Coming Up With Useful Business Ideas

In business, good ideas are about anything and everything in any aspect of the organization. Expansion, renovation, and manner of service—these are just some of the things you have to know how to execute well.

Good idea generation is now one of the keys in outmaneuvering and outperforming competitors. With today’s competitive market, any self-respecting business must know that “the usual” will not work anymore. Check out some of these tips:

Observe. You do not need to produce new ideas from scratch. You, as a business owner and innovator, should know how to observe the phenomena happening in your line of sight and within earshot. Why does a certain store have so many customers? Why did I feel warm and settled in that coffee shop? Why is their store music like that? There are just so many questions you can answer by observing, and so many ideas you could generate by answering those questions.

Keep track of details. Ideas are fleeting—there is just too much to learn from your environment that it is best to find a way to record them. Try keeping a notebook and pen with you anywhere you go. Write down important observation for your review in the future.

Move. Maybe a certain place or store is giving you a lot of ideas that you want to use for your own business. However, by simply copying every detail from that one store, you are not allowing your own business to have original ideas. That is why you have to keep moving and searching for different sources. Integrate your inspiration from different places. Mix and match the ideas gathered from place to place.

Ask for a second opinion. Raw ideas may sound so good that you want to spend your time, effort and money on them as early as possible in your business. Note, however, that some ideas may sound so appealing to us that we ignore their disadvantages. Always ask for a second opinion from people that can supply you with good ones—someone from the same industry or an expert in the field, or someone well-versed on the topic from your organization.

Implement and integrate. No matter how good your idea is on paper, you will only see its viability when you apply it in your company. True, some ideas may be risky, and some are just plain weird, but that is the point. Idea generation is not about setting up “the usual”. It is about generating what is not in books, what has not yet been thought of, or at least what is not usually done or have not been done before. Good ideas are only useful if they bring good results. And for them to produce good results, or any result for that matter, you have to integrate them in your business. Integration means more than just implementation. It means having the other relevant parts of your business be supportive of the new endeavor to maximize the chances for success. A halfhearted effort will virtually ensure failure of the new idea.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-6, Sunday, January 25, 2015. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.