Who dreams up the new ideas in your business? Who thinks about what the future holds? You do have a full time “thinker”, don’t you? Probably not. Do you know what tomorrow holds? What opportunities? What threats? The opportunities are easy, it is the threats that will do you in. Think about the pace of technology and government. What impact will these two groups have? Will technology or the government destroy your business?
Let’s do a little thinking about Chris the Contractor. Chris builds banks. He builds the best banks in the world, fast, cheap, environmentally conscious banks. He is “printing” money. Question, why do we need a bank building in our community? Today, it is possible never to visit a bank branch, and it could be a very short time until the technology is advanced enough that all banking can be done on our phones. There is already an app that lets you deposit checks through a scan on a smart phone. How many more banks will Chris the Contractor get to build, before his specialty is gone?
Chris is a smart, hard working, never say die, kind of guy. An all-American. He decides to get into building libraries. A bank and library are very similar type buildings. The library is a good, government backed institution. Right? – Wrong! Why do we need physical libraries? We don’t. Technology will replace them. The cost of the building, employees, physical books is all too high when compared to e-books and cloud computing. Post Office buildings – ditto. Retail stores – ditto. The list is long. Chris the Contractor may make it or he may not. If the total volume of building decreases, contractors lose money, then close up. That is Capitalism.
If Chris the Contractor would have come to us, we would ask Chris – What is your company good at? Construction, he probably would have answered – that makes sense. But in our minds, Chris’s success is in his planning and process. The ability to follow detailed directions (building drawings), assemble a team (subcontractors), and manage the process successfully. His being a contractor may have been a personal passion, but his success – and his future success – may not be based on being a building contractor, but using the same tools to achieve a similar successful result in a completely different field.
Often when talking about Creative Solutions and Opportunities an old acquaintance comes to mind. He was in the typewriter business. If you are under thirty you might need to Google typewriter to understand this story. Anyway, we met – about 17 years ago – and he was full of passion for the typewriter business. He knew computers were all the rage and could do a lot of things, but he had totally convinced himself that computers could never be used to fill-in pre-formated forms. The forms every government office used. And he was right – for a while. Unfortunately for him, form maker software came out, then the scanner, and long after he was gone, the PDF document. This acquaintance did nothing wrong, he just did not think – logically – where the progression of technology is going to go. It cost him his company, his livelihood.
Very Sad.
What we do for you is not ground breaking or earth shattering, but it works. First, when requested, we have the ability to generate a lot of new, fresh, creative solutions and ideas for your business. Ideas and solutions that you may never think of on your own because you may not have the time or desire to stay current with technology or government happenings. We Do.
Secondly, we are not scared to put ideas out. People – employees, customers, professional service providers – are often afraid to voice their opinion or thoughts. This is human nature. Everyone has some fear of being “wrong” or being the “guy” that “rocks the boat”. Well, in the creative process we do not believe in wrong. The probability of an idea being successful may be very, very low, but it is not wrong. “Rocking the Boat” is what we are all about.
Spend a little time being paranoid about the future. It can be scary, but there is money to be made or lost on what happens tomorrow.