Thursday, April 7, 2011

What magazine purchase can teach you about opportunity scouting

There is this regular business magazine that I purchase on monthly basis during my shopping trips to the regular supermarket that I shop at. For past 4 weeks  I have been on the look out for the March edition of the magazine every time I stood at the cashier counter for the grocery payment. Couple of times I've made casual inquiries and the cashier staff response was "sorry sir it is not available".

Since it was not one of those do or die things I did live without it till today. However during my usual walks down the crowded streets of Colombo to my surprise I came across a pavement hawkers who was selling newspapers had not only the March issue but also the April issue. I ended up buying both. But reflections on the incident over lunch reinforced an important lesson.

On most occasions we miss potential opportunities in business and in life because they are not visible from the path we usually take similar to my weekly supermarket trips. While it is the regular usual path we always take  it makes lot of sense to deliberately "take a walk down the road less travelled" to identify opportunities.


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