Building more ideas, part II - Foundation

Everyone's heard about building a house on the sand. It doesn't work. You've got to have a solid foundation to start from. In fact, a solid foundation is of paramount importance to a building. Construct a house on a weak foundation, and no matter how beautiful it is, it will eventually fall. So it is with ideas.

Your foundation in this case is lots of ideas. How do you get lets of ideas? Stop killing them. To start having more ideas, you have to let yourself have bad ones and acknowledge that it's ok. Bad ideas are a starting place, a learning experience. Start by letting all your ideas out - good and bad. Don't hold any back. Don't think about what won't work or what's too far fetched. And do the people around you the same favor. Encourage people to speak any and all ideas that are on their mind.

Ideas are a little like family reunion food. According to my grandma, too much is great, but not enough is a tragedy. That's because its always easier to cut things out than it is to add to what you have. So by taking all ideas, good and bad, you'll have many more to choose from. And often, the inspiration for good ideas comes from bad ones.

And ideas seem to multiply, just like tribbles. They increase exponentially.

It will take practice and courage to stop killing ideas, but keep at it. You have to lay the foundation to your idea building, and the more ideas you have to add to it, the more solid your foundation will be.

Building more ideas, part I

All of the elements you need to get more ideas can be structured like a parts of a building. And don't worry, one of them is not a high IQ. If you can take the parts, and start from the ground up, you'll have an excellent way to generate lots of ideas. But, just like building something, it will take time. You can't put it up overnight and you'll probably need some help.

Over the next few days, I'm going to give you the pieces of the building you need to get a lot of ideas. Your first building might not be perfect, so keep building more and more. Every time you practice this method, your buildings will be more beautiful.

More Customer Service Ideas

If you can't tell, I'm pretty enamored with excellence in customer service. And with Starbucks. Time after time, they exceed my expectations on service (and my expectations are pretty high). Needless to say, I visit Starbucks quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's just my Starbucks (yes, I go there often enough to consider it "mine"), but they are always ultra friendly. The one time they messed up my order, not only did they fix it right away, but they gave me a coupon for a free drink on my next visit. I didn't even ask for it!

When something goes wrong, it's such a great opportunity to exceed customer expectations. And by giving me a free coupon instead of just giving me that drink free, they increase the chances that I'll come back.

Yesterday, I noticed that they had a sign up advertising their new smoothies. As I was waiting at the window for my drink, I asked how the new smoothies were. Not only did she tell me all about them enthusiastically, but she handed me a coupon for a free one. Again, almost guaranteeing a return trip from me. And they didn't even need to do that, since they know me well enough to know I'll be back!

Of course I went and cashed in my free smoothie coupon this morning. When I handed the lady my coupon, she actually seemed excited.

"Oh! You have one of these!" "Look!" she said to the other staff members. And they all cheered. I have no idea why it was so wonderful that I was getting something free from them, but it made me feel great. Like I was really doing them a favor getting a free smoothie.

How can you take every mistake and turn it into an opportunity to generate customer loyalty?

What if you got excited every time a customer redeemed a coupon?

Oh, and the smoothie? Delicious. I'm sure I'll be back next week for another.