INNOVATE

In the last post, we discussed the necessity of taking a moment sometimes to look at your performance and your priorities. It’s important to keep stock of what’s going on around you, to have a sense of the big picture, and to always make sure you’re on the right track. Innovation can be as simple as the small course-corrections we all make that ensure we’re going where we want to go. Other times, it can be taking a bold step in an entirely new direction.

Trying something new can be scary, even for the most risk-friendly entrepreneur. People are creatures of habit, after all, and we’ve all heard the conventional wisdom that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ But as business owners and leaders, we don’t live in our comfort zone the way most people do. I’d like to offer some counter-advice:

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide

You are not the same person you were when you first started your business. You’ve grown and evolved, and hopefully so has your business. If something isn’t working, it’s important to be bold enough to make necessary changes. If your customers are consistently telling you that they don’t want the product you have as it stands, but if you were to tweak it in certain ways, they’d love it, then you have a clear direction to steer yourself in. Leaders are always looking for ways to improve — themselves, their products, their teams, their business — and to innovate. It’s essential to remaining at the top of your game.

Innovation and marketing it to your customers are how you develop customers, create new customers and bring others back to you. Marketing creates sales, and sales are essential for your bottom line, and satisfied customers are how you measure your success, as we discussed earlier in this series. Make this a priority, and you won’t go far wrong.

For further suggestions on how to prioritise your business and grow as a leader, don’t forget to read over the rest of this series on ACCELERATING your business through LEADERSHIP. Subscribe to the mailing list so you don’t miss a single post – and claim your free report ‘The Five Essentials of Sales’ at The Business Accelerant!