Small Biz Survival

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Innovation: How to come up with Big Ideas

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Successful entrepreneur Bob Parsons has a tip for coming up with big ideas:

So here’s my tip. Take time – preferably away from your business — and talk about your business with your employees. Talk about what’s right and talk about what’s wrong. During your discussions, you should have no particular goal in mind other than open conversation. Remember you’re just talking about the business. You’re not giving anyone a performance review. You just want to know how they see things, and it’s important that you share with them how you see things. That way the information exchange will rise to a good level and flow both ways.

Now suppose you are a struggling entrepreneur — like I once was — and you don’t have employees. Then maybe you can instead talk with someone who is familiar with your business. This could be a peer or maybe one of your vendors, or your spouse. I think the process of talking about your business is healthy and will help bubble up ideas.

Read more at Hot Points with Bob Parsons.

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

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