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Are Blind Spots Holding You or Your Organization Back?

by Darrell Law | Jul 26, 2019 | Leadership

Can a blind spot really cause any harm? Isn’t there a proverb that says ignorance is bliss?

Let me use an example that will help answer this question for us.

In the early 2000s, Blockbuster was a seemingly unbeatable behemoth in the video industry. At its peak, Blockbuster had over 9,000 outlets. I fondly remember my normal Friday evening ritual of stopping by our local Blockbuster after work to select two or three movies for the family to watch over the weekend. Unfortunately, I also remember the frequent late fees for not getting the movies back on time.

The local Blockbuster was always abuzz with activity. It never failed that I would run into someone I knew from church or the neighborhood. Often, I saw people in the aisles chatting with a friend they just bumped into. You also got to talk with complete strangers. There was always that person, without you asking, who gave their opinion concerning the movie you just picked up to read the back cover. I always felt awkward if I decided to rent the movie even after the person just spent 10 minutes telling me how bad the movie was. I wasn’t trying to offend the person, but hey, I thought it sounded like a great movie based on the description and cool cover.

At the time, Blockbuster was a part of life, but today only one remains in the world, and it’s in Bend, Oregon. Many industry experts say the demise of Blockbuster was due to their blind spots to the emergence of competition from Netflix, Redbox, and video on demand.

I believe this example answers the original question of how a blind spot can be harmful.

What is a blind spot? The term refers to the inability to see things that might be obvious to another observer. Individuals, ministries, and organizations can have blind spots.

Your spouse is often the person who can see the weaknesses or blind spots in your life. Unfortunately, we are typically not very receptive when they are pointed out. We need to humble ourselves and realize how important this information is.

This is why it is valuable to invite strategic consultants to help you discover your organization’s blind spots, provide outside perspective and insights, and develop a roadmap to fix them.

As a consulting agency, we must constantly stay abreast of current trends, technologies, methodologies, and techniques in the areas of fundraising, branding, public relations, media, and digital marketing so we can effectively help our clients.

Here are a few potential blind spots (Warning: remember they are blind spots, so you might not recognize them in your organization):

  • Branding blind spots: Communicating inconsistent or mixed brand messages which is causing confusion to your donors, and not staying true to your brand voice.
  • Data Analytics blind spots: Not tracking the key performance indicators for your organization. Recently, I asked a new client who hired us to do a digital donor acquisition campaign what their cost per donor was. This information would help us evaluate the success of the new digital campaign. The client had no idea how much it was costing them to acquire new donors. This was a major blind spot that was actually hurting them. We discovered their cost per new donor exceeded the average lifetime value of a donor.  Unfortunately, we see this data analytics blind spot quite frequently in organizations.
  • People blind spots: Not hiring the right people or putting people in the wrong role. Having the right team is essential for a successful organization. Our agency has conducted Team Dimensions workshops, DiSC testing, executive ministry leader searches, and other employee assessments to help our clients in this key area.
  • Market blind spots: You don’t have a clear understanding or are unaware of changing trends in the marketplace. For example, non-Christian organizations who attempted to reach and engage the Christian community on their own, but failed, because they did not know how to properly communicate and inspire the audience to action. Another example is being unaware of the changing trends of how your audience wants to engage and receive content from your ministry or organization (e.g., email, direct mail, phone, media, text, social media, on demand, etc.)

Remember the definition of a blind spot — the inability to see things that might be obvious to another observer. This is why it is beneficial to invite an outside consultant to help you identify any potential blind spots in your organization.
Proverbs 11:14 MEV

If you are interested in Infinity Concepts helping you discover the potential blind spots holding your organization back, then Let’s talk! Call us today at 724-733-1200.

P.S. Here’s a humorous short video clip that illustrates the concept of blind spot very well.

Darrell Law

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