The Value of Good Ideas

You aren’t going to get far in business if you don’t have good ideas. Good, profitable ideas are what make or break a business. That’s why so many people work incredibly hard but don’t see the rewards in the end. They’re working way too hard on the wrong things.

That doesn’t have to be your story — not anymore. It’s time for you to focus on profitable, surefire activities if you want to be thrilled with your work and profit like crazy.

Making Business of Profitable ideas

Let’s get one thing clear from the very start — you’re in business to make money. Sure, you have goals that are co-mingled with that. You want to make a difference in the lives of others and you want to change your own life at the same time. But, to achieve your true goals, and satisfy your “why” for being in business, you need to turn a solid profit.

That’s another reason so many people fail in business. They become so married to their own ideas that they can’t climb their way out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. They keep digging and digging without admitting that the gold just isn’t there. Call it stubbornness, or call it something else, many people just don’t want to admit that their first idea isn’t always the best one.

The ideas you have are what set you apart from everyone else. You’ve had amazing ideas and you’ve had ideas that are real duds. You’ve possibly had multi-million-dollar ideas that you pushed to the side in favor of something else. You’ve also had ideas that weren’t profitable and were never going to be, but you clung to them as if they were everything.

Capitalize On the Profitability of Your Ideas

It’s time to operate differently — it’s time to focus on the profitability of your ideas before you execute them so you can make a real difference in your market. Focusing on profit and what people are willing to pay for will change your financial life very dramatically.

In business, it’s so important not to move forward with any idea until you’re sure it will be profitable for you. Great ideas are those that satisfy a desperate problem or fulfill a deep desire or solve a problem. They’re also ideas people have a proven track record of paying for.

“But,” you say, “I have a great idea people really need… I can really help people with my idea.”

That’s great, and you should be helping people with what you do in business. But, that doesn’t signal profitability and often it’s a waste of time for everyone if you can’t profit.

Think of it this way — people don’t spend money on things unless they really want or need them. If people aren’t willing to spend money on something right now, then they don’t really need the product, service, or idea in the first place. So you’re not really helping anyone if you stay stuck with old, unprofitable ideas. Follow the profits, and you’ll also be really helping people.

Wisdom part of with Profitable Ideas

You want to wow your audience and stand apart from the competition. Following the profits doesn’t mean copycatting everyone else. It means following ideas you know are profitable and putting your own spin on them. You need to really stand out in the marketplace and fill in the holes other companies are missing out on.

Let’s go back to your goals for a minute. You’re in business to help yourself and to help others. The more money you earn, the more you can do for other people. No, money in and of itself isn’t fulfilling. But, money can help you to comfortably live a full life where you give back to others and every need you and your family have is taken care of.

Think of all the stresses you have in your life right now. Financial stress may be dragging you down mentally, emotionally, or even physically. But, if your financial worries are taken care of, you can be there for your family, friends, and customers much more readily and happily. It’s sort of like putting on your oxygen mask first so that you can then help others.

Incubation of Profitable ideas

As an entrepreneur, your idea differentiates your product from others in the marketplace. The idea is what gets you as the investor interested. The idea is what attracts the prospects and the customers.

You might use a simple test: Does the idea excite you?

Would you go home and tell someone about it? Would you start to think about it and its possibilities?

Some of the stuff about ideas is not rocket science. The real issue becomes who else has the same idea or may be working on it.

You can find out some of this information by getting on the Internet or asking your network of friends and business associates .

But you’ll never know whether a big competitor is working on the same idea and yet to release it. Nor will you know if some start-up is building some version of the Idea in a garage or basement. Few good ideas exist without others recognizing them at the same time.

Based upon the Idea, the entrepreneur has to develop a compelling offer, or value proposition, that grabs the customer’s (and investor’s) interest right away. You need to tell your customer:

• What your product does

• How much it costs

• What benefits are in it for the customer or how he can use it to solve his needs and wants

• Why she should believe you and buy from you

• What makes your customers — the crowd — demand more and more

Let’s look at each of these points, because they are important considerations for both the entrepreneur and the investor.

What your product does: Think of the actual functionality, mechanics, or features of your product or service. For instance, a car transports you from one place to another. A cell phone enables you to call someone rather than use a land line. A cookie is a type of dessert. A survey asks questions to get your opinion and/or feedback.

How much it costs: A prospect or customer will want to know the price of that car, cell phone, cookie, or video survey that you or others are offering.

In part, price normally is matched to features and benefits (translated into perceived value), such as horsepower, design, radio with a CD or not, miles per gallon, size of the fuel tank, or seat fabric, to name a few.

Another example .your cell phone provider gives you different plans tied to usage or number of minutes, plus texting or not and credit cards also have different levels of credit: American Express has green, gold, silver, and black levels.

Determining prices takes a lot of work when you first start up a company. The first question is whether the prospect will pay anything for your product or service. Next, will he pay a price that gives you a profit?

At the price you propose, do you have to get a few customers or lots of customers to generate the revenue you are projecting?

For example, if you are selling products to large customers which take months to close, then you must be able to charge enough to cover the months of overhead you are paying while you get the sale and then the cost of delivering and serving the customer.

Incubating New Ideas

So we’ve looked at some examples of businesses that have truly shaken things up and that have taken advantage of modern technologies in incredibly innovative and disruptive ways.

Maybe you’re feeling a bit inspired.

Perhaps you already have some ideas starting to form in your mind?

Or maybe you’re just feeling defeated. Maybe you’re asking yourself how you could possibly come up with an idea that good.

How can you possibly compete with the Facebooks and Ubers of the world?

This is where we look at how to go about stimulating the formation of incredible ideas and seizing opportunities. Again, there’s nothing I can do to guarantee this will happen for you, but now you know the opportunities that are out there, perhaps the next step is to start asking the right questions…

Productizing a Service

One option is to productize a service and this is a fantastic way to create a SAS.

Perhaps the best example of this is WordPress once again.

WordPress is actually the brain child of entrepreneur, Matt Mullenweg and this is the question he asked himself that ultimately led to its creation : how can I productize my web design business?

To do this, Matt built a tool that could put him out of a job. A single tool that would make building a website incredibly simple and that would give users all the features that they needed to build something just as professional as he would have been able to accomplish.

So, if you want to come up with your own SAS business, the question is: how could you build a tool that could put you out of a job?

What service can you offer right now that you could automate or at least make simpler by using a piece of software?

And if you choose not to focus on the services that you’re already offering, then how could you accomplish something similar for another service that you’ve used or that you’ve got some experience in?

Solving Your Pain Points

Likewise, you don’t necessarily need to go the B2B route or productize a service. You could also create a service or product that would remove a ‘pain point’ that you experience on a daily basis.

So, ask yourself: what are the things you do on a daily basis that you find time consuming and frustrating?

What are the things that you wish you didn’t have to do ever again?

Where are you wasting money?

And how could you solve this problem by using the tools and resources that the web has made available to you?

Could you outsource some of your regular jobs to the crowd?

Could it be in some way automated? Or perhaps there’s a product that would solve the problem for you?

Recently, a new innovation has been developed by researchers that will allow us to squeeze ketchup out of bottles more easily.

It’s a special coating that makes the insides of these containers so slippery that not a single drop of ketchup will remain in them.

You can imagine how this might have come about as researchers looked at their own lives and asked: what is a regular frustration?

Perhaps they struggled to get the last bit of ketchup out and then thought: something needs to be done about this!

Now, of course, that might not be what happened. But this is the point: this is how you need to think if you want to find the thing that people need.

Along similar lines is brainstorming. This is the process of writing down every single idea that comes to mind, once again not ruling anything out because it is too far-fetched or because it seems a little silly.

In doing this, you will find that you open up the floodgates and this encourages good ideas to land.

What’s more, some of the best ideas you come up with will actually start life as things that seemed a little bit silly at first!