Innovation

This week I’ll be discussing innovation. 

Stepping outside the confines of what’s typically done in your industry and what you see everyone else doing, to generate superior results. 

Why it’s important?

I’m sure the last way you want to be perceived by your market is being “like everyone else”. 

This is why your marketing messaging or website likely contains a paragraph or two about “Why are we different”, “What’s different about us?” or “Why choose us?”.

I find it best to think of innovation as doing something out-of-the-box to gain a competitive advantage in delivering relevant value for your market.

What does this mean?

Challenging what is typical or the norm within your industry. Thinking critically about the problems your market is facing and the goals they want to achieve. Using innovation to differentiate yourself. Adopting concepts from other industries and being inspired to create. And making sure what it is you do, is going to be of importance and relevance to your market.

How to differentiate?

Some of the best innovators will adopt methods from completely unrelated industries. Take the ball-point-pen and the roll-on deodorant for example. Deodorant users were annoyed by how the product would often end up all over their hands and wasted. The inventor of the roll-on deodorant (Helen Barnett Diserens, late 1940s) took inspiration from the ball-point-pen and solved this problem forever.

I worked with a client in the professional services field who operated as a solo entrepreneur for years, teaching his clients methods of face-to-face relationship building, referral generation and selling. His methods worked, for a very long time. In fact, they were so good that the market became saturated and suffered fatigue (everyone was doing what he was teaching).

His earnings had plateaued at about $400,000 per annum but his business began to decline. With technology on the rise and digital marketing booming, we worked to shift his model online and he used his expertise and inspiration from other industries to develop a range of new products that he now sells globally with earnings well over 7 figures per annum. This is innovation.

If you’d like to explore some ways in which you can innovate within your business and industry to differentiate yourself and spark new growth, I’d love to help you work toward your goals and I encourage you to book in a complimentary 45 minute growth assessment here.