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Find a Better Box

Stephen Shapiro  |   | 
 
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Every small business wants grow their revenue, but from my perspective that is almost an unattainable goal because it’s too broad and abstract. The first thing I always recommend to people is just to really feel: what is the question you’re really getting at? What is it that you really want? So if you want more revenue, you want to start to deconstruct that and dissect it a bit.

So figure out, for example, do I want more revenue from existing customers or do I want new customers? Do I want more customers or less customers? Then you start digging deeper. Which kinds of customers? Where do I focus? Again, it’s about the leverage point. To me, it’s not about trying to solve this big, abstract, fluffy problem.

The way to get new revenue, well there’s a billion ways to do it of which almost all of those are going to be bad. You want to try to reduce the amount of energy you spend on innovation in trying to solve those problems by just asking different questions. Reframe the question and you will get different thought processes, which lead you to different answers.

As I always say, don’t think outside the box, find a better box. To me, trying to increase your sales is a really big, abstract box. Try to squeeze it down a little bit and you’ll actually find you increase your level of creativity and you’ll be able to solve it in a way that’s much more efficient.

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