Most of us naturally seek to avoid unnecessary inconvenience in our daily lives. However, sometimes, taking a step out of your comfort zone can really benefit your business.
Companies grow by continually innovating and expanding their product line and reach. This involves identifying and learning the shifts in the market and understanding how it changes over time. When you step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself, you learn new things and gain a whole new world of knowledge. With the right mindset in place, this will open up new opportunities both within and outside the business. You can then chose to explore and develop them, or shrink back into your comfort zone if the uncertainty becomes too much of an inconvenience.
My Story
When I first started growing my business, I realised that I needed to have specialised knowledge and expertise in order to succeed. I also realised that one person alone could not achieve this. I needed to branch out.
In order to progress and continue to add value to my clientele, I had to tap into the expertise of a team of people with different skill sets. At that time, I wanted to develop a team with global expertise so that I could gain insight into what was occurring across businesses in different countries, and correlate that to what was happening to local industries.
Creating a Global Team
I identified online tools like Elance and oDesk that were created to facilitate work across geographical boundaries. Although I saw the potential of what those tools could do, I was not comfortable with hiring a team who I could not meet face to face. However, deciding that the benefits of finding the right team outweighed my discomfort in hiring people whom I could not see, I decided to hire my first team member as a trial by posting what I wanted online.
This foray into the ‘unknown’ did not come without its challenges, but over time, much like the challenges in employing your own team locally, I managed to find a good group of people with whom I communicate regularly. Now, I have a team of people working with me who are located in multiple countries (including Australia), whom I can work with and draw from their expertise as and when required.
The Lesson
What happens if you choose not to emerge from your comfort zone? Your business will probably move along as it has always done for period of time. However, in an ever involving marketplace, it will only be a matter of time before your competition finds a way to do things better and more productively than you. Furthermore, the marketplace may alter to the point where the products and its delivery may change, catching you ‘off guard’ and potentially costing you money as well.
And a business which does not Grow starts to Shrink.
In my book ‘From $20K to $2million in 2 years”, I go into more detail about the common traits of successful business that I’ve worked with over the years, and the psychology of what makes them successful. If you want to get a copy for yourself, you can get a free preview here or purchase it here.