Three tips to identify good business ideas and help your small business succeed.
One of the most valuable assets that any company can possess is an inexhaustible source with creative people who generate worthwhile ideas for developing services, products and even new businesses.
Since every business, from the smallest family to the largest transnational, starts with a “good” idea, you might think that good ideas flow like a mighty river in every business. Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. There are surprisingly few ideas that have the potential to succeed and advance — not only in business, but in general.
Encouraging your employees – or yourself – to have a mindset to generate good business ideas like growing a crop. This requires directed efforts not only to implement good ideas when they arise, but also to lay the foundation for promoting good ideas in the first place.
Never fear: following these three simple tips for promoting creative thinking will remove the vibrations and fear that surround this topic.
Three tips to identify good business ideas and help your small business succeed.
1. Expose yourself
Good ideas are rarely, if ever, created in a vacuum. An idea is born from our interactions with the world. Alfred Hitchcock often said: “Ideas come from everywhere!” Whether you call it “encouragement,” “influence,” or “inspiration,” you must definitely expose yourself to the thoughts and ideas of others. Only by observing your surroundings will you find a spark to create ideas that will change your surroundings.
Practice this: finding inspiration for your next great idea can be as close as your closest book, MP3 player, or internet connection.
Regardless of your area of interest, you can find books and written articles on the subject dedicated to this podcast, or videos covering various aspects. But do not stop there! Try to attend group meetings on this topic, go to exhibitions, meet new people at the conference, so that your ideas generator starts!
If you have a problem with generating ideas, then read our material on how to come up with ideas for business
2. Sew the mare’s tail
“Stay on topic” is a common phrase used at project meetings, where we often come together to share ideas and progress. However, this may be one of the worst tips if you are looking for a new idea.
Where to get money to start your own business? It is this problem that 95% of beginning entrepreneurs face! In the article “Where to get money for a business” we revealed the most relevant ways to get start-up capital for an entrepreneur. We also recommend that you carefully study the results of our experiment in exchange earnings: “see the results of the experiment”
Instead, try looking for a solution to this issue in unrelated topics. Very often we either think that our problem is not as unconnected as we initially thought, or we find inspiration in a little distraction from intensive problem solving.
Practice this: the next time you find yourself sabotaged, wanting to catch this elusive answer, try to accept something completely opposite to your current line of thought.
If you are looking for new features to add to a product, take a moment and consider what might have been removed. Look for answers in the animal kingdom to solve a technical problem, or try to concentrate on the form for a moment instead of function.
A group of designers who somehow worked on the design of the phone paid attention to consider removing the keyboard, instead of making it better, and so the iPhone was born.
3. Come up with 1000 stupid ideas
The best way to promote ideas is to have them. Possessing ideas requires practice in much the same way as the baseball server practices throwing the ball. The server must throw a huge number of balls in order to get just a few perfect innings and develop the muscle memory necessary to make the throw better.
Similarly, in order for you to have great ideas, you must have bad ideas – and a whole lot! It is productive and it will give your imagination muscle memory to generate more ideas faster and with a higher success rate. Therefore, never be afraid of bad ideas.
Practice this: the most common obstacle to bad ideas is the fear of criticism.
Practice your ideas without witnesses until you are ready to make this public. Sit at your table or in your car and blur out the first thing that comes to mind. Write it down and do not stop there, but rather, move on to the next bad idea. In the end, you will find that good ideas creep into your list of bad ideas, and that this process is becoming less and less shameful.
Every year, it is becoming more and more important to contribute to the creative processes that bring innovation to our global economy.
