Almost on a
daily basis I get calls from proprietors asking me if I have any good ideas. And this time of the year, I get lots more inquiries.
I kind
of laugh to myself and think, “C’mon you’re not asking me if I have any good
ideas; you’re asking me if I have any new ideas that are so good that they are guaranteed to work.”
The reality is
the caller wants something that wont fail because that would cost him money or erode his self
esteem and that’s a bad thing, they think.
I think not. There
is nothing wrong with failing. In fact I recommend you fail at least once a day
so you have a BASIS from which to learn.
If you never fail, it means that
you are never doing anything.
Yet its easier than ever to come up with that great idea. With so much information
available in cyber land, all you have to do is start asking questions about how
to solve your particular marketing problem and you’ll get clues or even cookie
crumbs that will lead you to alternative solutions.
Years ago I
took an advanced economics class with a dude named John Kenneth Galbraith who taught the Harvard case study method in how to solve problems and come up with new ideas/solutions.
It sounds impressive, but was pretty simple. It went like
this (in its much abbreviated version. of course).
Step 1. Define
the problem so clearly that it is singularly focuses on just one element.
Step 2. Do
enough research that you can come up with at least three idea solutions to
solve that specific problem?
Step 3. Choose the solution you are most passionate about and present it to a group of No BS people in and out of the
industry. Then prove why that particular is the best solution by comparing its advantages and
disadvantages to the other two solutions.
See, you can develop new ideas. But you'll have to break a sweat too
