A couple blog posts ago I shared about an e-book, “10-Minute Business Success“. I have been reading it and came across one of the discussions which was very thought provoking.

Paul Lemberg said this,

People ask the question, ” How do I generate breakthroughs?” I’m asked this question all the time, “How do I generate breakthroughs?” And the answer is always, “Look at the things you don’t know.” And that’s hard for people to do, right?” You don’t know what you don’t know.

But that’s where the breakthroughs are. Everything that you know is already incorporated into your business, which may not be bad…

It made me think of a couple things. Some people don’t know much about networking or, for example, the Rainmakers model of networking. They might say, “Networking, I don’t get it, I’m not interested and I don’t have the time.” And that might prevent them from trying to learn about it.

Another area might be something like twitter or facebook or other “social networking” relms. I was pretty much not going to do any of “that stuff” until another photographer talked about how it worked for him. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And it is likely that getting to the next level takes “Looking at and trying things you don’t know.”

Last of all, I just met with a small business owner who has been building his business for many years. He is considering REACH magazine advertising, but it is not something he knows. The things that have built his business to this point are the things he knows and there is a reluctance to try something different. Even when I was able to show him REACH ads from other markets that were helping his same category of businesses to grow, he is reluctant to give it a try because it is something that he doesn’t know. I now have businesses which I work with grow from being Dayton only businesses to becoming multi-city enterprises and tell me that REACH is the backbone of what they have been able to do. They were willing to give it a fair try and look at the results.

Each of us have things that we need to try even when are uncomfortable or we feel like we don’t “get it.” But, sometimes when we go ahead and try something that we don’t know, it becomes the very thing that takes us or our business to the next level.

YOU don’t know what you don’t know!

If you have not visited a Rainmakers networking event, give it a try. If you are not doing facebook and twitter, give it a try. If you are a business that serves consumers and you have never tried REACH magazine, give it a try. You don’t know what you don’t know and that is what makes it hard, but I have seen each of these things take businesses to the next level.