- Arm yourself with blank sheets of A3 or A4 sized paper and lots of colored felt-tip pens.
- Relax, getting into the right frame of mind for new, creative thought and suspend belief in your inability to draw.
- Select your key word or image and write or draw it within a box in the centre of the page.
- Branch off any ideas related to this central theme, including thoughts which might seem obscure or irrational -they'll give you a fresh perspective on your subject.
- Use one color per branch with sub-branches flowing off from the centre, continuing until you've exhausted all possible links.
- Condense your thoughts to one word per line so your mind is free to make a greater number of connections.
- Use images instead of words wherever possible and draw boxes around or otherwise highlight important information. The more imaginative and colorful the Mind map, the more you will remember what's on it.
- When you've exhausted the subject, edit and regroup your notes on a fresh sheet in order to produce your final, master Mind map.
Beware the brilliant bad idea
There are many common signs which may point to an idea not being such a good business idea. These include:
- The ego. Some ideas are so persuasively wonderful, so obviously winners, that it is incredible that no-one else seems to think so. 'I am right. I know I am right/ say their originators with rising exasperation. If you are the only person in the world who thinks that something is a good idea, sooner or later you will have to question your own judgment.
- The smart solution. Plenty of good ideas solve problems which don't actually exist. If you invent an egg unscrambler which returns scrambled eggs to their original form you will appear on TV programs, but you will not make a fortune.
- The imaginary customer. It is no good simply to imagine who the customers might be. You have to know exactly who will be buying the product, why, where and how much they are prepared to pay.
One evening in 1900, a group of people lay flat on their faces on the floor of a room in the house of British engineer Hubert Booth. With their handkerchiefs between their mouths and the floor, they proceeded to suck dust from the carpet and collect it on their handkerchiefs. This, absurd as it seems, was part of the development of Booth's great idea, now indispensable in any modern household. It was patented in 1901 as the vacuum cleaner.
Every idea has to work. This may seem glaringly obvious, but many businesses fail to take off simply because not enough time has been spent discovering whether the product works and whether it works reliably enough to satisfy customers. If something works perfectly efficiently once or twice and then self-destructs, you are likely to have a lot of dissatisfied customers knocking on your door fairly soon. The product or service must work, but remember that it also has to be flexible. You can't simply say this is the product; this is what it does; do you want to buy it? At the testing stage it is worth considering how the product can be customized or made more flexible. Think of other situations in which it could be used, or other people who might benefit from using it.
Flexibility is a key competitive weapon for the small business. Small firms can compete successfully with large organizations, because they can absorb fluctuations in demand through their flexibility. They can be innovative in coming up with customized and quality products or services; flexibly targeting niches in local markets, or at the higher end of the market; and in providing better service to customers with special contractual relationships and strong feelings of loyalty. This sort of flexibility needs to be built into the product or service from the very start of your enterprise.
Testing of potential customers or users requires that your idea is fairly well developed. In this sort of test the key factors are:
- approach the right people - are they really potential purchasers?
- provide an incentive - such as an opportunity to make the first purchase at a discounted price.
- seek more general information - don't restrict questions to your own business, ask their opinion of competing products, prices, services, etc.
- meet face-to-face - you are more likely to extract a large amount of information if you meet face-to-face.
- make it as realistic as possible - it is no use asking questions which are vague and theoretical. 'Would you be interested in buying this?' is an important question but needs to be backed up:
- at what price?
- at what time?
- in what form?
- should it be changed? And, if so, in what way?
- how should we approach you?
- learn lessons and implement them - it is important to talk, listen and act.
You should gather as much information as possible about customers, the market and competitors. There are many possible sources of information:
- reference libraries
- trade exhibitions and conferences
- trade publications and magazines
- trade organizations and associations
- market analysis and data.
If you are opening a shop you can receive free copies of the trade magazines Independent Grocer and Convenience Store. You need to find out if there is a trade publication relevant to your business. If so, you might be able to receive free copies or, if it is useful, you could subscribe to it.
Knowing your competitors
Think of your competitors - and other companies whose approach you admire. They may not seem directly applicable to what you do, but identify the company and think whether its approaches could be used in your business.
Pinpointing areas which you believe are important in your business is useful in itself. If there are competitors or other companies which have particular lessons for your business try and find out more about their particular approach.
