Radical Thinking
When was the last time you thought about taking your business to new and heady heights, but didn’t actually get any further? Don’t worry, you are not alone.
There’s plenty of business owners out there who let their brains stand in the way of fundamental changes in their business. We either think that we can’t do it, or we don’t know how to do it. Sound familiar?
If you want to do more than grow incrementally then you need to get into some radical thinking. It’s pretty easy to set a goal of selling 10% more, or getting 5 more customers. This is what I call an incremental target (meaning….just a little bit more than last time). This is better than not having any targets, but it does tend to leave you well inside your comfort zone.
Let’s talk about radical targets.
To achieve a radical target implies completely altering the ways things are done, and potentially introducing a new paradigm into the business. To set a radical target you need to make a leap of faith and suspend the part of your brain that reminds you you don’t know how to achieve it.
Setting radical targets that you don’t know how to meet can result in creative and “out of the box” solutions. It’s unlikely that you’ll achieve them without major changes to the way the business is run. And that’s the whole point. This ongoing search for innovation and different approaches can keep the business fresh and a step ahead of your competitors.
Here’s some examples of radical targets to inspire you:
- Double the net profit of the business within 12 months
- Become internationally known as a specialist in your field
- Shift the business model from 100% face to face to 80% web enabled
- Create a product set that generates enough passive income to sustain you and is completely automated and on-line
Now that you’ve set your radical targets you can start imagining how to make them happen.This will force you to totally rethink aspects of how your provide your product or service. Start with an open mind – just because you’re not sure how to achieve it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. If you even get half way to your radical targets, you will be a much further ahead than if you had never set them. Expand your world, and aim to set at least 2 radical objectives somewhere in your business plan.
