This is a continuation of my article entitled “Five Easy Questions That Will Ignite Ideas For Your Business”. Answering five more questions will surely indeed get your imagination pumping and ideas flowing!
The first five questions were: 1) What can I do in the next seven days to fill in the blank 2) What marketing ideas are successfully being used in your industry? 3) What are five new ways that I can acquire customers? 4) Who could really help my idea take off and how can I make it super easy for them to do so? 5) How could I wow blank for under $10?
We will begin right away with Question Six: How could I automate XYZ?
I asked Armand Morin one time, “Where do you get your ideas for all of your products?”
He laughed and said; “It’s easy. I’m lazy, so if something in my business is taking up too much time then I ask myself how could I automate it? Ninety percent of my ideas for products come from recognizing what is draining my time. I really just want to automate everything.”
This is a powerful question, that even the big internet marketers obviously ask themselves. How could you increase your productivity by automating XYZ?
Question seven: How could XYZ be simplified?
From my own experience, some processes that you have to go through in order to purchase a product are extremely difficult. Have you ever tried to buy your own product? Is it complicated to buy from you?
This happened to me recently actually. I was trying to purchase a server, a new dedicated server. The process the company was trying to make me go through just to purchase made me so frustrated that I ended up giving up and choosing a different company.
That company should have been asking themselves: How can I simplfy the purchasing process for my clients?
This question could start as a piece of stimuli that will help you generate multiple new processes for your clients. Very powerful for the success of your business.
Question eight: Are there problems my target market are experiencing and how could I solve them with a new product?
A great tool to use for this question is the Ask Database. Alex Mandossian created this phenomenal piece of software. If you have it, use it. Use it to constantly ask people what problems they are having and make products that will solve them.
Being able to find problems and solve them is an attribute that all creative thinkers should have and use. Being able to solve someone else’s problem will always keep you in demand.
This website is extremely powerful and useful when finding problems. Make sure you write this down - it is www.Answer.Google.com
When you get to that website click on the most appropriate category for your business. Here you will see what kinda of questions people are asking in that category, those questions are also problems.
After looking through the questions if you notice a commonality amoung them, than that would be a clear indication of a problem needing to be solved. With a problem in hand you can now create a product which solves it.
Ask yourself this question on a regular basis: What product can I create that will solve the problems my target market is experiencing?
Next question - number nine: This one Alex Mandossian brought up in his presentation at the most recent Big Seminar, and it’s a powerful question. How could I residualize my current products or services?
In today’s day and age, look to get paid not once, but more than once. Time and time again. Every single month or whatever. But if you look to constantly residualize your products or services, you’re going to have a constant stream of cash flow. Rather than fighting to try to get new customers, you really benefit and leverage your existing customers.
Ask yourself that question: How could I residualize my current products or services?
Final question, the last thing I am going to leave you with is; with the products and services I have now, how could I increase their value?
When you do that, your mind and your brain is just going to take off because you’re going to start to think in the customer’s favor.
Thinking from your customer’s point of view will really ignite ideas that benefit your customers. Your existing customer base is a fantastic source and you really should take the time to think about how you can benefit them. If you do, they are more likely to buy from you, tell others about your products and services and therefore create more revenue for your business.
Planning my first seminar a few years back I stopped and asked myself how could I increase the value of what I am offering before any of the attendees even got there. By doing this they were wow’d when I gave them bonus after bonus throughout the course of the seminar. This led to 100% satisfaction and all of them were asking when the next Idea Incubator would be. I still have some of those attendees still come every year to it and they are now all willing to spread the word about what a great time it was.
Heck, at the Big Seminar they were spreading the gospel, if you will, of what a great time they had and what great value they got at that Idea Incubator seminar.
The only reason that happened was because I put forth the effort and mentally asked that question. How can I increase the value of what I’m currently offering?
Your services, products and your business will only be opened up to new opportunities when you do this.
That’s it!
Hopefully you got as much out of this information as I did.
When your in the most need, may ideas come to you.