Get help seeing your business from another angle

See your business from the outside if you feel stuck or are overlooking opportunities. In this video from 2010, I talk about helping capable business owners ask questions they hadn’t spotted themselves.

See your business from the outside as an ordinary customer

I’d been in Las Vegas with an online advertising agency. The owner was smart and perfectly capable, but found it difficult to get some distance from the business he worked in every day.

The agency offered lots of different things. I felt the message was getting muddled. Together, we worked on finding a clearer direction so it was easier to understand what the company stood for.

We also looked at how much depended on the owner. Could some things be simplified so employees could handle more questions without him always needing to be available?

I need other people’s perspective too

I regularly ask people what they think of what we’re doing at Amino. Users’ emails and comments can make me notice something I’ve taken for granted.

It’s like proofreading. If I’ve written a newsletter myself, I don’t always see my own mistakes. Someone else can spot them immediately.

Find someone who dares to challenge you

My advice was to bring in someone who wasn’t already part of the project. Friends and family may be fond of you and have heard so much about the idea that they overlook the obvious too.

Find someone who dares to ask why you do things a particular way. It can be annoying to hear, but an honest question can be exactly what helps you move forward.

It isn’t about the other person knowing everything better. It’s about getting an angle that’s hard to find when you’re right in the middle of it all.

Also read about getting fresh eyes on your project.

And thanks to Green-line for the T-shirt and extras 🙂

A T-shirt and two very different companies

First, thanks to Green-line, which sells electrical products, for today’s T-shirt. I explain that I don’t get paid for these sponsorships. People send me a T-shirt. This time, it also came with a nice key ring, wine gums and an offer of good discounts. That’s perfectly fine.

I’ve just come home from Las Vegas, where I worked with a company for a couple of days. It was an online advertising agency doing everything from Google AdWords and SEO to video production and various other things.

The owner was a very smart guy who was perfectly capable. His challenge was seeing things from the outside. That’s hard when you’re right in the middle of your own company.

A few weeks earlier, another smart man had also visited me here for a couple of days. His business was an online portal. It wasn’t doing badly, but he wanted to work on how it could make money and grow. I also had some people coming in January whom I’d help in the same way.

What makes these people say: Martin, would you spend a day or two looking at my business from the outside? They’re all smart. It’s not their abilities I’m questioning.

Other people’s emails act as my own focus group

I use other people’s perspective myself all the time. At Amino and elsewhere, I regularly ask: What do you think of this? Is it a good idea?

I get an incredible number of emails from people with an opinion on everything we do at Amino and on what I do myself. I listen to them a lot.

In a way, it’s my focus group, although I’m not particularly fond of focus groups as such. I’m lucky so many people look at my business from the outside and assess it. Others don’t necessarily have that opportunity.

And if the smart people I help looked at my business, they’d probably find plenty of things too. The difference is that they’re outside while I’m inside.

I ask whether it fits the audience

I’m good at looking at things as an ordinary customer. I’m not a specialist geek and say myself I’m not particularly good at anything. On the other hand, I have broad knowledge and can step outside the internal way of seeing the company.

Then I ask, for example: You say this is your target audience. So why do you do it this way?

At the company in Las Vegas, I thought they did too many different things. When they said they could do five or six things, the message became muddled. My suggestion was to bring it together a little and find a particular direction.

We found that direction together over those couple of days. We worked on making the company much more sharply focused.

The owner needed to be able to go away without the phone ringing constantly

The business also depended heavily on the owner. If he went away for a week, the phone rang all the time.

We gradually found ways to simplify the company. The idea was for the phone to ring less and for employees to handle things themselves when it did.

At the same time, in my view, we laid the foundations for a more focused brand. Over time, that was meant to allow higher prices, less work and a more profitable business. That was the direction we were working towards; the video doesn’t report later measured results.

The point of the story isn’t to sell myself. I have plenty to do. I want to show why letting others look at your business can be a really good idea. It doesn’t have to be some know-it-all father figure like me. It could be many other people.

Friends and family are already wrapped up in the project

I say very bluntly that it shouldn’t be friends and family. In my view, they’re often cheerleaders who don’t say things as they see them.

They’ve also heard about the project all along. So they’re wrapped up in it just like you. They already take some things for granted and assume everyone knows others.

I want a completely new person who doesn’t already know the business or me. Someone who can ask: Why the hell are you doing it this way?

I have lots of light-bulb moments myself when I ask other people those questions. They point something out, and I think: Why the hell am I actually doing that? How stupid is that?

It’s like proofreading an Amino newsletter

You can’t properly proofread your own work. If I’ve written an Amino newsletter, I always get someone else to read it through.

Otherwise, I miss my own spelling mistakes and problems. I already know what I meant to say, so I don’t always notice what’s actually written.

The same can happen with your company. Perhaps you feel you need to move forward but can’t put your finger on what’s missing. You’re not really developing anymore.

Find someone who dares to give you a kick up the backside

So try inviting someone into your life who dares to speak their mind and challenge both the business and the business idea. Someone who can give you a kick up the backside and see things from the outside.

They need to be able to say you’re heading in the wrong direction or perhaps working in the wrong industry. It can really hurt and wound your feelings. But that’s exactly the honest, unreserved opinion I want to bring out.

I greatly enjoy helping others that way. I also benefit from letting others look over my shoulder, even though I can get absolutely furious when they point out something I haven’t seen myself.

I ought to be able to see that myself, I think. But I can’t always. That’s why I need fresh eyes too. You can also find my experiences of developing companies in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

Best wishes, Martin SPAMfighter Att. Martin Thorborg 433 Plaza Real, Suite 275 Boca Raton, Florida 33432 USA

The address above is the original address from 2010.