For a driver, a blind spot is an area not easily seen. It may be the area the mirrors miss, either beside or behind the driver...or is simply forgotten by the driver. Accidents occur when the driver changes lanes and there is another car in their blind spot. In some cases, the other car is hit or forced to take evasive action and possibly causes a bigger accident.
Anatomically, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, says:
In anatomy, one's blind spot is the region of the retina where the optic nerve and blood vessels pass through to connect to the back of the eye. Since there are no light receptors there, a part of the field of vision is not perceived. The brain fills in the gaps with surrounding detail and with information from the other eye, so the blind spot is not normally perceived.
As humans (and executives!), we have blind spots in our lives and businesses as well, and these blind spots cause all sorts of trouble. A senior manager brought us in to work with her team. Her vision was a high-performing team that was efficient and happy. What she had was a group of people fighting, missed deadlines, and employee turnover. And each saw themselves as a "victim" of somebody else's misbehavior. As a first step, we gave her team leadership assessments which showed their strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles, then helped her team see their blind spots.
One person in particular, "Jim", caused a great deal of dissention because he had his own way of doing things and was unable to see (or accept) there were also other ways to accomplish the task. By forcing his style on others, instead of working together, the team members became sullen and frustrated. After we did some exercises to clarify the team blind spots and prove the power of hearing and validating everyone's ideas, her team started working together.
Let's take this idea away from the workplace. In an orchestra, one person playing slightly out of tempo can destroy the beauty of the music. When everyone plays at the same tempo and plays the proper notes, beautiful music is created. A blind spot in this case is when the off-tempo person believes they are right and refuses to follow the conductor. Sometimes the answer is to work directly with the individual; sometimes they have to be removed.
So how do you know where your blind spots are? Blind spots aren't bad--they simply exist. Once you find your blind spot, you can put a "mirror" (process) in place to make sure it doesn't cause you further trouble. The following is a list of typical blind spots (you'll probably want to add others from your own experience.) As you think about each item, ask yourself, "How does this cause me grief?" "How does this get in my way or slow me down?"
• Not listening to another person's complete statement and jumping to conclusions about what they were going to say.
• Looking at a situation and immediately judging it as "right" or "wrong" before getting all the facts (Judgments create a blind spot - automatically!)
• Impatience with people who like to talk or talk too much
• Frustration with people who are less conscientious, systematic, conservative and task-oriented than you
• Tolerations...which are the little things that cause momentary irritation you are meaning to "fix". For example, a broken chair, messy desk, chronically losing keys, etc.)
• Rushing those who have a more patient approach
• Looking at your own needs and not asking others about theirs
• Quickly labeling situations or people
• Putting up walls against feedback (especially "negative" feedback)
Understanding yourself, the way you think and react under pressure, is crucial to getting an accurate idea of your blind spots. Start by asking these questions:
What is my behavior style and how do I handle problems, people, pace, and procedures?
How does my behavior style work or not work with my teams styles?
What are my values and how am I motivated?
What comments and feedback do I hear from others? What do I do with it?
What feedback am I ignoring?
Blind Spots -- (If you don't check your mirrors, you're going to crash…)
Best Small Business Idea -- Get Focused And Get Going
I used to give a talk titled, “10 Ways to Overcome Overwhelm in Business and In Life”. It was an excellent resource for getting into action and taking charge of your business. If you’d like a copy, just email me and I’ll send it to you. After I’d given this talk for awhile, I realized that getting out of overwhelm was even simpler. You don’t need 10 ideas. That’s overwhelming in itself. You just need one essential key. If you can master this one key, you can pretty much get whatever you want out of your business and your life. Here it is. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Focus.
That’s right, focus. When you are entirely focused on what you are doing in the moment, you don’t have any attention left for being in overwhelm. Focus and overwhelm are opposites. Think about it. You are overwhelmed because you are thinking about all the things you’ve got to get done today, tomorrow, and the day after. You aren’t solidly focused in the present moment doing what’s in front of you. But when you are stuck in overwhelm, it’s really hard to get focused. So what can you do?
It’s actually very simple. Get back to basics. Go back to your core values, your mission statement, your vision. Stop right now and think about the vision you had for your business when you first started it. What did you want to accomplish? Why did you want to do it? Were you looking for freedom? Did you have a better way of helping people? Completely let yourself be absorbed in the dream you had. Feel how it was when you started. Now you are focused. Take this vision and write it down again. Go into detail about what you really want to do with your business.
Now from this focused state, get into action. It should be much more clear to you now what the most important tasks are. Focus your energy on those and get going. Any time you start feeling overwhelmed, stop and go back to your dream, your vision. Ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. Really feel it and then start again. I guarantee you this will get you focused and get you out of overwhelm. Now you can get what you really wanted out of your business.
Are You Going To Win? Constantly Qualify Your Opportunities
Constant qualification is the process of continuously evaluating all of your opportunities to check that you still want to and should be bidding. It is possible to get caught up in an opportunity that you are unlikely to win and that diverts valuable resources and time from other more suitable opportunities.
First off, you need to understand the importance of having a formal bid/no bid process. This is to help you understand when and why you should bid, and to make sure you avoid projects that you have a low probability of winning. Sometimes a decision is made early to bid but is that still the right decision as you learn more about the opportunity?
As you get greater understanding of the specification you may realise that it isn’t as suitable for you as you first imagined; circumstances change – an existing client may need a project extending and you haven’t got the required resources; or you find out that the client hasn’t got the budget that you thought they had. Although you’ve invested time in the opportunity that doesn’t mean it’s too late to get out.
With any opportunity, one thing you need to do is keep finding out more about it. Ask questions and learn about the clients true needs. This is done because you want to offer the client the best solution possible, but you are also finding out whether you can deliver that solution.
At regular points during the opportunity take a look back at your original decision to bid. Is it still the right decision now that you have more information available?
You should plan and use structured methodologies for qualification throughout the bidding process. This is to help you make objective decisions and to justify the time and resources spent pursuing the opportunity.
The Learn to Write Proposals (www.learntowriteproposals.co.uk) Prospect Qualification Tool gives you a methodology for making the first bid/no bid decision as well as being able to quantify the win probability as you progress through the bidding process.
This constant qualification also allows you to see where you need to strengthen your bid. You may want to continue with the opportunity but realise that you need to take action to strengthen a particular area of your bid. Constant qualification and evaluation allows you to keep your bid focused and moving in the right direction – towards the solution that the client needs.
Qualification and preparation are the least liked processes of contracting by the majority of people involved. However, it’s an accepted fact of life. No matter your personal feelings, you should lean from what you do and make any attempts necessary to better yourself.
Overall, the goal is constantly qualify to evaluate your win chances. Qualifying for those contracts give you a greater understanding of what your business needs to succeed. No other way can more effectively pinpoint the areas where you need to improve.
Before Going Into Business
1. Why should there be anyone would do business with you?
This could be the very first question that you must ask yourself before anything else. You got to demand yourself to an answer to this. Why the heck on earth would anybody pay for this “Junk” you’re selling? Yup, “Junk”, as I phrased it. It doesn’t matter how good your product is to be, to the eye of others, it’s just another piece of product in a sea pool of other similar products.
So, still be very proud of your product or service? Truly you’re 100% proud of it? You truthfully and deeply believe people would be dumb by NOT buying from you?
Well…you passed the first barrier! You’re ready to start go to next stage.
2. The basic business needs 3 things: Lawyer, CPA, and Creative or crazy fellow, which could very well be you.
Almost every business gets themselves for the first two. It’s understandably so. Good creative person are really hard to find, hard to manage, and you’ll never sure of what you’re paying for.
Every established and sizeable business knows the creative side plays a heavier weight than the lawyer and CPA. CPA’s and lawyers can help you when you are up there. But at the early stage when your business is still an infant, your business live or die depending on it’s business branding activities in areas like business identities, logos, marketing campaign, advertising copy and business slogans.
Now, are you NUTS enough? Have people been calling you NUTS?
If so, you are ready for the next stage! Do give yourself a “Cheers”!
3. Singing for Your Own? You Got To Promote Yourself In Every Possible Way.
Do all of them. Yes, Do whatever possible to get your business name to be up there! Get your Business Brand being noticed by others. There more the merrier!
Business can just comes and go so fast before anybody could hears of them. People are busy, what do they care? They don’t care about you and your business. Why should they care? Get serious. Do everything you can possibly and reasonably afford to do. But beware; you must not mislead others because it’ll backfire quickly enough to wipe your business off.
Do you “Sing for your own self”? Then you’ve passed! Move on to next stage…
4. Big Decision: Could You Win The Competition.
It’s very likely that you’re entering a crowded business market when you first started. Take a hard and closer look at what other fellows are doing; what your competitors are doing right now could affect your business greatly.
At this stage, you got to decide: Are you going for “Head to Head” fight? Competing on better quality? Crazier pricing strategy? Extra Mile Service Level? Better Marketing Campaign? or what else? Or you would avoid all that, and create you own niche, where you are the leader?
If you decided to be offering the same or very much similar product at the same price, but your marketing materials doesn’t look half as good as your competitors…hey, you’re in deep trouble! If you’re charging half compare to others, then it’s still alright to “Look” cheap, simply because you are the “Cheaper” alternative where people are looking for.
5. Marketing is basically just a matter Perception.
”Perception” is just another fancy word for thoughts. The thought by the public has in mind all about you and your “Good” or “Bad” business. Good salesmen control the perception more on personal level like putting on neat suit, very nice smile and sincere voice, firm handshake…etc.
And your business marketing campaign need to strive to achieve equivalent level of effects. And it needs to be at a more abstract level by means of having an attractive Business Name, Eye Catching Business Graphics, Professionally dressed-up staff. Any things that just might seduce and persuade a potential visitor to become a paying customer.
6. Your Business Identity; Your Business Equity.
The Business Name, the Logo, the projected Business Look, the public’s perception, recognition, or even affection if there is; these are critical to business success. Big businesses routinely pay big buck like million dollars for these aspects for the business.
Your Business Identity must be well organized to target at desired market. It’s what termed as the “Face” side, the side which public always sees first. Work on refining it so it works wonders. Improve it to get better and even better, and then protect it, and treasured like your beloved!
Yup, there are so many people who just bought a ready business. But every time they run a new marketing campaign, they tend to fall into trap of projecting a different business image and look. Really, don’t ever make such mistake like an amateur.
Consistently stick on to the business branding strategy that your have chosen on the very early stage. This is your Business Equity. By keep changing the business look, you’ll get the public confused, and worse still if they see that you don’t even have the basic respect for your business identity.
Don’t destroy the business equity; you need to be utmost concerned with your business image to the public. It has its own personality. It has to stand out from the rest. It has to send clear signal to the targeted market: “Here We are, Come To Us”, “Get Us Today”.
Do Love Your Business, just like you love yourself.
Going Wireless on Burglar Alarm
Burglars are commonly identified as thieves. They are the ones who break-in and enter a house or establishment to steal valuable items which can be useful for them. Save yourself from the trouble of going into a distressing situation which concern burglary. Previously there are different means and ways to combat burglars.
Some traditional ways to reduce burglary cases are (1) keeping your area visible by trimming shrubs and trees or other obstructions which may serve as hiding point for burglars ; (2) securing your home with locks from windows to gates and other possible entry point; (3) getting guard dogs as burglar lookouts. However with the advent of technology, burglar alarms were produced to easily entrap the housebreaker.
A burglar alarm is a type of electronically-devised alarm to keep intruders away from a home or establishment. It also signals the home owner that an intruder is present in their vicinity. These days there different types of burglar alarm which you can choose from. Burglar alarms are available to install on your doors, windows or even in a closed television circuit – wired or wireless.
Nowadays, more people find wireless burglar alarm to be most convenient. You do not need to add any extra wiring or do any rewiring once you opt to go for wireless burglar alarm. This type of alarm is designed in such a way that it will bring handiness to the installer as well as convey simplicity in the area where you are most likely to install it.
Additionally, you will also have the chance to save some money since there is no need for you to get a professional installation to fix your alarm wirings. Most wireless burglar alarms are easy to install and flexible. When you decide to transfer from one house to another, you can always bring your alarm with you.
Due to a wireless burglar alarm’s flexibility, you can have different alarm location preferences every now and then. You can place a wireless burglar alarm on doors and windows. Doors and windows are the common entry point of burglars hence it is strategic to put alarms on it.
There are various types of wireless burglar alarm which you can select from. If you have a home where walls and ceilings are made of glass, then a wireless burglar alarm glass break detector will be most helpful. On the other hand, there is a type of wireless burglar alarm which can detect smoke and motion. Security-camera is another type of burglar alarm which is wireless and also available on the market.
You can explore different types of wireless burglar alarm over the net. The specifications, its benefits and prices are readily available for you to go through. You may also opt to visit hardware stores within your area to check out the latest wireless burglar alarm they have. Make sure to choose a wireless burglar that will best protect your home.
Do not let any burglars have the opportunity to steal something away from you. Do not let them take away the things you have worked hard for. Most importantly, do not let them end the lives of your significant others.
Invest in a wireless burglar alarm. It may be a bit costly but the benefit it will bring you is long-lasting. After all, safety and peace of mind most often than not, precede money and everything else.