Many small businesses rely on internal personnel to generate ideas and procedures to grow the business.  While internal people are critical to the success of any business, an innovative business will seek the ideas and input of individuals outside the company to accelerate the growth of the business.

Unfortunately, many business leaders fall into the trap of believing that the business founders and other business personnel are best suited to identify all ideas related to growth of the business.  In many situations, these business leaders fail to seek (or simply ignore) input from people outside the company.  However, people outside the company’s day-to-day operations typically have a different perspective.  They are not caught-up in the systems, procedures, and other activities that dominate the lives of individuals working within the company.  These outside people look at the business with a fresh view and don’t bring with them the “baggage” collected by working within the business.

I recently took this advice in my own business.  I worked with an outside business strategist, Jeanette Cates, to look at my existing business and give me new ideas.  Although she knew nothing about my business before we started, she gave me a long list of great ideas to take my business to the next level.  Being an outsider to my business, Jeanette was unaware of the internal workings of my company.  Instead, she approached the systems and products I had put in place and questioned those systems and started asking whether I had considered other approaches to expanding my business.  She shared her experiences with other companies in which different business procedures were successfully implemented.  I would probably not have come up with many of the ideas Jeanette proposed, because I do not have the same experiences or the same background.

This is true of any business.  Regardless of the expertise of the business’ leaders, there are always other people outside the business with different experiences and backgrounds.  Additionally, these outside people are not distracted by the internal workings of the business.  Instead, they can view the business as something brand new and begin questioning everything the business is doing (or not doing).  An outside person does not get stuck in the “this is how we have always done things” syndrome.  Often, in a short period of time, an outside individual can suggest improvements that otherwise would not have been discovered by people working “inside” the business.

If you are looking for new ways to accelerate your business, consider getting a fresh perspective from someone outside your business.  Please share your own experiences with outside individuals in the comments below.

Brainstorming is an important tool for developing new ideas for your business.  Brainstorming activities are also useful in solving problems faced by your business or your industry.

Here are three tips to help you get the most out of your brainstorming sessions.

1. Schedule Brainstorming Time – Put this activity on your calendar so it is not forgotten or pushed aside by another project.  Schedule as much time as you can, but even a 10 minute brainstorming session can generate a long list of creative ideas.
2. Record Everything – During your brainstorming activities, write down every idea that comes to mind.  Do not filter out any ideas and never trust yourself to remember the ideas at a later time.  Write them down immediately so you can refer back to the ideas in the future.
3. No Criticism or Judging – When you are capturing creative ideas, do not criticize or judge any of the ideas.  You can evaluate your list of ideas at a later time.  During the brainstorming session, your goal is simply to come up with ideas and get them recorded.  Don’t worry about the cost or other obstacles involved with implementing an idea, just write it down.  If you are brainstorming with other people, do not criticize or judge any person’s  ideas – that can ruin a brainstorming session.

After your brainstorming session, keep writing down future ideas as they come to you.  For the next few days, be sure to keep a pencil and paper, recorder or other system close to you for recording additional thoughts.  These thoughts may be completely new ideas, a refinement of an earlier idea, or thoughts on how to implement a particular idea.  The same rules apply here: write down every idea without any criticism or judging.

Try scheduling a brainstorming activity every week and watch your list of creative ideas grow.

Innovations and creative ideas for your business can pop into your head at any time.  These spontaneous ideas can be valuable to your business and should be recorded for future thought.  But, you never know when the next random idea will “appear”.

If you want to regularly develop more creative ideas for your business, schedule a brainstorming session.  Before scheduling the brainstorming session, be sure you know the best environment for your creative thinking.  Pick a time, location and setting that supports you in developing innovative ideas – read my blog post on Finding Your Innovation Environment for more details.

There are many techniques for brainstorming new ideas.  One technique involves identifying an unmet need in your own company or in your market.  Brainstorm for solutions to satisfy that unmet need.  Your solutions may include new products, new services, or adding new features to existing products or services.  Record all ideas you generate during your brainstorming session (using pencil and paper, a computer, a smartphone, an audio recorder, etc.)  You don’t need to understand all the details necessary to implement the solutions – just get the ideas recorded and you can work out the details later.

I recently scheduled a brainstorming session for myself to identify a list of article topics related to business innovation.  My list contains article titles and topics, but not the details of each article.  My brainstorming session generated a list of 28 article titles/topics in a short period of time.  I will schedule several follow-up brainstorming sessions to fill in the details for each article in my list.

Please share information about your successful brainstorming sessions here.