Avoiding ‘Business Blind Spots’ Taking You By Surprise

The business world is a fickle place, and moves faster than you may realize. For this reason, even companies with established pedigree have to keep innovating and developing in order to match the tide, lest they become washed away by the ocean of competition trying to take their place.

This usually means that reinvesting in your business and making sure that you’re hitting your pre-measured goals is essential. It’s also important to care for considerations like the goodwill your brand is able to generate, and the satisfaction of your customers.

Yet even the most skilled team and the most insightful leader can sometimes make mistakes. For this reason, it’s important to be as flexible as you can, even if you’re just running a small business. Often, avoiding business blind spots is key.

A ‘business blind spot’ refers to the issues and considerations that you may not be entirely aware of that can sneak up on you and cause damage in the long run. In this post, we’ll make recommendations so you can consider them yourself:

The Online Conversation

It’s healthy to understand what people are saying about your business online, because you might not be aware of it, but there’s a good chance that somewhere, reviews are being written, or some sentiment is being shared. For instance, it might be that searching your brand name into the Twitter search bar helps you see someone complaining or praising your service. You may or may not choose to reply to it, but it can help you get an individual account you may not have otherwise. 

For some, Google Business ratings can persuade or dissuade someone from using your business. It could be that publicly replying to these reviews gives you the chance to seem professional, willing to take criticism, resolve errors, and thank good publicity. Without that, you’ll never have a chance to positively influence or learn from the online discourse surrounding your brand.

Logistical Necessities

The logistical necessities of your brand are worth thinking of in advance, because without a stringent system, at least outsourced, then deliveries, cargo transferral, and supply chains could be affected. Often, curating your own in-house logistical effort can make a major difference. Hiring a fleet manager, purchasing a few trucks, and laying out your essential coverage area may help you. But make sure that the insurance and legal necessities are prepared for, especially the latter, as your truck accident lawyer can help you resolve disputes and issues carefully, cleanly, and with limited impact on your business. This way, even complex networks can be run with care.

Competition

Keeping an eye on the competition in your local business environment is essential. Some firms can avoid doing that for a variety of reasons. First off, they might not care, or want to measure their progress with other firms that might have different goals than they do. Second, they may decide that constantly fixating on others in the industry will hinder their own creative potential. Lastly, it might be that some other firms are doing much better than we are despite serving a similar market at a similar size, and that can be demotivating. Of course, it could just be that they’ve failed to do this out of ignorance or poor organization.

No matter what, it’s good to know who the players in your field are. It will help you identify your own unique selling point, and the inspiration by which you’ll develop and innovate. This also gives you the impetus to research:

A Changing Market

When Apple came out with its first iPhone, Blackberry were at the top of their game. Not only were they known as an executive phone, but the consumer market was growing. When iPhone apps started to be developed, Blackberry felt that the feature was a gimmick, that smartphone apps couldn’t provide anything more useful than what you could already do within their browser. Since then, it’s easy to see that Blackberry’s failure to innovate towards a changing market, or respond with their own innovations, lost them the market share they had worked so hard to achieve.

While it might not be that your firm is working with such a large audience or at such a pinnacle of the market, your audience will change, as will their needs, and it’s important for your company to have that flexibility and foresight. In other words - it’s important to curate vision.

With this advice, you’re certain to avoid the business blind spots taking you by surprise.

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