If you own a business, you may be struggling to differentiate yourself from the competition. Read this post. Then try this exercise: Take your product or service and think of it as a problem itself. Then solve the problem. Your first (dozen?, hundred?) ideas will most likely not be that great. Keep trying. It’s hard to do. It’s work. Keep trying. When the right idea comes, it will be big. It will change your industry and blow the competition away. It will make you look like a genius and an innovator. And hopefully it will make you some money, too.

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Here’s a simple recipe for big ideas:

Take just about any current product or service and think of it as a problem. Now fix the problem. You’ll end up with a big idea.

Fake example: A toothbrush. Lots of different products. They offer a great answer to the problem of gross teeth. Take this product and turn it into a problem itself. Brushing your teeth is a pain. Most people don’t do it right or long enough or often enough, and still end up with dental problems. Come up with an idea to kill toothbrushes altogether.

Real life example: Gas stations. At one time, they were’ considered great. Modern marvels of transportation. One day, someone looked at the service as a problem, and started working on making gas stations obsolete. That’s a huge idea.

Normally when you try this, you’ll come up with almost unattainably big ideas (ideas that are out of your scope of ability). Keep trying. Practice. Try it when you’re shopping. Walking through the grocery store. Driving down the road. Eventually one idea will actually be good and within your scope.

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