Look at Your Business with New Eyes

Over the last week I've had a real epiphany of sorts - and it has implications for me personally as well as professionally. Its effect has been so profound that I actually took the week off to let it totally sink in. I never take an unscheduled week off - so it really is a profound experience for me and I want to share it with you.

This epiphany began with a simple quote that I found when I was doing research for my weekday ezine (JumpStart!). Here's the quote from Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

The meaning behind this powerful quote for business owners, entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals is extremely important. The following list represents a short list of implications.

• Instead of looking for new and different targets for offering your products and services, consider looking at your products and services through different eyes to get a different perspective of how these products and services can be used - differently than they are currently being marketed.
• Instead of looking for new employees, consider the current (or former) employees and look at them with new eyes in order to strengthen your business with their support and skill sets.
• Instead of throwing out the old ideas for marketing, look at those old ideas with fresh eyes and make simple changes in order to make them work this time.
• Instead of looking for the new and different, simply use fresh eyes to see what is really in your business plan - and make it work better.
• Look at your business plan and review it with different eyes. What do you think of it now? What changes need to be made? What is your mission? What is your vision?
• Refuse to be locked in to your business structures and look at everything about your business with new eyes. New eyes can make all the difference in your bottom line for 2007.

This quote may not be so profound to you right now; however, I cahllenge you as a business owner, entrepreneur, or self-employed professional to use this simple quote as a tool to look at your business (the organization itself) with a freshness and a newness that can create exponential growth for you over the next months.

What does your business look like through new eyes?