Hopping Down the Idea Trail...Are You Making These Mistakes?

Ideas are fascinating. But do they make you money?

You’ve been there. You get a great idea. You can’t sleep because you’re so excited. You polish and shine that idea. You build it up in your mind until it’s larger than life.

Maybe you implement it and it doesn’t do quite what you thought.

Or maybe before you kick it off you find another idea that also seems great and you run off in a new direction.


STOP!


Ideas are important aren’t they?

Don’t they help you drive your business to new levels?

Isn’t that what helps companies go from ok to great?


Before I answer that question let’s look at a few interesting quotes on the subject…
(From “99 Inspirational & Motivational Quotes on Entrepreneurship by Minterest” http://tinyurl.com/ny4m9a)

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. – Jim Rohn

Okay. So I just need one more good idea, right? Not so fast pardner…

Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless. – Tim Blixseth

Now you’re getting closer. Pairing up ideas with execution is critical. Let’s see more…

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you. – Mark Cuban

You’re homing in now…

If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. – Jack Welch


Are you making these mistakes?

1) Are you so buried in your day-to-day operations so that you aren’t looking for new ideas?

2) Are you idea jumping? Always going to the next great idea and never fully implementing the previous one?

3) Are you making it painful for your customer to do business with you?

4) Is your company a “me too” competitor that gives your customer no good reason for them to buy from you instead of your competitors?

Don’t do it! Do the opposite.

1) Be open and looking for ideas.

2) Make sure to execute before moving on to a new idea.

3) Make it easy for your customer to buy. Ideas should be focused in this area.

4) Stack the cards in your favor or don’t compete.


So how can you use this?

1) Look for ideas everywhere. Often your best ideas come from the most unexpected places. In particular, look outside your industry. In general, everyone inside your industry is doing things the same way, plus or minus 10%. Why? Because they all learned from the same people who learned from other people, who all did it the same way. By going outside your industry or to sources your competitors aren’t looking, you can find game-changing competitive advantages.

2) Take a new idea, determine if it has legs. If it does and it has some serious positive leverage behind it, then test it immediately. Do not run off chasing the next sparkly idea. Once you’ve tested it in the real world then you can worry about fine tuning it or rolling it out bigger, or adding another idea.

3) Make sure your idea is focused on an area that improves your customer’s ability to say YES! to your offers. Use the 80/20 rule where 20% of what you do gets 80% of your results. Don’t waste your time in areas that have little upside. Focus on the customer since that’s where your present and future is.

4) Go big or go home. You want everything possible to be slanted your way.

a. That can mean making your offer so irresistible your customer can’t say anything but YES!

b. Or if it means finding that unique competitive advantage that you can promote that no one else can and driving it home in every communication you do.

c. Or sneaking in behind the scenes to help your potential client design the RFP so that only you will win it and your competitors are forced to lick their wounds and go home.

What are you waiting for? Take action NOW…

…so you can move on to the next idea.