Episode 100 | Coming Up with Your Next Big Idea

Today I want to talk about finding your next big idea.

It’s 2020 everyone’s got new thoughts about what they want to do in their business. There be tends to be more creativity at the beginning of the year. So I want to talk today–maybe not necessarily about group practice building–but about finding your next big idea.

Maybe your group practice is doing well, and the management of your practices going the way you want, so now you’re ready to take on something new. And that something new might be something new in your group practice, like a new service or offering but it could also mean a new business.

So when trying to think about your next big idea, I feel like the first thing that we need to do is set the stage so that we have the optimal environment to be able to to figure out what that next big thing for us is.

One good tip is to disconnect from life. Getting away from your regular day to day activities. I find that when I disconnect from the things that I normally do in life, whether that’s you know, being on my phone or computer or working from my office, and maybe going into our forest preserve and going for a walk and you know, dictating into my phone my thoughts, that I tend to inspire more creative thinking.

So disconnecting from life is a great first step to awaken that next big idea.

Another is tapping into like wonder. Bcoming a kid again and letting your mind wander and go to like places in your mind that you wouldn’t necessarily go into as these professional adults that we are. There’s something to be said about tapping into that wonder and becoming more kid like in our thinking.

Another idea is using an ideas journal writing tends to, especially if we do kind of this free association writing tends to get some of that creative juices flowing again. I’m going to be talking in a minute about a think tank idea, but this is kind of what I do. And I tend to find really fun, creative thoughts when I do it this way. So give me a second and I’ll get back to that.

Another thing is thinking about defining your purpose knowing your purpose in your life and as you as a business owner is going to help you guide your ideas.

Before you think of your next big idea, you really want to know what the purpose is of you engaging in bringing out this new big idea. Because the last thing you want to do is come up with an idea because you want or need more money, but you’re not passionate about it, or you’re just like in this honeymoon phase of passionate about it. It’s not something that you want to do for the rest of your life. So define your purpose. And make sure that that, that this new big idea aligns with it.

And then putting yourself in situations that spark innovation and creativity. I find like I said before being in the forest preserve going for walks, going and doing like a get stuff done retreat and getting away and going into a hotel. And in another town can sometimes spark innovation and creativity. Because you’re seeing, smelling, hearing all new things.

Another idea is to just look for it. Look for your big idea, the act of looking for it tends to bring about it’s like this manifestation idea, right? You if you’re looking for that next big idea, it’s likely to kind of fall on your lap and that way.

Another tip is to just jump into it. Like just start doing it. Sometimes thinking too much can lead to inaction. And if that’s the case for you, if you’re someone that thinks too much about things, and tends to have a lot of ideas that you don’t implement, it might be time to act on one of those.

And when I say that, I don’t mean just go and act on the next thing you think about you want to, you want to make sure that you’re acting on something that is in line with your purpose and is purpose driven.

But sometimes you need to give yourself permission to stop thinking so much about it and to just take a step towards doing it.

And then my last tip is finding help, don’t do it alone. Have your support people I did a podcast episode a few weeks ago on finding those support people and who those support people can be. But you’re more likely to be successful when you don’t feel like you’re isolated and doing it on your own.

Alright, so back to one of the steps that I gave, which is the ideas journal.

I like to call it the ideas think tank.

It’s essentially like a brain dump of random ideas. And and not even worrying about if these are ideas are ones that you actually want to do. It’s more about letting that free association that shit that just comes out in your head to be put on paper. So start thinking and writing down all of the ideas that come to light. I had done one recently, so here’s some of the ones that came to my mind (and like I said 99% of these are not things I actually want to do but for whatever reason they came up and I put it on paper); what you’ll do later is cross them off circle some highlight some. But I’d written:

• start a podcast
• write a book
• start a support service for my group practice
• open a non profit
• coaching and consulting
• build products for therapists
• become a CE sponsor or provider
• become a speaker
• start a conference and with your specialty or for your specialty
• license current products that you have to other businesses
• build a program for other businesses like on workplace culture, leadership, or communication or conflict resolution
• start a subletting business
• buy property
• build online courses
• or start a brand new service within your group practice.

This is was kind of an idea of what a think tank can look like. It’s just check check, check mark have a ton of different ideas. And what you’ll find is the deeper you go the more creative you get, the more you might be driven to one of those ideas. The purpose of the think tank is just to spark creation and innovation because when our brains are in that creative flow, we tend to do our best work.

So then you’ve done your idea, Think Tank, and maybe you found one that really excites you. You want to make sure that when you’re bringing your ideas to life, that you know your why, and you know your purpose.

Why do you want to do this? What is your greater purpose behind doing this?

An idea without a purpose that is bigger than you is going to leave you uninspired, directionless, and your ideal clients are going to see that later. Mike Michalowicz talks a lot about this in his Clockwork book: that you need to know your why and your greater purpose behind doing what you’re doing so that you’re more energized to do the work that you’re doing–and it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like something that you love doing.

The next thing to think about is who your ideal client is.

So who does this product service thing? idea? Whatever it is, who does it serve? What’s their avatar? What is what do they look like? What are they doing? Where are they frequent? What kind of people are they figure out? And again, you can do a sort of brain dump on this, who your ideal client looks like for this? Are they stay at home parents? Business owners? Are they people on the internet? Like, are they on social media? Where are they going? What are they doing?

It’s going to help you later on when it comes to marketing those services, to figure out how to do that best.

Going along the idea of marketing is once you have that idea, you found your purpose and your why behind doing this. They’re in alignment. It makes sense for you to take this step and you’re excited and invigorated by taking that step to put this idea out there. Whether it’s a new business or service or product, it’s formulating your marketing plan.

So is that a physical product? Is it a digital product is that a service is an online business?

That’s the first thing you want to really know because it’s going to help you figure out what’s what kind of steps.

What is your marketing flow? Do you need an email list? An opt in freebie, something that they get to get people on your email us? Do you need community awareness? A social media presence? Because if it’s a digital product, it’s not about community it’s about are not about physical community or local community but it’s about like global community or something else.

To get your idea in the right place you the whole idea behind it is you want to figure out what are the best actions you think at this point in your kind of creative juices flowing idea frame of mind? What kind of things do you think need to happen to get your product or thought or idea in front of the right people in front of the people that really need that thing from you?

Again, like I said, it can be different things from how a freebie and an email list that then kind of feeds people to a product that you have. Maybe it means doing speaking engagements. Because when you do speaking engagements you’re getting in front of the exact people that you need to get in front of to sell that book, maybe that you have, right?

So start thinking about what ways do you need to market or network to get to the people.

And it might be, like I said, if you had a group practice, it might be a very different way of marketing to sell a book that you maybe want to write than it is to get clients in your front door. So you can’t necessarily replicate the way you’ve been marketing for your group practice for this next product, or idea, I should say, so might not be a product.

The next thing I think is really important to think about when you’re thinking about this next big idea is supporting your actual success in building that next big idea. Who do you Need to increase your chances of success? Do you need a business coach? An accountant? Do you need a financial planner planner? Or do you need a digital marketer, social media marketer, a mastermind group, an expert in that field, another person who does what you do to be your support, buddy?

Who do you need to increase your chances of holding yourself accountable to getting successful in launching that next big idea?

I feel like this is one of the areas where people skip over because it’s not something that you can necessarily see an immediate return on investment in, right? People think “I need to figure out a marketing plan because I need to sell this product or this idea.”

But in reality, sometimes things like having someone to talk to is going to be your greatest investment.

So who do you need to increase your chances of success to bringing that next big idea to life?

It’s the new year so like I said, it’s a time where people are coming up with a ideas to become more innovative to bring new things to light to spark creative juices that they might have left dormant for 2019.

I’d love to hear what your next big idea is, and how you’re going to implement that.

So if you’re in the exchange membership, put a post out there for me and tag me on it. And let me know what your next big ideas because I’d love to one hear about those fun ideas, but to I’d love to support in any way that I can, that next big idea.

I feel like it’s an amazing opportunity as a group practice owner, to be able to get to a point where you can diversify your income and diversify just how your brain is working, and how you spend your time and be able to do things that have greater impact on the people in the world by doing different things. So I’m wishing all of you luck in 2020 and making your group practices run the way you want them to!