Perspective is a funny thing.  I recently went on holiday with my husband and whilst we were away, he decided he wanted to go for a run. He had forgotten to bring his sports armband which allows him to run listening to music from his phone, so he borrowed mine. A fairly unremarkable event in itself! Until he returned to our apartment and I noticed he was wearing it upside down.  He’d done this because it meant the headphone cable came out of the top of the case directly up to his ears rather coming out the bottom and curving up as it does when I wear it. It had just never occurred to me to wear it the other way around. It was a mini revelation!

I noticed something similar recently on Instagram. A friend of mine was participating in a photo challenge. The challenge for day two was to photograph something red. So she posted the following photo:

It fitted the challenge, but then this was the exchange between her and her fellow challenger:

And this was the revised photo:

All it took was a different perspective to use the same idea to achieve a different result.

This is important throughout life and especially in business. I am lucky enough to have business partner to bounce ideas off, but when it came to our marketing strategy, we were both unsure of how best to proceed.  So, we engaged a marketing professional – not only did it give us a focussed plan for our overall marketing strategy but by having the input of a third person, it identified clear goals for our business and how we wanted to shape it in the future.

When you’re a sole trader or business owner it can be difficult to know where to go to get that alternative perspective. That’s where networking and reliable business connections come in – people who understand what running a business is like but aren’t so immersed in your business that they can see things in a different way.  Who knows, that different perspective might plant the seed for your next amazing product or service!

Where do you go for support and to test your business ideas?

“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew