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How To Find New Ideas For Your Business?

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MAKSUD:
New ideas are the lifeblood of any business so it is significant to encourage creativity and to be truly innovative. But creativity and innovation are not the same.

Creativity is all about coming up with new ideas, whereas innovation involves putting new ideas into action. New ideas can be very complex to find. When you do find them and put them into action, they can provide a powerful marketing edge and become a license to print money.

Here are some ways to help generate new ideas:


1.   Ask for Opinions:

You could hire consultants or you could simply seek opinions from someone who knows absolutely nothing about your business. We get so close to what we are doing, that often we can t see another way of doing things. There are times when we need to step outside our own environment because sometimes ideas used in one trade can be adapted to another.

2. Encourage Staff Creativity:
If you employ staff, then encourage them to think up new ideas and get them to suggest changes. You will need to be open-minded and encourage their input. You will need to be tolerant when their ideas don t work. And you will probably need to reward them in some way, although you will probably find that the satisfaction of "seeing their ideas in action" may be reward enough.

3. Re-educate the mind:
There is an old saying, "you never stop learning" and it s true. If you are willing to make a personal commitment to perpetual re-education you will reap the rewards. Allocate an annual budget for personal and staff re-education. Consider training courses, seminars, workshops, audio-tape programs etc.

4. Brain Storm:
One of the best ways to tap into new ideas is through brainstorming. This could involve family, friends, staff, customers and even other business owners. The key with any brainstorming session is to disallow any negative comments and to only analyze or develop ideas once the session is over. The purpose of a brainstorming session is to produce a quantity of ideas. It‘s quantity not quality. Refining the ideas comes later.
5. Become a case study:
Consider approaching a local University or polytechnic that runs business courses. Offer your business as a case study in return for feedback from the students.

6. Read and Subscribe:
You can often find ideas in the most unlikely places. Business, fashion and trade magazines are all worth a browse.
7. Travel opens your eyes:
Visit similar (or even unrelated) businesses overseas. You will be surprised at how freely many of them share their knowledge; after all you are not a threat to them. In my travels I have made it a point to visit factories that make the strangest things, huge shopping malls, numerous small businesses and international marketing companies. Each time I seem to come home buzzing with ideas.

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