What's the difference between advice and perspective?

Advice, especially business advice, is a form of guidance or recommendation to improve a future outcome. We often seek the advice of friends or family when faced with difficult decisions, hoping they've experienced something similar.

Advice is something that is best taken from an expert. For example, if you're creating a new company or filing for a patent, you'll want to seek legal advice from a lawyer - an expert in their field.

When seeking counsel from someone else, most people seek practical, actionable steps to accomplish a task or solve a problem they haven't faced before.

There's a problem, though.

For small business owners, advice is not always universal or helpful. Your business is unique and specific to you. Your problems may be similar to situations that others have encountered, and some advice may help you arrive at a solution, but at the end of the day, you're the expert in your business.

The strengths, weaknesses, problems, and solutions that will help your small business may not be the same as everyone else in your industry. Instead, they may be unique to you!

This is where perspective comes in.

Perspective is how you think about your problems. It's the lens through which you view your business, the point of view that you take when approaching a problem.

Who can give you perspective when you need it most? How can you leverage other people's perspectives to quickly and confidently solve problems in your business?

The Perspective of a Community

While every business is unique and faces individual challenges, the foundation of your company may be similar to those of others.

We often view other businesses as competitors; we're protective over our clients and the share of the market we've been able to capture.

The truth is the market is vast. Instead of being viewed as competitors, other business owners in your industry can become invaluable resources. Investing in a community in your industry can result in fresh perspectives and the insights you need to take your business to the next level.

There are always going to be business owners who run more prominent, more successful companies. By engaging with them and creating a collaborative relationship, you'll find an opportunity for growth.

Perhaps these small businesses have been built using a revolutionary way of operating. Maybe the way they think about marketing their company is distinctly different than yours.

A community of small business owners holds infinite opportunities for a new perspective.

The Perspective of a Financial Business Coach

Working with a coach to scale your small business is vital for a fresh perspective.

An excellent coach is a knowledgeable partner that provides specific, actionable advice and perspective by asking questions and becoming familiar with your business.

A financial business coach helps provide a deep understanding of the performance of your business and how to grow and scale effectively, all while identifying ways to improve from a financial perspective.

Business coaches help their clients take a step back from the day-to-day operations of their organization and look at things from a high-level view. They help small business owners dig into questions like:

What are the biggest problems that the business is currently facing?

How can the current team work towards solving these issues most effectively?

What's your business's overarching goal, and how will you achieve it?

Many business owners find themselves trapped inside their businesses. Instead of growing a profitable organization that thrives on its own, we find ourselves operationally stuck.

Working with an excellent business coach that helps you take a step back, ask big-picture questions, and provide a relevant perspective to solving those questions is incredibly effective.

Instead of remaining stuck in your business, you find freedom again!