Breakthrough Marketing - The SMART Way!

Discover Wealth Secrets Of Information Marketing Professionals

William — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:51:15 +0000

It's a very odd phenomenon, the fundamentals of business are so simple and yet the failure rates of business continue to disappoint at well over 50% – looking even more dismal the longer you track a business from its inception.

On a more specific level, I have had a great deal of experience in the information product marketing business segment both offline and online and see marked differences between those who struggle with this business and those who take off and never look back.

One of the biggest factors differentiating the hobbyists from the real big money earners in the information marketing business is the degree to which the entrepreneurs look at their ventures as end-to-end businesses versus businesses that are based on a single event (website developed, ebook written, affiliate marketing site created, etc…)

Once you begin to look at the various facets of your information product marketing business, it becomes obvious that there are many skills required to carry out all functions of your plan.

It's likely that you are better at 1 or 2 of these, perhaps being able to perform all functions, but not to quite the same level. Considering the information marketing business and your role within that business is a critical factor toward your results.

So, let's look at the skills required for your business.

1. PLANNING & STRATEGY: Over and over again I've tried to drive home the importance of coming up with a business plan for your information marketing business. Starting with a 3-5 year goal and working backward is a great way to chart a course making your journey more certain. For someone who loves to take action, this stage can be a little daunting. Realize however that it must be done, if you struggle with business planning, then hook up with someone who has been through the process before – you may even find such a person at your local entrepreneur or mentoring program offered by Entrepreneur centers in many towns and cities.

2. RESEARCH AND TESTING: A critical, often underestimated set of skills important to the success of your information product is the ability to research a market for opportunities and test your market, ideas and topics for signs of existing demand and spending activity. People who have great skill at tapping into opportunities in a market often are curious by nature, good listeners, have a good ability to relate concepts to one another and generally are good investigators.

3. JOURNALIST SKILLS: Closely linked to research and testing, a journalist combines the skills of uncovering the the few "in depth" questions that your market really wants to know, networking skills, a very powerful knack for asking questions, a true passion for their topic and a good ability to write or edit their work to bring out the most important points.

4. PRODUCT CREATION SKILLS: Product creation is really about understanding the format(s) that best suite the material you will be marketing to your customers and being able to quickly and efficiently package that material in written, audio, video or in real-time seminar formats. Remember, we are trying to find your idea skills. We can all master each of these tasks if we are given enough time and teaching, but what you want to do here is give an honest opinion of your current strengths. For example, if you were an expert at packaging audio and video products, then it would make more sense having someone else plan your business and generate the content, while you can focus on your strength of packaging products behind the scenes.

5. MARKETING SKILLS: I've split marketing skills into two large sub-groups, skills that require behind the scenes work and skills that involve outbound and relationship management activities. For example, you could be quite good at creating press releases, marketing plans, written articles and interviews, blogging, etc…these are all examples of behind-the-scenes marketing typically enjoyed by people who like to work alone, have more control over their environment and perhaps are more on the introverted side. Alternatively, marketing skills such as networking, public speaking, team building and leadership lead to more successful outbound and relationship marketing. Both are required to raise your business to the high-achiever ranks, few people are experts in both of these areas.

Bet you didn't realize there were so many skills required to operate your own super-profitable information product marketing business did you?

No wonder you get overwhelmed by the sheer effort all of this requires. A couple of these skills may allow you to perform that part of your business in your sleep, while other factors mean you take four-times longer than an expert to accomplish the same task.

Its no wonder that most people hit roadblocks along the way. Even if you master each of these areas enough to get your first product out the door, can you really scale your business success to where you want while doing all of this yourself?

By now, you should have a good idea of what strengths you bring to the table and more important, which ones you do NOT. By understanding where you need help, you can make decisions about how you want to structure your business, what type of business you would like to run and who to look to for help.

An Internet Marketing Strategy That Works

William — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 04:07:39 +0000

These days an internet marketing strategy plays a vital part of small business marketing strategies (or any size business marketing strategies for that matter). Web site marketing is an important part of just about any business, small or large. You can't put up a beautiful (or any) web site and hope that people will just arrive. You have to let them know, IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, that your web site is there. This HAS to be part of any Internet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Customers are not going to look for you, you have to look for them. Promoting your web site on-line and building traffic is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zines, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, assumes that your customers are surfers. But there is a large percentage of our population that is not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be. So, what about the large percentages of the population who are not? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. This is particularly true if you serve a fairly local market. Fortunately these are the easiest and cheapest prospects for you to reach off-line. Key Off-Line Internet Marketing Strategies Here are some of the ways to make your web site known (this list was taken directly from the Traffic Building Volume of Ken Evoy's brilliant book, Make Your Site Sell! 2002: · TV, print and other advertising · Stationary and business cards · Catalogs, fliers, billboards, blimps, etc. · Direct mail (prominently on every document) · Telemarketing (make it part of the script) · News releases to targeted media. The main principle, to which you can add all your imagination, is INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGY INCLUDES ANY AND ALL MEANS OF GETTING YOUR WEB SITE KNOWN AND VISITED BY TARGETED PROSPECTS. Unless you have a high budget, the TV, radio, classified ad route is not recommended but if you do run ads, be sure to mention your web site everywhere. Make it part of your Internet Marketing Strategy. Another guiding principle is that your off-line internet marketing activities should make it easy for your prospect to go straight to your web site. One of the best ways to market your website off-line is direct mail postcards. If your prospect sees your website on a billboard as she's driving home, she probably won't look you up when she gets to the office the next day. This is not the only medium that has problems like this. Newspapers are bulky, radio has to spell it out and like before most people are driving at the time. On the other hand, if your prospect is sitting at her computer and a post card comes in the mail announcing your web site, she can just turn around and type in your URL and she's at your web site. Now if someone is in the office reading a trade journal and comes across an article about you in the magazine, it's not difficult for him to copy your URL into his browser and pay your site a visit. I don’t mean to say that those other avenues won’t drive traffic to your site, but it will take numerous impressions and repetition to get them to remember your address. On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the take right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site. Brilliant! I have seen the greatest success in off-line web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically direct mail postcards.

3 Marketing Myths That Are Stopping Your Succeed!

William — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:10:54 +0000

These 3 marketing myths can cause you to lose sales if you base your marketing decisions on them. We’ve given you some marketing tips to blast each myth and boost your sales. Myth 1: People buy a product at the cheapest price they can find. That is not true – if it was then companies like Rolex and would not exist – Timex would have put them out of business a long time ago. Despite the ease of research that the internet affords – buyers are generally lazy and don't undertake full research. Even on eBay where it is far easier to check the relative prices of a product – people often buy a product at a higher price than they could. So what causes people to buy? These are called buying triggers – the most common are: • Confidence in the seller • A high perceived value • Recommendations • Ease of purchase Blasting Myth 1: Establish your credentials – for example we have over 20 years of business consultancy experience – so we know what works and what does not work in a business. Find ways of enhancing the perceived value of your product or service by adding extras or clearly demonstrating the value of it's purchase. Ensure that you include some actual recommendations within your sales letter. Make it easy to purchase and receive your product by not introducing any barriers to purchase such as extra forms, obscure or complex payment methods. Myth 2: Offering your customers numerous different options will boost your sales When confronted with several options, most customers have difficulty making a decision. They often react by procrastinating – and going to a seller who offers a clearer product. Now by this we don't say add extras or up sells, just clearly state what is included in the product and don't offer options that not only confuse but making your selling and processing more difficult. The human mind works better when offered the two options "buy", "don't buy". Blasting Myth 2: Only offer one product – or product package per page. You can have a clear (and short) menu on each page to encourage multiple purchases. If you have more than one option for a product or service – then give them different names and present them each separately. For example you can call them "silver service", "gold service", "opal service" etc. This is what we did with our various marketing services and it works quite well. You should always aim at a small, easily understood product or service range. You should be able to explain each of your products in one or two sentences. If you can't do this – how do you expect your potential buyers to understand what they are buying? Myth 3: Everybody Needs My Product or Service Unfortunately, most people don't believe that they do need a particular service of product. Obviously with items such as Ipods – your teenager will try and tell you they really, really, really need one, but this is peer pressure that has been built up with millions of dollars. Much of this was spent on research into what there market wanted – and they got it right! If you believe this myth then you also believe that you can succeed without doing much marketing or selling. Unfortunately, despite what some marketers tell you – it does not happen that way. Undoubtedly there some very successful marketers around, but they will all admit that a great deal of market research, testing and reviewing of their offerings – happened before they became successful. Building a successful business is hard work – most of it devoted to finding potential customers and then matching them with your products and services. Even if most people can use your product or service, you still need a marketing strategy to reach them and a persuasive sales message to close sales – because you can bet your last dollar – that where there a lots of potential customers – there are just as many sellers. Blasting Myth 3: • Do your homework – find out where your potential customers are, what particular needs and desires they have and what they are seeking to solve these. • Look for a narrowly defined niche market where your product or service will solve a unique need of the customers. • Design your product or service to meet these needs. • Test, Change, Test, Refine, Test and obtain customer feedback. Unless you are one of the millionaire marketers around – you will find many myths that you follow and potentially lose money on. Hopefully the ones above have helped you.

5 Marketing Strategies That Will Increase Traffic To Your Website

William — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:34:37 +0000

If you follow the proven ways of building your online marketing business, you can easily succeed. You will need to apply these marketing strategies consistently, be focused and dedicated to growing your business. If you want your internet marketing business to succeed, you must have traffic to your website. More traffic means more sales. If your website does not get any traffic, then you will not succeed. The essential strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website are as follows: 1. Writing and submitting articles. Writing and submitting articles is one of the most effective and cheap ways of driving targeted traffic to your website. Write useful articles related to your internet marketing business and distribute them online. As they get picked up by various directories and search engines, you will see an increase in traffic to your website. This is one of the cheapest ways of driving traffic to your website. 2. Build a list. Having a list is very important. If you want to earn money and be successful with your internet marketing business, you will need to have a huge list. Offer an ezine or ecourse on your website so that your visitors can subscribe to it. Or have a form on your website offering some free ebooks, so that the visitors can leave their email addresses. 3. Search engines. Your website must be optimized for search engines. Search engines can send traffic to your website. You must build your online presence by having many links to your website. You can get reciprocal links using various tools/software to automate the process. One way links can be created by submitting articles with your URL and participating in forums. As you build more links back to your website, major search engines will start sending traffic to your website. 4. Google Adwords. While starting your internet marketing business, Google Adwords are efficient at sending traffic to your website. You will however need to select your key words and bid for them effectively for this strategy to be viable for your business. 5. Participating in appropriate forums. One of the ways through which you can get targeted traffic is through participating in relevant forums helping people who are your potential customers. Your signature and URL on your posts on the forum is an effective way of increasing targeted traffic to your website which will increase your sales and boost your business’ profits. The strategies outlined above are proven ways to increase traffic to your website.

A Simple System To Make Money Online

William — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:31:00 +0000

Why do most people fail online? Why do they never make any money? It’s because they think about money first and about their customers last. They create a few pages, stuff them with affiliate links and ads and then they wait for the money to roll in — usually they wait forever.

Here is a simple formula to build a successful money-making online business:

* Carefully research several niches before choosing a theme for your site. You should be passionate about the subject and there must be a hungry market for it.

* Start building valuable content for both, your site visitors and the search engines.

* Build more content, distribute articles, participate in targeted forums… this allows you to establish yourself as the expert in your field, to win the trust of your audience and to attract free, targeted traffic from the search engines.

* Add new marketing strategies. Publish an e-zine to build your customer base, to establishes yourself as the expert in your niche, to gain trust…

* Once you have a site of at least 40 content pages with at least 50 unique visitors per day, start monetizing: Add affiliate links, Google AdSense, sell your products or services…

It just doesn’t make any sense trying to monetize your site, as long as you have only a few visitors. Who do you want to sell to? Instead, focus on building more content, driving traffic, building your list…

Follow the "Content – Traffic – Trust – Monetize Traffic" formula and you can’t fail:

* Build valuable content for your visitors and optimize it for the search engines.

* After some time, the search engines will start sending you free, targeted traffic — traffic that will steadily increase.

* Provide valuable, problem-solving information. This allows you to build a relationship of trust with your audience and they will be more than happy to buy your products, follow your recommendations…

* Ok, now and only now it’s time to monetize traffic: Place your affiliate links and Google ads, sell your own products…

Monetization comes last in the process of building your online business.. First, you should create valuable content, you generate traffic, you gain the trust of your visitors and only then it makes sense to monetize your site traffic.

6 Surefire Ways To Squeeze Maximum Sales From Your Website

William — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:54:00 +0000

I would venture to say that not a single website in the world has reached its peak of effectiveness or earnings potential.

No matter the circumstances, every site can "better its best." If a "magic" formula for website success existed, you'd see the big boys like Google and Yahoo using it.

Since no formula exists, they constantly test and tweak for new ways to squeeze more money from their sites, and you should too. If you operate a website and want to squeeze maximum revenue from it, the following 6 tips will kick-start your efforts.

#1 – Test Headlines Just like a newspaper headline, the headline on your website represents the single most powerful factor in grabbing a reader's eye and pulling them into your site. Most websites do not have a headline or, if they do, it's limp, wimpy, and carries zero "punch."

Every website should carry a compelling headline to let visitors know exactly what they should expect to get from the site. I've personally seen one headline outperform another by 400% on the exact same website.

#2 – Offer Payment Plan Why do you think pitchmen on TV offer "3-easy payments" of only $19.95 on a $60 product? Because the technique works for increasing sales! Often, people either don't want to or can't come up with the payment all at once, but can pay over time. If you sell a product priced at $100 or more, try breaking the price up into smaller payments to increase sales.

#3 – Test Guarantee Period Like it or not, people don't always trust promises on your website to live up to the realities of your product. To remove risk for the customer, you should offer a refund or money-back guarantee (not offering one will, in most cases, kill your conversion rate). However, it's been said by "experts" that the longer the guarantee period, the lower the refund rate. My experience does not support that advice. I suggest you test various refund periods to see which nets you the most sales balanced against the least refunds.

#4 – Test Audio Instructions One of the best ways to increase sales is to include an audio button on your site that tells people exactly what to do in order to buy or subscribe. Telling people in no uncertain terms to "Enter your name and primary email address in the box and click the button" has proven one of the most effective means of getting website visitors to take the actions you want.

#5 – Follow Up Most online businesses totally blow it when it comes to follow-up, especially with existing customers. Follow up with your customers at least once or twice a month and it will amaze you how easily you can make "back-end" and repeat sales. Industry news, tips-and-tricks, and helpful hints combined with a low-key, specific offer for another product or service makes an excellent follow-up formula for both prospects and existing customers.

#6 – Start a Blog A blog makes it extremely easy to keep your customers and prospects updated, as well as providing a dynamic means for new people to find you through the search engines and blog directories. Blogger.com allows you to start a blog even if you don't operate a website, and WordPress.org makes it easy to add a blog to your existing website.

Do You Want To Make Serious Money On The Internet?

William — Sat, 22 May 2010 10:04:37 +0000

I was one of the thousands (if not millions) of people who wanted my own "internet money machine" and I came from a position where I had little or no computer knowledge – I could send and receive emails and knew how to surf the net – but that was literally it!

Does that sound like you? If so then how do you get from that position to making serious money on the internet? The first thing I did was get incredibly excited. I'd been looking for a home based business and eventually stumbled across the internet as an obvious market place. After all I had a computer at home. So I looked around the web (using one of my existing skills – I knew how to surf!) and soon realized "I want to make money on the internet".

So I spent some more time surfing for ways of making this desire a reality. There seemed so many businesses and no shortage of people offering to make me serious money on the internet. How kind of them! Just type in "online business opportunity" in Google and see what I mean. It was about now I began to think perhaps not all these opportunities were as great as they were cracked up to be!

So I went around doing a bit of market research. How? I visited a few forums. You soon learn that there is a forum on just about any subject online. It is a phenomenon that you can use to weed out some of the good from bad if you use them right. Visit a few (again use Google or whichever search engine you have) and just read the posts relating to your interest. If you like you can join and actually ask some questions. Nearly everyone is helpful and friendly. But beware the person who tries to hard sell his or her opportunity to you.

It helps to get over the get rich quick mentality as soon as possible. Sure you can make serious money on the internet – it is after all a market place – but start out with the intention of making a steady income first. Don't try to run before you can walk. When you have your regular income covered you will be in a good position to move to the next stage (getting rich!)

There are so many business types and niches out there that you will have no problem finding something – in fact you will probably be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all. I really had no idea before I started. Just try and hone in on something you have an interest in or that you have some experience in at first. Then research the business and market and the opportunities presented. Visit websites, use the forums and download some ebooks on the subject – invaluable in my experience.

Every bit of help and knowledge you need is to be found online. Just use your search engine as a research tool. The web is like an almost infinite library at your fingertips. I can honestly say that I learned everything I needed without leaving my seat!

Good luck with your "internet money machine", you can do it!

Five Proven Methods For Internet Marketing Success

William — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 06:42:39 +0000

There are hundreds of ways that you can promote your online business or website, some more effective than others. These five proven methods will help you to generate traffic to your site and also to generate income into your wallet.

1. One thing that appeals to everyone is “free.” If it is free people will take it. Think of the samples of cheese given away at grocery stores. Do you really want a small piece of cheese? Of course not! But you take it simply because it is free and someone is nice enough to offer it to you. The same principle applies with information or services offered from your website. You can send out free newsletters or offer a free trail period. One popular thing that is being given away now are free credit reports or free PC scans. These freebies are what we in the marketing field like to call teasers. After running the free credit report or PC scan we alert the customer if there is something found on their credit record or PC and then offer to show them what it is or repair the problem for a price. This can be an effective way to get information to your potential customers, create sales or to generate traffic to your site.

2. Your website contains information about a service or product that you are very knowledgeable about. You can use this knowledge to generate traffic to your site by writing articles in your area of expertise and having them published in an ezine or an article information site. The most effective way to use these articles is to write them for free and ask in return that the publisher allow you to include a byline. A byline is a very short summary of the author, their credentials and their website. Your byline is a way that readers will come to know you as an expert on the topic and will in turn come to trust your site as a source of credible information.

3. Some search engines will allow a website to purchase their ranking. This is an excellent Internet marketing technique in that it is effective and inexpensive. In the pay-per-click programs, website are only billed for those who actually visit the page, unlike banner ads which may be seen by millions but only used by a few. When using the pay-per-click program you are asked to choose keywords and when those are entered your site will appear and if the surfer chooses to view your site, you are billed for that click. Many pay-per-click programs will offer other benefits as well, such as updated lists of commonly used keywords.

4. You should remember that others are in the same boat as you. You can choose to network with those who have similar marketing ideas. When networking you will be able to share links and refer customers to each other. You should always be very cautious when choosing a networking partner as everything that you recommend is a reflection of yourself or your product and therefore, you should be certain that your networking partner is a reputable source of information.

5. Simply because your website is online, doesn’t mean that all your advertising should be. Advertise in newspapers, TV, the radio or you can even send out a press release to get your information to thousands of people all over the country.

How to Find Your Target Market Online!

William — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:31:50 +0000

Are you fishing where the fish are? This may seem to be a question with an obvious answer, but I'm constantly amazed at how many business owners are looking for their target market in all the wrong places. Worse yet is the business owner whose target market is "everybody". Do you know how tough it is to market to everybody? The reality is that not everyone needs your product and service, nor is it a good match for every single person on this earth.

The first issue to resolve is determining who comprises your target market. Are they male or female? What age group? What industry? What socio-economic group? Until you narrow your focus and select a smaller niche market, much of your marketing effort will be in vain.

Once you've got a target market in mind, you need to know more about them. Here are the questions that I ask clients about their target market: Where do they hang out on- and off-line? What do they read? To what groups and associations (real and virtual, personal and professional) do they belong? How much money do they make? Can they easily afford your product or service?

There are some great research tools available online for you to research your target market. Here are 7 that I recommend:

1. Professional associations: American Society of Association Executives, http://www.asaenet.org, is a great place to start, as most of the executives of the reputable associations belong to this organization. To do your search, go the Gateway of Associations, currently found here: http://www.asaecenter.org/Directories/AssociationSearch.cfm?navItemNumber=16581 Once you're in the Gateway, you can look up associations by keyword or by location. Once you've found the appropriate association(s), check out the association website and see if you should belong, and determine if the group has a local chapter that might meet in your area. If your initial search in this directory leads you to a local chapter, you should be able to backtrack and find the website of the national office.

A second place to locate associations is Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations. This multi-volume encyclopedia is present in the reference section of all major libraries, and due to the expense, you will probably want to pay a visit to your local library to use this resource. Some libraries subscribe to GaleNet, the online database, http://www.galenet.com and can issue you a username and password so that you can use it as well.

A third option is to do an online search for "industry" (you fill in your target industry here) + "professional association". Using quotation marks will result in the best search.

2. Trade and consumer publications: Once you've found the appropriate association to which your target market belongs, each association will probably have a professional membership publication and/or newsletter. You might be able to subscribe to the publication without joining the association.

Gebbie Press (http://www.gebbieinc.com) publishes a media directory in which you can obtain a newspaper and trade and consumer magazine directory. Bacon's (http://www.bacons.com) also publishes a number of media directories, including Newspaper/Magazine Directory and Radio/TV/Cable Directory, among others. As with the Gale's Directory, you'll probably have to pay a visit to your local library to use this resource, as it's rather expensive to purchase.

3. Online discussion forums/lists: I've had a number of clients tell me that they have gotten subscribers to their newsletter and signed up clients based on their participation in online discussion lists or forums. Scott Stratten maintains a great list of good business-oriented discussion forums at http://www.un-marketing.com/index.php?p=u. Many professional associations run their own discussion lists and forums. And, there's always the Yahoo Groups Directory, http://groups.yahoo.com, Google Groups, http://groups.google.com/, Forum Haven, http://forumhaven.com, and another comprehensive list at QuintCareers.com, http://www.quintcareers.com/Internet_networking_sources.html.

4. Online networking: Some virtual groups exist for the sole purpose of networking. A number of ones that are better known, like Friendster and MySpace, are primarily social in nature. The business-oriented ones often have "networks", as Ryze calls them, that bring people together centered around a common goal or interest. In many cases, you can create your own network. Scott Allen has a comprehensive listing of online networking groups http://thevirtualhandshake.com/directory.html and has co-written a great book on the subject with David Teten, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online.

5. Blogs: Not only is creating your own blog a great way to market your business, but commenting on other blogs read by your target market is also a smart move. With so many blogs online, it might be tough to find the ones that are the ones read by your target market or are on a topic of interest to your target market. You can start with Google Blog Search, http://blogsearch.google.com/ , Feedster, http://www.feedster, and a directory of blog submission sites published by Robin Goode at http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/, which will be helpful as well in your blog search.

6. Ezines: Reading (and submitting articles to) ezines read by your target market will give you a great overview of typical issues and problems faced by your target market. Here's a listing of the most popular directories, http://ezines.nettop20.com/.

7. Income: Knowing how much money your target market makes will aid you in determining how to price your product or service. For help, consult Salary.com, http://www.salary.com where you can get pay ranges for specific geographic locations. More detailed reports are available for a fee.

Doing your target market research ahead of time will save you a great deal of grief and headache. Targeting your market and marketing your plan will help you get more clients online.

How To Have Great Ideas

William — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:12:56 +0000

Want to have great ideas? You could try waiting to see if they pop into your head someday, and they honestly might. However, if you want a more systematic method you can use today, here it is in three simple steps:

1. Get knowledge in the area in which you want the ideas.

2. Use idea-generating techniques.

3. Choose the best ideas from the results.

Great Ideas Start With Knowledge

You wouldn’t expect to come up with a new theory of relativity if you had no knowledge in physics or mathematics. You need some degree of knowledge in the area in which you want new ideas. For truly great ideas, it helps to have a great deal of knowledge.

To create a new transportation device, for example, you would want general knowledge in that field, as well as more specific knowledge. This might include knowing a little about all the current modes of transportation. You might add to that a list of things that have been tried and failed, and a list of all the things that people want in their transportation.

Great Ideas From Techniques

Ideas and inventions start in the mind, and the mind follows certain patterns and rules. This is why tools such as problem solving techniques and other idea generating techniques work so well. Consider the “concept combination” technique, for example. Tell your mind that you need a useful combination of a plane and a motorcycle, and it will search until it finds it. This mind took twenty seconds to imagine wings that expand out at high speed from a motorcycle, allowing it to glide right off the edge of a cliff.

The technique of redefining problems in many ways can open whole new areas to explore. Redefining “inexpensive homes” as “ways to help people afford homes” has lead to all sorts of new financing methods that have made it easier to buy a home even as prices have risen. If “better job” becomes “better way to make money” you open a whole range of possibilities. There are dozens of great idea generating techniques to choose from, each with it’s own advantage.

Many Ideas To Choose From

The more ideas you come up with, the more likely you are to find good ones to work with. This is why you should learn the systematic ways to produce new concepts. Finally, if “great” means “important” to you, you need to work in important areas. There’s nothing wrong with inventing a better clothes hanger, but if you want to change the world, start working on new ways to save the environment, ways to end hunger, new political processes that avert wars and other great ideas.