Brainstorming New Ideas
by Dera DeRoche-Jolet

I’ve never liked the term "brainstorming." Maybe it’s because it’s been so overused. People tend to toss the word around way too easily without realizing its seriousness and potential. Although I may not like the word, I’ve got a confession. I love brainstorming new ideas.

Whatever you want to call it, many people are running successful businesses because of brainstorming new ideas. America is full of the success stories of those who have made money coming up with simple ideas.

Of course, we all know that success involves more than just coming up with ideas. It takes effort, but the vision and creativity of new ideas is the first step.

Brainstorm and you just might come up with a new business idea. But for those of us, who already have a business, the creative juices released from brainstorming are just as important to every aspect of your current business. Coming up with new ideas is an effective way of improving your company's service, reducing costs or even deciding on a new service or product line.

New ideas can both accelerate the growth of your business as well as change the direction and focus of your business. By brainstorming, you’ll develop inventive solutions for problems that you may have thought were impossible to solve.

The best way of stimulating your creativity is to ask questions. The more questions you ask, the more ideas you'll be able to come up with, especially if you try to see things from different perspectives.

Start by defining your problem or what you want to accomplish. Be precise. Ask yourself questions that encourage making changes. For instance, "What products or services can you combine?" or, "How can the ideas you use now be put to other uses?"

The object is to be open to as many ideas as possible. Make sure to write them all down. At this stage, don't criticize, evaluate or worry about how you'll even make your ideas work.

By focusing on a problem and deliberately coming up with ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem at first, you'll be surprised at the innovative solutions you can come up with.

So how do we turn off our preconceived business ideas and stretch our imagination so that we can be more creative?

First, realize that everyone - including yourself - can be creative. The main difference between a creative person and others is that the creative person is open to new ideas and takes chances.

Second, don’t judge, criticize or evaluate any of your ideas until after you've finished brainstorming. Judging your ideas before you even begin can suppress creativity altogether. Wait until after you’re finished brainstorming before you judge your ideas. At that time, you can give each idea either a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down."

Most of our ideas develop from ideas that we already know so keep in mind that you might try merging ideas. Brainstorming actually encourages our minds to combine ordinary ideas and produce original solutions.

In fact, brainstorming is a very proactive and hands-on approach that can save you time and money. You can find solutions and resolve conflicts before your business situations turn into full-fledged emergencies. As you become more familiar with your business and come up with new solutions and ideas, you’ll be ready to adapt to the outside forces and challenges your business faces.

By being proactive, you’ll also eliminate much of your stress. In fact, your business will run much more smoothly because you’ll not only know your business better but also have a better handle of its future. You’ll also be one step ahead of your competition.

So whatever you want to call it, brainstorming is good for your business and a lot of fun. Of course, if anyone wants to "brainstorm" and come up with another name, I’m open for suggestions.