When Looking For New Small Business Ideas...Think "How Can I Be Of Service?"
My advice for searching for finding new small business ideas: come up with a product or service that customers want, always meet or beat deadlines and stay within budgets, and you'll be in business for years to come.
Many people ask me how to come up with unique and innovative ideas for new businesses.
My answer?
It's the wrong question.
Your business needs to be firmly grounded in your skills and passions, and it needs to provide a product or service people need.
Being unique is the last thing you need to worry about.
Thus, when searching for new small business ideas, think, "What is it that I can provide that people will actually want."
In my case, I started an advertising agency in 1989.
Now, if you went to the yellow pages back then, you'd have found page after page of ad agencies, graphic design firms, and marketing consultants.
Yet, we were able to grow quickly and to become one of the biggest agencies in our market.
We didn't get there with a big idea or by being more innovative -- in advertising, every firm is selling innovation.
No, our success was based on something much more important:
Finding out what customers wanted and making sure we delivered it on time and within budget.
Sounds simple...
But you'd be surprised how few people really stop and listen to what customers want.
In fact, that's what distinguish the successful new small business ideas from the non-successful ones.
It's all about good old fashioned "Give-The-Customers-What-They-Want."
In advertising, for example, the creative team often wants to use the latest most innovative techniques because it is what they are interested in (and what they want to see in their portfolio.)
The clients, on the other hand, rarely come in looking for innovation.
Far more often, they are looking to increase sales.
But even that is not a safe assumption -- some of our clients were perfectly happy with their sales volume and really wanted a marketing program that was easy to manage and execute.
The Bottom Line:
When searching for new small business ideas, you really don't have to look too far.
Just come up with a product or service that customers want, always meet or beat deadlines and stay within budgets, and you'll be in business for years to come.
So...when it comes for finding new small business ideas...
My suggestion is to think less about the "big idea"...
And more about "What can I do to help (people/businesses) solve a problem, save time, save money, or make money?"
