Do you see what I see?
An important skill for any businessperson to have is the ability to detach themselves from their work and appraise it honestly.
Fantastic post from Seth Godin about preparing marketing collateral, where he writes:
A giant pitfall in the way small companies and individuals market themselves, particularly online or in presentations, is that they’re often cheesy, ugly or unreadable.
An important skill for any businessperson is the ability to detach themselves from their work and appraise it honestly. To not pretend to see it as others might see it, but to see it as it actually is. It is extremely difficult to do.
It is the same skill that allows successful businesspeople to outsource creative projects and respect the creative genius of their partners. I’ve met plenty of people operating in the SME sphere who believe their abilities exceed those of the people they’ve engaged. They’re almost always wrong.
As Godin says:
… the gap between the one-eyed man and the blind is pretty big.