A couple previously in “marketing” opened a local restaurant-coffee shop with good intentions but after 18 months were forced to sell it. What went wrong?
Strangely enough, it’s simple. They decided they knew what customers wanted. It’s a common mistake. But costly.
In the last few months you could see that things were going wrong. They put exotic items on the menu, attracted the wrong beer swilling crowd, drunken and obnoxious, took away the specials and started charging for Wi-Fi unless you spent a minimum of R50.
The owners’ faces got longer. The initial friendliness when they started vanished. I stopped going there except for the occasional coffee.
But the biggest mistake was introducing a European-style restaurant-coffee shop they did not appeal to a value-for-money market. Who wants this fancy stuff in a local community battling with prices gone wild, escalating violent crime and unemployment?
Onwards to some important information. With all their experience you would think that they would have come up with new ideas, new approaches even new opportunities. But they remained stuck in a terrible position of mounting losses.
Why is it that people don’t use the inborn creative mechanism when faced with a crisis? Why when they could use their creativity to come up with a fresh plan, a new way forward?
Think of it this way: people all the time use their creative imagination to solve problems. To come up with new ideas for products and services. Make new plans for their lives. I’ve helped people to overcome obstacles, expand the business and even launched small businesses. My book “Breakthrough Ideas” can show you how… but more about that in a moment. Here are some “golden rules” that can guide you in your journey towards increased creativity and innovation:
– Use simple techniques that are proven and which you enjoy
– Personal breakthroughs come when you are prepared – practice, practice, practice
– See your world through fresh eyes
– You become more creative by using creative tools more often
– By linking or connecting unrelated objects often leads to unexpected new combinations
– Letting ideas “cool” before evaluation leads you select the most promising one so you can evaluate them with your rational left side brain
– Developing viable ideas follows a definite process and framework that is easy to understand and apply
– You can’t create demand; you can only channel demand
In “Breakthrough Ideas” I show you many more simple and practical ways to come up with new business ideas. It’s based on real-world experience, research into creativity and innovation, proven methods and ideas that have succeeded. By the end of the first chapter, which will only take a few minutes to read, you will produce new ideas that could spark your personal breakthrough.
Do you want to learn to speed up your idea generation? I’m going to strongly recommend that you check out “Breakthrough Ideas”. Just invest a few hours in yourself and you’ll find solutions faster and come up with more viable ideas.
