Media Marketing Firms Liverpool

(First appeared in Second Opinion Marketing e-bulletin April 2011 - subscribe to the e-bulletin here )

Encouraging crazy ideas

It was Henry Ford apparently who said: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. Yet many of us when it comes to our business and especially marketing ideas fall into the trap of doing the same things over and over and wondering why we don’t see a difference in results.

As business people we are trained, whether formally or through experience, to keep a focus on systems and procedures, to not rock the boat, to encourage our staff to knuckle down and focus on the job in hand. When it comes to new ideas we often struggle to find space and time to come up with them or give them the freedom they need to grow and flourish.

At first new ideas and fresh thinking can appear absurd – ‘carry my entire music library around in my pocket, don’t be ridiculous!’ Or even frightening – certainly the growth of mp3 players has record company bosses quaking in their boots. But in our businesses we need to make space for new ideas and challenge the status quo to improve our chances of standing out from the crowd, attracting new business and continuing to satisfy our existing clients.

Innovation isn’t just for product based businesses or fast moving consumer goods, it doesn’t have to be just about new products. It can be about new ways of pricing or charging for your services (think about the innovation needed in professional services for fixed fees and guarantee based pricing). It can be about improvements to client service, things that will get clients talking and encourage more recommendations. It might be about ways of reducing costs in your business, so that these savings can be passed directly back to the client by way of special offers or pass straight to the bottom line to directly improve profit.

Improve your chances of success with innovation

When it comes to innovation it is really important to follow three very distinct steps – mix them up and you’ll ruin your chances of success.

Step 1 – Encourage a little craziness
Be creative. This stage is all about quantity over quality. The more ideas you can generate the better chance you have of coming up with a great innovation and really pushing the boundaries of your profession. It’s at this point where you want to use classic brainstorming techniques, involve as many people as you can and be open to absolutely everything.

Creating new ideas can be great fun and really energising for the people in your business.

Why not have a crazy ideas day once a quarter? Provide a focus, perhaps ask a question ‘How can we cut cost?’ ‘How can we get more referrals?’ or set an objective – crazy ideas to get more, high value clients or crazy ideas to raise our profile with business l...