When was the last time you held a brainstorming session connected to your business?
Last week?
Last month?
Never, more likely.
Most business owners are far to busy putting out their daily business fires to stop and devote time to nothing more active than merely thinking.
And that’s a shame.
With a little thought, instead of reacting to events, you could be shaping them.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John Steinbeck
Ideas really are some of your most valuable business assets. So take a break from the daily grind and invest some time in them.
The trick here, and the hardest part of the process, is to let your ideas flow. Really flow. No stopping or hesitating because they’re not realistic or they won’t work, or they’re not even that good.
Take a pen and a piece of paper and lock yourself away somewhere quiet for half an hour or so. Your business can certainly spare you for that long. You might even need less time.
Pick a particular area of your business to focus on. Bite-size brainstorming is much more effective when you’re thinking about a defined issue, whether that’s a problem or a potential for business growth.
Here are some typical business concerns which often benefit from active thinking:
- How to encourage customer loyalty
- How to network more effectively
- How to improve referrals
- What new products to develop
- What new services to offer
- How to reach new target markets
The list is endless. Just make sure that each time you brainstorm, you’re fully focused on a narrow, well-defined part of your business.
Start off asking yourself a question, and spend the remainder of the time answering it with no holds barred. Write down every single idea, every thought. No stopping and no censoring allowed.
Let’s say you’re trying to do more marketing on a low budget. Here’s the question:
What high exposure marketing ideas can I come up with on a shoestring budget?
You have to come up with at least 20 ideas in the next 30 minutes. Starting now. 🙂 Answers below in comments, please. Let’s do some creative sharing. No holds barred.
