You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

There’s a lot of stuff most of us don’t know about how to run our businesses. The stuff we don’t know limits our forward progress.

The problem is that we think we know what to do. At least we’ve convinced ourselves that we have all the right answers.

The truth of the matter is that what’s holding you back from moving yourself and your business forward, may be you. You think you know it all.

Your decision to liberate you from, well, yourself is a matter of deciding to learn new stuff. It’s a matter of being open to ideas that will test the foundations upon which you thought you were structuring your business and your career.

The folks with the right answers are the people who seek input from others. These are owners and leaders who reach out to consultants like me to bring light into their dark business places, help them make hard business calls and direct them out of some pretty messy business scenarios.

The truth of the matter is that no one person “knows it all.” Not you, not me, not your senior sales person, not the folks in your company who are older than you are, not the thought-leader pundits, not the academicians.

I recently attended a panel discussion on cybersecurity at the 2014 The Big M Event in Detroit. I was struck by how much these experts knew. I also was struck by how willing these experts were to concede that a lot of their precautions were theoretical and predictive.

That’s a sobering thought.

As one of these experts expressed: You don’t know what you don’t know… until it happens. Then you find out all the stuff you didn’t know.

Are you poised to respond to the scenario which showcases what you don’t know?

How many of you run your businesses to be predictive? How many of you run your businesses with that type of collaborative, proactive, and anticipatory mindset?

Far too many small to midsized businesses are constantly apologizing to customers while they fix all the stuff that went out the door wrong.

You already knew about all of that stuff. You just decided not to address it and hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt you. It always does.

Take the time to reflect about what you know…. And what you think you know…. And what you don’t know.

Then take the steps to do something positive which addresses all three scenarios. The difference is in the sustainability of your business.

Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, catalyzes business transition, startup growth, and professional development. She works with non-traditional sellers like engineers, manufacturers, and technical startups to create sustainable business models and revenue strategies. To read more about collaboration strategies that help you address what you don’t know, check out  my book, Do YOU Mean Business.