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You’re in it. Deep in it.
You’re staring at the same spreadsheet you’ve been looking at for three days straight. The numbers blur, the projected growth curve looks both wildly optimistic and terrifyingly inadequate, all at the same time. You’re agonising over whether to bring someone new on board, ramp up your advertising budget, or take a daring turn that could either propel your business forward or send it spiralling the other way.
We’ve all been there. As a small business owner, your world can shrink to the size of your laptop screen. You are the chief strategist, the head of finance, the marketing department, and sometimes the one who unblocks the toilet. This total immersion is a superpower, it’s what fuels your passion and drives you forward. But let’s be honest, it’s also a trap. You get so close to the details, so caught up in the day-to-day firefight, that you completely lose the ability to see the bigger picture. It's the classic case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Your own perspective, the very thing that built the business, becomes the one thing holding it back.
This is where the idea of an external sounding board comes in. It’s not about finding someone who knows your business better than you do, because nobody does. It’s about finding someone who doesn’t. It’s about borrowing a fresh pair of eyes and a clear, unbiased mind to help you navigate the fog.
In this post, we’re going to explore that idea. We will look at why an outside voice is not just a nice-to-have, but a critical tool for growth and survival. I want to help you discover the three questions every leader needs external help to answer, and how our mentoring delivers genuine clarity when you need it most.
Have you ever tried to solve one of those spot-the-difference puzzles? You can stare at two nearly identical pictures for ages, convinced they are the same. Then, someone walks past, glances over your shoulder, and immediately points out the tiny missing button on a coat. “How did you not see that?” they ask.
It’s infuriating, isn’t it? But they aren’t smarter than you. They just have a fresh perspective. They aren’t burdened by the ten minutes you already spent staring at the wrong part of the image.
Running a business is a lot like that, but with much higher stakes. Your team, no matter how brilliant, is in the puzzle with you. You all share the same history, the same assumptions, the same inside jokes, and crucially, the same blind spots. This is the breeding ground for groupthink, that quiet, dangerous consensus where everyone agrees because it’s easier than challenging the status quo or the boss. An external sounding board acts as that person walking past your shoulder. They arrive with no baggage, no preconceived notions, and no fear of asking the “stupid” question that turns out to be the most important one.
I remember working with a founder of a clever software-as-a-service business a few years back. He and his small team had built an incredible product. It was elegant, powerful, and technically brilliant. They were obsessed with adding new features, perfecting the code, and making it a masterpiece of engineering. But their growth had completely stalled. They were burning through cash and getting frustrated. When I came in, my first question was simple: “Who is this for, and what problem does it really solve for them?”
They looked at me like I had two heads. They launched into a long explanation of the features. I stopped them. “No, tell me about the person. What’s their job title? What keeps them up at night? Why would they choose you over just using a spreadsheet?”
There was a long, awkward silence. They had been so focused on the ‘what’ of their product that they had completely forgotten the ‘who’ and the ‘why’. They were building a solution for a problem they assumed existed, but they hadn't actually spoken to a potential customer in months. An outsider’s perspective forced them to get out of their own echo chamber. It was a painful realisation, but it was the one that ultimately saved their business. They pivoted their marketing, simplified their product to solve one specific problem brilliantly, and finally found their market. They were just too close to see it.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Research on cognitive biases in business is extensive. We all suffer from things like confirmation bias, where we only seek out information that confirms what we already believe. We’re also plagued by decision fatigue. The sheer number of choices a business owner makes in a single day is exhausting. Studies have shown that as the day goes on, the quality of our decisions plummets. We start to make shortcuts, to choose the easy option over the right one. An external mentor or sounding board isn’t immune to these things, but they come to your problem with a full tank of mental energy. Their only decision of the hour is to help you with yours. That focus is a game changer.
So, what are these big, unanswerable questions? They aren’t complex strategic riddles. In fact, they are deceptively simple. Their power lies in the fact that you are, by definition, the worst person in the world to answer them honestly for your own business.
Every business is built on a foundation of assumptions. Assumptions about your customers, your market, your competitors, your team, and your own capabilities. When you started, these assumptions were your best guesses, the hypotheses you set out to prove. But over time, they stop being hypotheses and start feeling like facts. They become so ingrained in your thinking that you don’t even notice them anymore. They are the water you swim in.
The problem is, the world changes. Your customers evolve. New competitors appear. And your foundational assumptions might now be dangerously out of date. An external sounding board has one primary job here: to poke holes in your reality. They are professional assumption hunters.
A good mentor does this not by telling you you’re wrong, but by asking probing questions that force you to examine the bedrock of your own strategy. Questions like:
These questions can feel uncomfortable. They are designed to be. They force you to step outside your own narrative and look at your business with the cold, hard eyes of a stranger. This is where the blind spots live. It might be a technological shift you’ve dismissed as a fad. It could be a simmering cultural issue within your team that everyone is too polite to mention. Or it might be a massive market opportunity that you’ve overlooked because it doesn’t fit your current, comfortable worldview. You can’t spot these things on your own because you are programmed not to. You’ve built your business by believing in your assumptions, and it takes an outside force to help you question them.
As entrepreneurs, we have to be optimists. It’s in our DNA. We see opportunity where others see risk. We believe in our vision with a passion that can move mountains. This optimism is what gets us out of bed in the morning and keeps us going when things get tough. But it has a dark side. It can make us terrible at assessing risk.
When you’re emotionally invested in an idea, a project, or a strategic direction, your brain actively works to downplay the potential negatives. You fall in love with the upside. The new product launch will be a huge hit! This big new client will solve all our cash flow problems! Expanding into a new market will double our revenue!
You create a best-case scenario in your head and then you start making decisions as if that scenario is a certainty. Your internal team often gets swept up in the same excitement. Nobody wants to be the voice of doom, the person who pours cold water on the founder’s passionate vision.
This is, frankly, one of the most valuable roles of an external sounding board. They can be the designated pessimist, without any of the internal political risk. Their job is to look at your beautiful, exciting plan and ask, “Okay, but what happens if it all goes wrong?”
They’ll push you to consider the downside. What if the product launch flops? What if the big client doesn’t pay on time? What if the new market is harder to crack than you thought? These aren’t fun questions, but they are necessary ones. A good mentor doesn’t just stop at identifying risks—they help you plan for them. They help you build contingencies, so you’re not blindsided if things don’t go as planned.
Look around at your team. If you’re a small business, chances are you’ve hired people who are a bit like you. People who share your values, who get your vision, who fit the culture. This is completely natural and it’s what creates a cohesive, fast-moving team. But it also creates a powerful echo chamber.
When everyone in the room comes from a similar background, has a similar level of experience, and thinks in a similar way, you dramatically limit the range of possible solutions and perspectives available to you. You might be missing the voice of the young, digitally native customer. You might be missing the voice of the cautious, experienced industry veteran. You might be missing the voice of someone from a completely different sector who could bring a revolutionary idea to your business.
An external sounding board, by their very nature, brings a different voice. They aren’t part of your culture. They aren’t invested in the internal politics. They can act as a proxy for those missing perspectives. They can challenge your thinking by asking, “Have you considered how your older customers might react to this change?” or “What would your most aggressive competitor do if they saw this plan?” or “From a purely financial perspective, does this emotional decision still make sense?”
Think about the one big decision you’re wrestling with right now. The one that keeps you up at night. Imagine having a dedicated session with an experienced business leader, focused entirely on that one challenge. Imagine walking away from that conversation with the one breakthrough idea or the one hidden risk that you just couldn’t spot on your own. That’s the power of an outside perspective.
Don’t let blind spots and internal echo chambers hold your business back from its true potential. Discover what a fresh set of eyes can do for your clarity and your confidence.
Book a free clarity session with our Business Sounding Board—walk away with at least one actionable insight you hadn’t considered.
This isn’t just another meeting. It’s a dedicated space to challenge your assumptions, validate your thinking, and find the clearest path forward.
What decision are you sitting on today that would benefit from an honest, outside perspective?
[Discover our 1-Hour Business Growth Coaching Session]
Additional Resources:
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