Doug DavidoffWhat if your business could accomplish things you never thought it could accomplish? What if you could create a completely different business model than the one you have right now? What if you could start charging for those services that you are giving away for free? What if...?
Building and sustaining a fast-growth business is difficult and complicated. Our abilities are constantly being challenged, and often, it never appears as if there is time to rest. Unfortunately, this can cause tunnel vision or we can become myopic. When that happens, it becomes more difficult to do what needs to be done.
The best immunization against this myopia is to ask yourself impossible questions frequently. One of the best impossible questions is, what if? Another is, how would we do it? Don’t short-circuit your thinking by considering all of the reasons you wouldn’t be able to accomplish your what-if. Suspend your disbelief. Make your brain stretch far into the future. Pretend that the obstacles don’t exist. How would you do it and what would the impact be.
This does not mean that you should embark on implementing your what if (although it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t either). Just asking yourself the questions from time-to-time is enough. It keeps your brain geared into what’s possible.
I remember when I started Imagine Business Development and I was coaching 10 clients. I asked myself, “what if we could coach 10,000 clients – how would we do that?” For quite awhile, I didn’t think we could (I’m still not sure that we can but we’re getting there). Simply asking the question, however, kept my mind open to what is proving to be an effective growth model.
There’s another advantage to asking these types of questions. It helps protect you from tomorrow’s competition. What if someone, somewhere (maybe in their basement or their garage) is asking themselves these questions? Wouldn’t it behoove you to get the answer first?