Sometimes a piece of paper and a simple pencil are enough to successfully generate ideas. However, there are other tools that will help you approach the process in a more organized way.
His main goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible, and then choose the most promising ones from them in terms of achieving goals. Unfortunately, our brain has a natural ability to filter and evaluate the ideas that come to our mind. That is why you will probably not write down all the ideas, as you will consider some stupid and unworkable. To prevent this from happening, follow two simple rules.
Write down all the ideas, no matter how crazy or impossible they may seem. For the sake of a career boost, do you need to appear on the most famous TV show in the country? Write it down on paper. Such ideas very often lead to others — unexpected, but very interesting. You may not get to the show you dream of, but you will participate in a small podcast, and that's a good start.
Brainstorming is a "dump" of your brain's ideas. You don't have to decide right away how good the idea is or how to implement it. You'll do that later.
They can be used both individually and simultaneously.
For example, you want to come up with an idea for a company that you can do from home. Then the question will be: "Which business is most compatible with such goals?" And if you want, say, to lead an active lifestyle and travel, you should formulate the question differently: "What kind of home business is flexible enough so that I can fly freely to other countries?"
Or imagine that you already have a profitable business, but you cannot expand your clientele in any way. In this case, you need to ask yourself other questions: "What service is missing for my clients?" or "To whom, if not to me, do my clients turn for help and why?"
This method became popular in the 20th century thanks to the British psychologist About the Tony Buzan Company / Tony Buzan Tony Buzen. The method is ideal for those who perceive visual information better.
There are many applications and web services for creating mind maps. However, if you prefer to write everything down on paper, then you will only need a notepad, a pen and colored pencils. And you can use them like this:
Let's say you want to come up with breakthrough marketing ideas. Start with the word "marketing" in the center. Then draw lines to the thoughts of the second level — "Building a community", "Media and PR" or "Advertising". From Facebook Building, you can draw other lines, for example, "Creating a Facebook group*", and then "Live broadcasts on Facebook* every week". Continue to develop each branch in this way, and you will have several working ideas at once.
This method is ideal to come up with an advertising slogan, a name for a company or its products.
To make such a map, write down all the words related to your business or corporate values. If you plan to grow organic products, write down "organic" and "products". For each of them, select others that are similar in meaning, say, "safe", "clean" or "vegetables". Such a word map will help you present your products more accurately.
It is usually used in the preparation of a business plan and the development of a business strategy, but such an analysis is also useful for brainstorming purposes. To do this, divide the page into four columns:
Then, in each column, write down any words, thoughts, or concepts related to your idea that come to mind.
Imagine that you are thinking about starting a blog. Then in the "Strengths" column you will write down all the advantages of such a business idea, for example: "I'm an expert in my field" or "It doesn't require a lot of finance." In the "Weaknesses" column, you will add your doubts or skills that you lack: "I'm not very good at technology" or "It will take time to reach a stable income." In the "Opportunities" column, you can specify "Many options for earning money", and in the "Threats" — "High competition".
Analyzing and making decisions solely from the point of view of the business owner is a common mistake. The best ideas usually resonate with the needs of customers and attract them. To find such an idea, you need to imagine that you are the client.
Customer or customer surveys help in this, as well as a look at marketing, sales and service from the customer's point of view. If you used your own products or services, what would you miss? Is there anything that can be improved? The answers will help you work on the service and optimize the customer experience.
During brainstorming, we usually try to find answers. But sometimes it's not very clear what questions to ask. In this case, it helps to return to the six main interrogative formulations — who, what, why, when, where and how. They can be written down on paper or even used as a basis for a thought map.
For example, you want to make money from affiliate marketing. Then write the phrase "affiliate marketing" in the middle of the sheet, and then draw six lines from it in different directions. For the "how" construction, the question "How to promote partner products?" is suitable, for "who" — "Who is the ideal customer for an affiliate product?". Come up with as many similar questions as possible. The answers will lead you to new ideas and ideas.
You've probably been asked at least once in your life what you would do if you won a large sum in the lottery. This question will also help during the brainstorming session.
Often our brain dismisses some options because it understands that we do not have enough resources. Try to drown out these thoughts and think about how you would develop the company if you had billions in your account.
*Activity of Meta Platforms Inc. and its social networks Facebook and Instagram is prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.
