Most small businesses are very good at what they do, but often don’t have all the skills necessary to implement a great idea. Successful innovators don’t let this put them off, and are not afraid to collaborate with other companies that do have those skills. They also know that exchanging ideas with businesses in other industries can produce more and better ideas too.
This is NOT about ‘selling’ your idea to them , so they can sell on your behalf. While this does have a place in your sales, collaboration is about genuine and mutual sharing of ideas.
Some of the people you could collaborate with:
- People in your network – who may have skills or experience that you don’t
- Customers – who may have experienced problems and found solutions
- Suppliers – who may have products or services that could be developed together with yours
- Competitors – who may be interested in joint ventures
- Strangers – who may be based elsewhere in the world with completely different ideas
Social Media has made it even easier to work and can be used to collaborate with other people both locally and worldwide. If you don’t want to risk exposing your own idea, why not pose a question about the problem you are trying to solve or the opportunity you are trying to expoloit to a very wide audience via Social Media and get some diverse and interesting ideas. In the technical world, this is called ‘crowd sourcing’.
Download a summary of the 5 secrets of innovation
