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Article Check - Idea Generation - How to Capture Your Million Dollar Idea
Imagine, for a moment that, instead of being an attorney, you are a pile of tea.I’m fairly certain no one has ever asked you to do so before, but bear with me.You are a pile of tea. Not a big pile. A few ounces.And, truth be told, you aren’t much different than any other pile of tea. You might be a slightly different flavor. You might be decaffeinated. And, while tea connoisseurs might disagree, to almost everyone else, let’s face it, tea is tea.Now, here’s your choice: You can put yourself in a generic box with the local supermarket chain’s logo on it and sell on aisle 14 for $1.99, or you can pack yourself into a fancy white box decorated with Japanese higura characters with delicate cranes and bonsai trees, call yourself Tazo, and sell at Starbucks for $4.99.It’s up to you.As a law firm marketer, you’re in a worse position than the tea in this analogy. At least tea has a tangible physical reality. What you are selling — a service — is invisible.As best-selling author and marketing expert Harry Beckwith emphasizes in his book, The Invisible Touch: “Products are made; services are delivered. Products are used; services are experienced. Products possess physical characteristics that we can evaluate before we buy; services do not even exist before we buy them. We request them, often paying in advance. Then we receive them.”That’s why image marketing — packaging — is important for products, and even more important for services. This is a truth that can be difficult to accept, but one you ignore at your peril. The buying process
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we
It certainly could not be more obvious the incestuous relationship between big business and government than when the FTC made a special exemption of the Franchise Law for Large Corporate Franchisors. There is practically no fraud at all to be heard of in the franchising industry. Now there is quite a bit in the business opportunities sector, but in franchising there is very little something like 0.1%.That goes for both large franchisors and small franchisors. Unfortunately the Federal Trade Commission has decided to exempt corporate franchisors who sell franchise outlets that cost over $1 million from the same regulations that smaller franchisors have. Many large franchising companies sell franchises and pretty much keep all the economies of scale that are earned from their size rather than passing them on to the franchisee - yes, I know that is business right?Thus the franchisee is merely buying a job and not by any business at all, so is it really a franchise outlet in that case. This is unfortunate and very unfair and the unsuspecting franchisee has no clue, worse off the large corporate franchisor exemption puts the little franchisor at a severe disadvantage. The small franchisor now has all the costs, without the economies of scale to compete with the larger franchisor.So once again the government has favored the large corporate entity over the smaller business. Why you ask? It should be fairly obvious with all the lawyers and lobbyists and the incestuous relationship between federal agencies. Can you believe the Federal Trade Commission is actual
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -Charles H. Duell, 1899, U.S. Commissioner of Patents
There are no new ideas, BUT, there are splendid combinations of old ideas. Things that look new will be coming and going for the rest of time but truly they are a dynamic new combination of OLD things.
So how do you do it? Come up with 'new' ideas, those precious combinations of old things made to be new. Most people I talk to say “oh, but I’m not creative!”.
"Not Creative?" I say “What a load of...wrongness! Human beings are all inherently creative, YOU ARE CREATIVE! I then go on to tell them their problem isn’t that they are creatively disabled but rather that they are mentally disabled (at which point I either really have their attention or I get a smack in the mouth).
Then I meet some people who are wildly creative, tremendous creative geniuses who can come up with all kinds of dynamic ideas at the drop of a hat. But when I ask them how they go about it they grin mysteriously and proudly say 'the ideas just come to me' as if they have a special gift that only a lucky few receive if they are in the right place at the right time when God is distributing his magical creativity dust.
Well my dear friend whether you like it or not this article will allow even the most addle-minded of us to be a creative genius (no magical dust required!).
The process is simple and based on the principle that ALL new ideas are merely combinations of old ideas. If you take the children’s game noughts and crosses and replace the noughts and crosses with a number from 1 to 9 the total number of potential combinations is 362,880. Imagine how many ideas must be available to you!
The process of getting ideas is not dissimilar to stories of the sudden appearance of islands in the South Seas. There, according to ancient mariners, in spots where the charts showed only deep blue sea-there would suddenly appear a lovely atoll above the surface of the waters. An air of magic hung about it. And so it is with ideas. They appear just as suddenly above the surface of the mind; and with that same air of magic and unaccountability. But the scientist knows that the South Sea atoll is the work of countless, unseen coral builders, working below the surface of the sea. So how do we set our mind’s 'builders' to work?
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1. Purpose
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State what you are trying to achieve, are you trying to come up with a new marketing angle, a great game for a kids party or a new and dynamic way to feed the world’s poor?
Write down what your purpose is. Really, write it down, with a pen and paper. I repeat this because it makes a BIG difference having a written objective for idea generation. It ensures that you have a clearly stated objective and it articulates it in a manner where you can return to it again and again to get it bedded down in your subconscious mind.
After you have your purpose written down then make a guess as to what it is going to 'cost' you to achieve your purpose. Will it cost you a lot of time? Will you need to spend some money? Work out the time costs and dollar costs and then write those down too. Now is a good time to ask yourself ‘Is this what I really want? Is this worth the investment of time and money?’
If the answer is 'Yes' then go right ahead and set yourself a timeframe in which to achieve your stated objective. We all know that 90% of homework gets done the night before it is due, so give yourself a due date and stick to it.
You have decided that this idea generating project is worthy of your time, so it is time to begin to:
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2. Gather Information
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If you are dealing with a specific problem or searching for a specific idea then begin to gather the appropriate information. In fact at all times be gathering information, develop a childlike curiosity begin to ask 'why?' ask 'why?' to yourself ask 'why?' to others, search out information with passion. Use your notebook to record interesting ideas facts and tid-bits glue articles into a scrap book, keep a file. Become a veracious new knowledge consumer.
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we a
I went to Les Schwab Tires this week. Not only did they do a great job with the pair of new tires I purchased, they found some problems with my “good” tires and fixed them up at no extra charge. I’ve seen this superb standard of customer service every time I’ve shopped there and I no longer even bother calling other stores because I know that Les Schwab is a quality outfit. They are a national chain with big marketing money behind them but they haven’t lost sight of the fundamental truth that good marketing will bring people in but excellent service is the only way to keep them coming back. Far too many small businesses haven’t learned this lesson. I hope you have. OK, back to your business startup. Last week you looked at your projected revenue and sliced your share right off the top. If you’re still with me, then it’s safe to assume that your ideas have passed this first step of the financial planning process. If not, then you need to rework your model until the numbers make sense before you can possibly move on. EBIDTA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation, Taxes, and Amortization. It’s what’s left over after you’ve paid yourself and your operating expenses. What will it take to: Hire employees? Rent, lease, or buy office space and equipment? Purchase raw materials or items for resale? Create your marketing (Web site, logo business cards, etc.)? Get the legal, financial, and other help you’ll need? Pay utilities,
Then I meet some people who are wildly creative, tremendous creative geniuses who can come up with all kinds of dynamic ideas at the drop of a hat. But when I ask them how they go about it they grin mysteriously and proudly say 'the ideas just come to me' as if they have a special gift that only a lucky few receive if they are in the right place at the right time when God is distributing his magical creativity dust.
Well my dear friend whether you like it or not this article will allow even the most addle-minded of us to be a creative genius (no magical dust required!).
The process is simple and based on the principle that ALL new ideas are merely combinations of old ideas. If you take the children’s game noughts and crosses and replace the noughts and crosses with a number from 1 to 9 the total number of potential combinations is 362,880. Imagine how many ideas must be available to you!
The process of getting ideas is not dissimilar to stories of the sudden appearance of islands in the South Seas. There, according to ancient mariners, in spots where the charts showed only deep blue sea-there would suddenly appear a lovely atoll above the surface of the waters. An air of magic hung about it. And so it is with ideas. They appear just as suddenly above the surface of the mind; and with that same air of magic and unaccountability. But the scientist knows that the South Sea atoll is the work of countless, unseen coral builders, working below the surface of the sea. So how do we set our mind’s 'builders' to work?
------------
1. Purpose
------------
State what you are trying to achieve, are you trying to come up with a new marketing angle, a great game for a kids party or a new and dynamic way to feed the world’s poor?
Write down what your purpose is. Really, write it down, with a pen and paper. I repeat this because it makes a BIG difference having a written objective for idea generation. It ensures that you have a clearly stated objective and it articulates it in a manner where you can return to it again and again to get it bedded down in your subconscious mind.
After you have your purpose written down then make a guess as to what it is going to 'cost' you to achieve your purpose. Will it cost you a lot of time? Will you need to spend some money? Work out the time costs and dollar costs and then write those down too. Now is a good time to ask yourself ‘Is this what I really want? Is this worth the investment of time and money?’
If the answer is 'Yes' then go right ahead and set yourself a timeframe in which to achieve your stated objective. We all know that 90% of homework gets done the night before it is due, so give yourself a due date and stick to it.
You have decided that this idea generating project is worthy of your time, so it is time to begin to:
------------
2. Gather Information
------------
If you are dealing with a specific problem or searching for a specific idea then begin to gather the appropriate information. In fact at all times be gathering information, develop a childlike curiosity begin to ask 'why?' ask 'why?' to yourself ask 'why?' to others, search out information with passion. Use your notebook to record interesting ideas facts and tid-bits glue articles into a scrap book, keep a file. Become a veracious new knowledge consumer.
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we
If you're in concurrence with over 90% of all business owners—Ads don't work! They're expensive, a low ROI, and all they do is fuel ad agencies to churn out more ridiculous rubbish.So why do most ads fail to bring in sales?Simple. If you browse the ads in your local paper, just about all of them talk about themselves:This is our business name; This is our logo; This is what we do; This is how long we've been in business; This is our product/service; and then usually, Call us now so we can sell you something. Yeesh!This is nothing more than making announcements. Just like scanning the Yellow Pages. And the prospects that do reply are the 1% that are looking for your product at that time.But what about the 99% browsing your ad who aren't interested? They'll scan your ad each week till they're blue in the face and never respond.And why not?Because you've failed to connect with your audience. And convince them you're the only business that will solve their problem. You've got to position yourself as the definitive expert in your field. Otherwise, your ads will bleed your promotions budget.How to transform your ads into Money-Machines...If you're placing ads in your local publication - flyers, newspapers, magazines, coupon books, post card mailers, or through a website - here are three types of ads that will generate more revenues and customers:1) The "Advertorial."Ads generate huge revenues for the publication they run in, but people don't buy the publication to read ads. People ar
------------
1. Purpose
------------
State what you are trying to achieve, are you trying to come up with a new marketing angle, a great game for a kids party or a new and dynamic way to feed the world’s poor?
Write down what your purpose is. Really, write it down, with a pen and paper. I repeat this because it makes a BIG difference having a written objective for idea generation. It ensures that you have a clearly stated objective and it articulates it in a manner where you can return to it again and again to get it bedded down in your subconscious mind.
After you have your purpose written down then make a guess as to what it is going to 'cost' you to achieve your purpose. Will it cost you a lot of time? Will you need to spend some money? Work out the time costs and dollar costs and then write those down too. Now is a good time to ask yourself ‘Is this what I really want? Is this worth the investment of time and money?’
If the answer is 'Yes' then go right ahead and set yourself a timeframe in which to achieve your stated objective. We all know that 90% of homework gets done the night before it is due, so give yourself a due date and stick to it.
You have decided that this idea generating project is worthy of your time, so it is time to begin to:
------------
2. Gather Information
------------
If you are dealing with a specific problem or searching for a specific idea then begin to gather the appropriate information. In fact at all times be gathering information, develop a childlike curiosity begin to ask 'why?' ask 'why?' to yourself ask 'why?' to others, search out information with passion. Use your notebook to record interesting ideas facts and tid-bits glue articles into a scrap book, keep a file. Become a veracious new knowledge consumer.
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we
Where there is people there is politics! Bullying is now a major workplace issue that has invaded our not for profit organisations. Take the following example.Cheryl was the General Manager of a Not for Profit organisation in a major Australian City providing specialist supervision for young adults. She had recently received complaints of intimidation and harassment against a supervisor by an employee.Imagine her surprise when within a week she received 3 more complaints from 3 other employees. All complaints appeared to hinge around the same behaviours.The common thread appeared to be that the supervisor had publicly humiliated staff in front of other staff, scolded them for not doing expected work when they were not told about it, lectured them on nit picking incidences and often disappeared from the workplace for long periods of time leaving the other employees to carry the load.This had been occurring for several years but had now come to a head.What is Workplace Harassment?In Queensland, Australia, the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 employers have an obligation to ensure the health and safety of all workers by managing risks at the workplace.1. A person is subjected to “workplace harassment” if the person is subjected to repeated behaviour, by a person, including the person’s employer or a co-worker or group of co-workers of the person that- is unwelcome and unsolicited; and the person considers to be offensive, intimidating, humiliating or threatening; and a reasonable person would consider to be offensive, humili
After you have your purpose written down then make a guess as to what it is going to 'cost' you to achieve your purpose. Will it cost you a lot of time? Will you need to spend some money? Work out the time costs and dollar costs and then write those down too. Now is a good time to ask yourself ‘Is this what I really want? Is this worth the investment of time and money?’
If the answer is 'Yes' then go right ahead and set yourself a timeframe in which to achieve your stated objective. We all know that 90% of homework gets done the night before it is due, so give yourself a due date and stick to it.
You have decided that this idea generating project is worthy of your time, so it is time to begin to:
------------
2. Gather Information
------------
If you are dealing with a specific problem or searching for a specific idea then begin to gather the appropriate information. In fact at all times be gathering information, develop a childlike curiosity begin to ask 'why?' ask 'why?' to yourself ask 'why?' to others, search out information with passion. Use your notebook to record interesting ideas facts and tid-bits glue articles into a scrap book, keep a file. Become a veracious new knowledge consumer.
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we
The following article was originally included in a Career Tips booklet Steve published for service leavers back in 1998, and has been adapted as a ‘Serious Wealth Warning’ message on the Top Pro website. When you start ‘doing the math’, as our US Cousins would say, it is quite staggering, indeed frightening, how much money we can lose by doing half a job on our career change preparation.In particular, having a CV prepared by a ‘cut-price’ merchant, or worse doing the job yourself, can prove to be incredibly expensive and bad judgement in the end. I know you will be thinking “he’s bound to say that – he wants to sell me a CV!”, but just work the figures out for yourself.Take out a calculator and get your latest salary statement. Go on, get them now and work it through.Most job seekers take an average of 120 - 180 days to find a job. Don't take my word for it, ask any employment consultant or agency. Or use the Government’s own figures (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=12). In terms of lost income, if you earn an average of let's say ?50 per day (VERY conservative for Professional Clients), you would lose ?6000 - ?9000 over that period.Use your own figures to confirm this. Add to this the cost Of living through the same period, and then the month working before you get your next salary injection, and you are looking at, conservatively, the thick end of ?10000 to ?15000 (yes, that’s ten to fifteen THOUSAND POUNDS) loss to you and yours in the time it takes to sign up for a quick and easy resume or CV by one of the hundr
You may remember, the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout Sherlock Holmes stories, and how the famous detective spent his spare time indexing and cross-indexing, the odd bits of material he gathered there.
Force yourself to learn new things that are outside your usual area of interest. Learn how to paint, learn something about quantum physics or child raising. Pick up a book at your local library that your friends will think it is strange that you are reading.
Say it with me now: "I am a naturally curious person."
So when we are looking to solve a problem or come up with a new idea we gather all the information on the topic and start to draw and re-draw great whopping mind maps on the topic. This gathers our information and draws other information out of the dark corners of our mind. Then when you think you have all the information gathered together (and depending on the scope of the subject this could be many-many books) gather a little more information.
The information gathering process is the most often neglected part of idea generation. I can not stress it enough you need to have the raw materials of ideas (information) before you can start building an amazing new idea. You would never expect a builder to begin construction on your house with no materials.
Now that you are confident that you have more information than you need we can move on to step three...
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3. Chew over the topic repeatedly
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Assuming that you really did a diligent job of the information gathering stage then you may have already begun this stage inadvertently. This part of the process is the most difficult to explain because it all happens inside your head.
What you do is to take the different bits of material which you have gathered and feel them, float them around in your mind. You take one fact, and turn it this way and that, look at it in different lights, and feel for the meaning of it. You bring two facts together and see how they fit.
What you are looking for here is the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle.
I know that what I am about to say sounds like a paradox but experience shows that it works. Facts sometimes display their meaning quicker when you do not scan them too directly, too literally. You remember those magic eye pictures where you have to look 'past' the picture to see the 3D illusion? It is like that. In fact, it is almost like listening for the meaning instead of looking for it. When creative people are in this stage of the process they get their reputation for absent-mindedness.
As you go through this part of this part of the process two things will happen. First., little tentative or partial ideas will come to you. Scribble these down on paper. It doesn’t matter how crazy or incomplete they seem: get them down. These are foreshadowing’s of the real idea that is to come, and expressing these in words speeds up the process.
The second thing that will happen is that you will inevitably get very tired of trying to fit your puzzle together. Don’t quit yet! Keep at it! The mind, too, has a second wind. Keep bashing away at the idea even after you are past tired and get this second layer of mental energy in the process. Keep trying to get one or more partial thoughts into your notebook.
But after a while you will reach the hopeless stage. Everything is a jumble in your mind, with no clear insight anywhere. When you reach this point, if you have first really persisted in efforts to fit your puzzle together, then the third stage in the whole process is completed, and you are ready for the fourth one.
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4. Incubation
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In this third stage you make absolutely no direct effort. You drop the whole subject, and put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can.
It is important to realize that this is just as definite and just as necessary a stage in the process as the previous three. What you have to do at this time is to turn the problem over to your subconscious mind, and let it work while you sleep. You have a massive processing powerhouse on the ‘back end’ of your mind, one that we don’t experience consciously but it unquestionably exists.
Completely ignoring the task at hand at this stage will force the unconscious mind into action because the problem remains unsolved and the unconscious mind does not sit well with unfinished problems.
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