Can you expand your business beyond its current level of success? What innovative approaches can help your company grow beyond familiar patterns and methods?
Business ideation entails breaking through conventional thinking to discover new opportunities for growth and improvement. In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, Jay Abraham emphasizes generating many ideas and exploring methods from other industries to spark innovative solutions.
Keep reading to discover four practical techniques that will transform your approach to business ideation and help you achieve breakthrough results.
Business Ideation
Once you understand your current level of success, the next step is to think creatively about how to improve your business model. Abraham stresses the importance of generating as many ideas as you can, no matter how far-fetched they might seem. Business ideation will help you break through old ways of thinking that keep you stuck at your current level of success.
One way to achieve this is to explore perspectives and techniques from businesses in industries outside your own. Abraham explains that insights from seemingly unrelated sources can spark innovative solutions within your industry. (Shortform note: David Epstein (Range) backs up this idea, arguing that the key to innovation is to be a generalist—someone who draws from many different fields and experiences rather than specializing in just one area. This is because the heart of innovation is coming up with new connections between existing ideas. The more unusual and wide-ranging your sources of inspiration, the more unique combinations of ideas you come up with, and the more valuable innovations you produce.)
Additionally, Abraham suggests four techniques for sparking innovative ideas.
Technique 1: Identify Emerging Trends
Abraham’s first business ideation technique is to identify emerging trends that could impact your industry. For example, in the world of skills training apps, the rise of AI could lead to personalized learning paths or adaptive course difficulty based on user performance.
(Shortform note: Osterwalder and Pigneur (Business Model Generation) add that you’ll find it easier to identify emerging trends if you understand the business environment in which you operate. They suggest analyzing four key areas: 1) market landscape, including growing segments and unmet customer needs; 2) industry dynamics, including dependency on other companies and potential substitute products; 3) external trends, including regulatory changes and technological advances that could disrupt your business model; and 4) macroeconomic factors, including global market conditions and resource price trends.)
Technique 2: Consider How to Provide More Value
Abraham’s second technique for generating new ideas is to consider how to adapt your existing products and services to provide more value to customers. This might involve making your offer more useful, convenient, efficient, or enjoyable. For example, you could add a collaborative learning feature to your app, allowing users to form study groups and practice skills together. (Shortform note: According to William M. Luther (The Marketing Plan), adapting your product or service isn’t the only way to provide more value to customers. He suggests that you can also add value by offering a cheaper product or service or delivering better customer service.)
Technique 3: Reflect on Customer Complaints
Abraham’s third business ideation technique is to reflect on customer complaints and what you can do to address their concerns. For example, if complaints reveal that the app crashes during video lessons, you might incorporate adaptive streaming that automatically adjusts quality based on connection speed. (Shortform note: In addition to reviewing customer complaints, interview employees who often interact personally with your target customers, such as sales associates or customer service representatives. Since these professionals’ jobs depend on having a deep understanding of customer challenges, they’re in a better position to suggest the solutions customers will appreciate most.)
Technique 4: Brainstorm Unconventional Solutions
Abraham’s fourth technique for sparking innovative ideas is to examine obstacles you’ve always accepted and consider unconventional ways to overcome them. For example, if limited staff has always constrained your ability to design and produce courses, you might explore using AI to help create practice exercises.
(Shortform note: Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle Is the Way) adds that the key to finding new solutions for long-standing obstacles is to view them as opportunities rather than limitations. He explains that the way you perceive problems determines how you respond to them—and that an opportunity mindset leads you to explore possibilities rather than accept defeat. For example, viewing staff shortages as a limitation might lead you to simply work longer hours, whereas reframing it as an opportunity might inspire you to experiment with new collaboration tools or workflows.)
