Where To Find New Ideas

     I just came up with a marketing idea that is colossal.  I have been trying for a year to figure this problem out.  BAM!  The answer just showed up in the mail. You are not going to be innovative and creative if you are not trying to be innovative and creative.

     Good ideas and new ideas just drift into your head.  You have to be receptive to them.  "We have always done it this way" is the death knell of creativity.  "There has to be a better way" is the mantra of creativity and innovation. 

   Back to my story, I was looking for a solution to this marketing problem.  A piece of marketing material showed up in the mail from someone that was selling to me. "Eureka"

     You will never yell eureka if are not looking for a solution.  Be constantly looking for solutions. Have you ever had a customer ask you,"Why don't you..............fill in the blanks.  Many people hear this from a customer and dismiss it as a waste of time.  Creative people hear this and say,"Maybe we could do that."  Really creative people hear this and not only say maybe but try to implement this new idea.  Next month, at Climer School of Real Estate, we are teaching a real estate class from nine to two.  Several people told us they would like that schedule. We are trying it.

     Look at all the industries that have changed drastically.  In the 1950's' almost all men's barbershops did not make appointments.  You went to the barbershop, waited your turn and got a haircut. Three hours earlier the four barbers were sitting around wishing a customer would come in.  The seven customers would show up within ten minutes of each other.

      I suspect one day a customer said to his barber,"Why don't we make an appointment?".  The creative barber said I have never done that before but let's try it.  Pretty soon that barber was busy with a steady flow of customers while his co workers had feast or famine all day long.  Monkey see. Monkey do.  It was not long before his co workers were making appointments.  By the seventies, haircut appointments were the norm. Then, we get into the twenty first century, men decide they want  to just walk in and get a haircut with no appointment.  Along comes Great Clips and several competitors.

     Ideas!  There must be a better way.  What if you woke up every morning and wrote your goal on a sheet of loose leaf notebook paper and wrote down ten new ideas to help you accomplish that goal?    I know what would happen because I do it every day.

     You will come up with new ideas.   Some will be good some will be not so good.  Some will work.  You only need one good idea to change your life. 

     Try this.  Spend twenty minutes a day writing down ideas.  Write down ideas.  Some of those ideas will be worth trying.  You don't have to implement them all. You don't have to implement any of them.   Just thinking them up will increase your creativity.  Increasing your creativity will increase your income.

      Don't take my word for it.  Try it.   www.climerrealestateschool.com