure your spot for six weeks.  But you do have the option to secure your seat for one meeting.

The group will focus on 5 essentials of a successful business:

1. New client acquisitions
2. Improving business strategies
3. Marketing and promoting your business
4. Connecting you with needed resources
5. Providing help and guidance to your business.

If you analyze your business situation now, can you use help and guidance in any of these areas?

There are many benefits for you and your business when joining the Small Business Exchange Program 1) it’s an opportunity for you to let go of the feeling of working alone to reach your goals, 2) gain the advice you need to meet objectives, 3) work with you very own support team who will motivate, inspire and uplift you while running your business.

HOW DO YOU SIGN UP?

The Small Business Exchange Program is limited to 12 people. To sign up, visit Westchester Networking for Professionals events page for April 17, 2018 scheduled meeting.

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Want to Get Better at Networking? Think Smaller.

To expand their professional networks, entrepreneurs are seeking smaller and smaller crowds.

 In 2008, Sol Orwell, the co-founder of the nutrition company Examine.com, was at a loss. He was attending a big digital marketing conference in Seattle, hoping to expand his network, but the event was so packed that he didn't know where to start. His friend had no such hesitation. He told Orwell he was going to "meet some friends." Twenty minutes later, he returned holding a stack of 40 business cards. "At the time, I was blown away," recalls Orwell, who thought his friend was a networking genius. "But now I think, Did he do anything more than have short conversations?"

Today Orwell has a much different idea of successful networking. He still attends at least one large conference a year, but that's not how he builds his relationships. Instead, he hosts monthly dinners of six to 12 entrepreneurs, where conversations might jump from business to culinary trends to travel hot spots. And every Friday, he parks himself at a coffee shop in his hometown of Toronto and invites local entrepreneurs to join him for leisurely conversations.

Orwell is not alone in questioning the conventional approaches to networking. Because frankly, those approaches -- abetted by technology and hype -- don't work that well. The rise of social media and digital communication means your entrepreneurial hero is just a tweet or an email away, but it also means successful entrepreneurs are bombarded by so many networking requests that they delete most of them on sight. And the boom in massive, circus-like conferences makes it easier than ever to harvest large numbers of business cards, but the sheer numbers of attendees make forming real connections harder.

As a result, in the past decade, small-scale, invite-only events for entrepreneurs -- from monthly dinner salons of fewer than a dozen people to upscale weekend retreats that cap out at 150 guests -- have begun to redefine the networking landscape. Entrepreneurs are willing to spend anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 for access to smart, like-minded people who are also in search of reciprocal, long-lasting relationships. As Orwell explains, these conferences and retreats are "a lot more welcoming" than the huge conventions. "There won't be wantrepreneurs, but people you can have actual conversations with," he says.

Shane Parrish, whose productivity and decision-making newsletter, Farnam Street, has a devoted following of more than 100,000 subscribers, was one of those businesspeople frustrated by the state of networking. (He estimates he personally gets 300 networking requests a month.) So in 2014, he started offering annual three-day workshops. These events, which cost about $2,300, are open to the public but are strictly capped at 50 people. Even just a few more, Parrish says, makes it harder for attendees to break out of their comfort zones. When they do break out, he says, the payoff is significant. "Everyone is struggling through similar problems, but they're smart and they're not your friends, so they're not telling you what you want to hear," he says. "You can grow a ton."

Parrish also hosts much smaller and costlier retreats for 10 to 15 people in places like Hawaii and Paris, in which each participant has one hour to troubleshoot some problem -- be it personal or business-related -- with the group. "To me, that's real networking," Parrish says. "You're getting to understand people and their context so you can help them achieve their goals.

"Everyone is struggling through similar problems, but they're smart, and they're not your friends, so they're not telling you what you want to hear," says one organizer. "You can grow a ton."

The organizers behind these sorts of small-scale conferences say the ideas exchanged from this casual back-and-forth are a lot more useful than the promised "content" that many large conferences advertise. "You don't get value from big-name speakers," says Jayson Gaignard, the founder of MastermindTalks, an invite-only community for entrepreneurs, which includes an annual three-day conference of roughly 150 people. If you want to sit there as someone talks at you, Gaignard says, you can "listen to a podcast on the way to the gym."

MastermindTalks has become famous for its exclusivity ("a lower acceptance rate than Harvard" boasts Gaignard's LinkedIn profile) and price tag (about $10,000), and so participants have come to expect at least some access to the superstars of their profession. Gary Vaynerchuk, James Altucher and Damien Escobar have all attended, but their appearances -- unannounced until the last minute -- feel impromptu and informal. As Gaignard explains, standing around and drinking beers while peppering Vaynerchuk, the marketing guru, with questions is a much different experience than listening to him give a talk from a podium.

James Clear, who pens a popular newsletter on human potential and runs eight-person retreats in destinations like Sedona, Ariz. and Breckenridge, Colo., eschews big names altogether. "I want people to feel like they're with peers," he says. Clear organizes his retreats around a specific theme or profession and is highly selective in terms of the people he invites.

Referrals, it seems, are how most people gain access to these events. And how do they get referred? Orwell says this happens by building relationships, over time, with people who either lead these retreats or have attended them. "People just try to rush everything," he says. "They try to befriend everyone. Instead, follow the people you really find interesting, and that will naturally let you have conversations with them." Once you've formed a genuine bond with someone who is connected, he says, you're more likely to be referred.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem, to be sure: You need to connect to the right people in order to be invited to a conference that will help you connect to the right people. But because these events tend to be very small, hosts say they have to be very particular about whom they invite in order to ensure a positive experience. "If there are 100 people and there's one annoying person, you can move on," Clear says. "But in a retreat for three or four days with eight people, one person can really ruin the chemistry." Therefore, he invites only people he has met in person or with whom he has had multiple Skype calls.

Gaignard is even more methodical. When considering new invitees -- again, usually through referrals -- he either meets with them personally or has a 30-minute "triage" call, in which he "gathers intel" about the individual and subscribes to "all updates" on every member's Facebook feed, which he says "helps me keep a pulse on anything and everything about them." Once accepted, attendees fill out two intake forms totaling 80 questions. These strategies help Gaignard connect people with overlapping strengths and needs. "If you're having trouble with culture in your business and there's someone who's really killing it with culture, I'll seat them next to you," he says.

For the most part, event hosts say their guests come not to promote themselves but to share their expertise and learn something in return. Yes, there's a professional ROI; attendees might partner in new projects, pass along contacts and cross-promote each other's work. But they are also filling an existential need. "Entrepreneurship by definition is a lonely venture," says Clear. "It makes sense that these conferences would be popping up in this space." Or as Gaignard explains it, "Ways to connect are abundant; community is scarce."

Grow Your Business with Westchester Networking for Professionals

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit:  Andrea Ucini


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business networking association dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs develop, expand and grow. We offer affordable opportunities to help create a positive impact and advancement in your business interests and personal quality of life to take you to the next level. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!