I recently came across a photo of a sheep going the opposite way amongst a flock of sheep, walking towards a cliff, saying “scuze-moi” as she pushes through the crowd.

Looking at that sheep, there are two things that come to mind. One, she has a perspective that the others don’t have. The other is that she seems to have the courage, or the gumption (or stubbornness) to actually do something to create a different future for herself.

What's your cliff?

In the case of many business owners, the cliff is commoditization. In many industries, businesses are finding it more difficult to differentiate themselves from a host of competitors with seemingly similar offerings. The effect over time is that they end up increasingly having to compete on the basis of price, often giving more away for free and working harder to get less in return.

The “flock” is made up of those who are working so hard from day to day to keep things going that they have little time to think about the bigger picture. While business owners are anything but sheep, there are many who see their businesses and their offerings being turned into commodities, and either don’t recognize that it’s happening or don’t know what to do about it.

Knowingly or unknowingly, they’re heading toward a future that will be increasingly unsatisfying, and they feel, for any number of reasons, that it’s out of their control.

The opportunity to be different.

Similar to the lone sheep, however, there are some businesses who are making the choice to do things differently, even if it means pushing against the crowd.

Often it’s because they’ve seen what’s coming and realize that the long-term suffering of continuing along the same path is worse than the short-term suffering associated with shifting directions now.

While others are fighting it out for increasingly smaller margins, a few smart entrepreneurs are finding ways to break into markets where there is effectively no competition.

The dilemma is that it can seem very risky to venture into new territory when you’ve been used to doing business a particular way for a long time, even if you are beginning to see that that way doesn’t work as well as it used to.

Most people want equality for everyone … except themselves.

They do want everyone to be treated fairly, but they also long to have a special advantage in the world. So where can you get that advantage?

Communicating the value of what you deliver, recognising that time is about quality not quantity or discovering that just cutting costs, is a self defeating strategy, are some of the outcomes that are discovered by focusing on what drives change and growth in your business.

What drives change?

Change happens not by saying “I want to change” it requires three things.

A level of Dissatisfaction, the ability to Visualise the future you want and a Plan to guide you towards that vision.

• How dissatisfied are you with where your business is at?
• What's your vision for the future?
• Have you got a plan to make it happen?