07/22/2024
When your strategy focuses on innovations that create new markets or industries, you're 9.6 times more likely to realize profitable success versus "playing it safe" and focusing on incremental innovations.
To be more successful, here are some things you should STOP doing:
1. Stop Relying on Focus Groups: Focus groups can only reflect the world as it is known today. Customers often can't envision what new product or service will be desirable in the future. As W. Edwards Deming said, "Customers can't say what new product or service would be desirable three years from today."
2. Stop Playing It Safe with "Low Hanging Fruit": Close-in ideas and minor variations from current offerings may seem like a safe bet, but they often fail to deliver significant profits. Remember, there is no such thing as easy profits.
3. Stop Ignoring Radical Ideas: Don’t dismiss ideas that contradict established thinking. Radical and different ideas offer the greatest potential for meaningful growth and can help you realize substantial innovation profits.
4. Stop Confusing "New to Our Company" with "New to the World": Customers don’t care if you've never offered a certain type of product or service before. They’re only interested in what you can do that no one else can do.
Start focusing on these strategies instead:
⚫ Engage with Industry Thought Leaders: Get personally involved in your category and related ones. Seek insights from those who are aware of future trends.
⚫ Ask About the Future: Connect with retailers, salespeople, consumers, and even media members. Ask them what they anticipate for the next 3, 5, or 10 years.
⚫ Embrace Imagination, Risk, and Innovation: New ideas are generated through imagination, risk, innovation, and trial and error by the producer.
Think NEW TO THE WORLD – aim for groundbreaking innovations that set you apart and create entirely new markets or industries.
