I had not heard of Derren Brown until I saw this video. The “setup” is two British advertising experts are given a very short time to craft an artificial ad for a service. I won’t spoil the video, but this video claims to show the power of subliminal advertising.

After viewing it, I proceeded learn more about Derren and watch many others of his videos. He’s quite entertaining.

Much like a world class hairstylist who can’t do her own hair, or a great manicurist whose nails are never done, I am an excellent marketer of other people’s products and services, but when it comes to marketing my marketing consulting firm, I need a little help.

I’ve already made contacts with these people, I just wanted something catchy to get us meetings. We can help them with their marketing and pr, and promoting their special events. The name of my company is Soulstice and our logo is a flame.

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Jay’s Answer: Send an ethic doll holding your business card/note. The doll will reinforce your Women & Minority owned status, and the package will get opened.

Published in October 2007

Ida, my Prussian grandmother, loved talking with friends and family.

Once, after listening to a friend’s woes, she said, “Oh, it’s only a money problem!”

Her friend sat stunned for a minute and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, there are health and money problems. A health problem only God can help with. A money problem is fixable by humans.”

Knowing what’s wrong

We often forget that problems we can solve are a challenge, but not insurmountable.

Let’s start by looking at a list of common business problems / challenges:

1. Not enough clients. Are you sitting around waiting for the phone to ring?
2. Not enough money. How is your cash flow? Are you having trouble paying your bills on time?
3. Not enough time. When was the last time you took weekends (or evenings) off? How about a vacation? How about a good night’s sleep?
4. Staffing. Are your spending more time dealing with your employees than working on your business? Are you wishing that you could clone yourself?
5. Competition. Are there more businesses fighting for your customers?

What’s interesting about all of these problems is, they’re really just symptoms. And if you spend your time trying to fix the symptom rather than fix what’s actually wrong, the result will only be temporary.

So what are some of the underlying problems?

1. Lack of Planning. Many businesses start serendipitously. You create a product or service for your own needs. Someone notices it and wants to buy it. You sell it. They tell their friends. You sell more. You’re in business! Gradually, you notice you’re selling less. What happened? Do you need to advertise more? Reduce your price? Strategic (focusing on vision) and business (focusing on action) plans are necessary to help you identify goals and achieve them.
2. Not Knowing Yourself. What core values underlie your business? This is the “soul” of your business and attracts the right clients to you. These qualities inform all your actions; including your message and your image.
3. Not Knowing Your Clients. Who are your potential clients? How easily can you find them? Clearly define your niche: New mothers who love yoga; children who like classic movies; recently divorced men. The narrower your niche, the easier it is to find customers, and the easier it is to create a message tailored just for them. If you have multiple niches, you’ll need different messages for each group.
4. Wrong Message. Your clients don’t (initially) care about you and your products. They care about their problems. Solve their problem, and you have a potential client. Have them trust your solution (and price the solution’s value well), and you have a new client.
5. Single Income Stream. Are you stuck working by the hour? If you’re not working, you’re not earning any money; taking a vacation becomes a dollars-and-cents trade-off, not a quality of life issue. If so, then you don’t have a business—you have a job. A business can make you money while you’re asleep. Likewise, if you business is cyclical (for example, gardeners in spring and summer), you need other services or products for the “off-times”.
6. Working on the Wrong Things. What are you good at? What do you like to do? Whenever possible, focus on your likes and delegate everything else. Doing too much of the things you don’t like is a sure-fire path to early burnout. You need to understand all the parts of your business, but you don’t have to be an expert at all of them (or be the one to do them) .
7. Not Measuring Your Actions. How can you tell if you’re spending your time or money effectively? By constantly measuring your results to find out if you’ve been getting a good return on your investment (ROI).

Fixing what’s wrong

Once you’ve identified the underlying problem, how to do you solve it? The good news is, you’re not expected to know how to solve everything in your business. But you are expected to come up with a plan, implement it and measure its results (repeat as necessary).

You’re the expert in what you’re offering. So unless you want to be an expert in the “other stuff,” it’s best to get some help. If you’ve done your research (books, magazines, peers, experts) and you’re still stuck, it’s time to put on your creative thinking cap:

• Detail The Problem. How long have you had it? What have you tried? What worked? What’s the benefit of solving the problem? What’s the underlying reason for solving the problem (money to payoff debt? Lifestyle change?) Do you really want to solve the problem (or is there an emotional block)?
• Imagine Your Problem Solved. What would you have: more money, less effort, higher quality, better clients, more time for other things? Is this future truly compelling? If not, odds are you won’t successfully solve the problem .
• Palpate. Gently explore the problem and see what’s true. Find your blind spots. Have someone interview you about the problem and start offering quick suggestions. How would someone in another field solve it? A child? What would you do to prevent the opposite of the problem from happening (for example: If I had too many clients, I would: be surly, wouldn’t answer the phone, do a bad job, etc.). Are your assumptions really true? Have you seen anyone else solve it? Who do you admire, and how would they solve it? Will the problem go away if left alone?
• Evaluate. Generating solutions to problems is easy. Doing something about them is harder. Make sure to implement solutions that have measurable results. Learn from your mistakes.
• Get Support. Making change requires new routines. It’s easy to slip into familiar patterns.

Be thankful that you “only have a money problem.”

Many people have been commenting about Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect:

“Brainstorming [is] used in nearly all of the world’s largest companies, nonprofits, and government organizations. And the reasons seem obvious… “The average person can think of twice as many ideas when working with a group than when working alone.”… But is it true?

In 1958… psychologists let groups of four people brainstorm about the practical benefits or difficulties that would arise if everyone had an extra thumb on each hand after next year. These people were called “real groups” since they actually brainstormed together. Next, the researchers let “virtual groups” of four people generate ideas around the “thumb problem”, but they had to brainstorm individually, in separate rooms. The researchers combined the answers they received from each [virtual group] individual and eliminated redundancies… They then compared the performance between real groups and virtual groups…

To their surprise, the researchers found that virtual groups, where people brainstormed individually, generated nearly twice as many ideas as the real groups.

The result, it turned out, is not an anomaly. In a [1987 study, researchers] concluded that brainstorming groups have never outperformed virtual groups. Of the 25 reported experiments by psychologists all over the world, real groups have never once been shown to be more productive than virtual groups. In fact, real groups that engage in brainstorming consistently generate about half the number of ideas they would have produced if the group’s individuals had [worked] alone.

In addition, in the studies where the quality of ideas was measured, researchers found that the total number of good ideas was much higher in virtual groups than in real groups.”

I’ve found that interactive brainstorming groups generally suffer from the “too loud, too fast” phenomenon.

Groups tend to be dominated by the most vocal people. When someone else is talking you’re trying to balance listening to their ideas and thinking about your own. Furthermore, “group extroverts” can be intimidating.

The goal of brainstorming is to come up with as many ideas as you can as quickly as possible. The idea is by working quickly, you prevent the inner critic from stifling a (part of a) new solution. This means that the group operates a certain speed (which varies during the meeting, but it’s the goal of the facilitator to reduce the “lows”). One speed doesn’t work for all, frustrating both the quicker and the slower thinkers.

As a result, “real” brainstorming meetings aren’t harnessing the full creative power of the group.

Virtual groups don’t suffer from “too loud, too fast”. It operates at your speed, and is much more comfortable. In a parallel virtual group, each member goes to a different location for fifteen minutes and writes down ideas, then combines them into a single list. In a sequential virtual group, each member thinks for fifteen minutes, and passes their ideas to the next person, who then adds their ideas to the list. Examples of this are online bulletin boards and blog discussions.

Does this mean that you should discontinue “real” brainstorming sessions? Yes and No.

Yes, stop holding the “too loud, too fast” classic brainstorming meetings. They can produce results, but disenfranchise many people. Business management holds to look like they’re doing something (”Hey, we care enough to hold brainstorming meetings”).

No, don’t lose the human-ness of the meetings. The goal of the group is to continue to evolve into a community, working together to solve problems.

If you don’t have the luxury of others to brainstorm with, one technique you can use is mind mapping. Mind mapping, used for centuries, is a graphical way of recording, organizing, and displaying your thought process. It is a simple and fun tool for doing solo creative problem solving.

How To Make Your Own Mind Map

1. Gather a bunch of (colored) pens and paper. Alternatively, you can use one of a myriad of mind mapping software packages. For me, pen and paper is more portable and directly tactile. Others may prefer using software to record their thoughts. The software packages’ resulting mind maps can be much more legible.
2. Identify the core word (or phrase) you want to mind map.
3. Write the core idea in the center of the paper (you can write ideas in the mind map using words, icons, or small pictures – whatever is most natural).
4. What immediate ideas spring from this core idea? For each idea, draw a (colored) line radiating from the core idea and label the line with the idea. The colored pens can be used to color code each of these branches.
5. Looking at each of these newly written ideas, what ideas spring from these? Continue branching organically, allowing yourself to bounce from one idea to another, remembering to maintain the color-coding of the core branches. Key ideas/milestones may be further indicated with small pictures.

Example Core Idea: “Business Networking Opportunities”

Further Reading

An overview of mind mapping

A brief introduction to mind-mapping, written by a college guidance counselor, with emphasis on using mind mapping to help you find a job.

A free online mini-course on making mind maps

“A group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous
contribution of ideas from all members of the group”
– Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Brainstorming is one of many creative problem solving techniques. While you can use any size group, we believe it works best when done in a facilitated group of 5-10 people. The more diverse the group the more diverse the input. The group members don’t need to be experts in your field. In fact, they don’t need to know anything about the problem topic at all!

Step 1: Define Your Problem

You need to get really clear on what your problem truly is (and is not). Keep asking “why?” until you feel that you’ve identified the root of your problem. For example, if your problem is “I need more money?” Ask “Why? To do what? And then what?”. Once you have the problem, state the brainstorming topic as:

“I would like to _________ but it’s difficult because ________”

The more time you spend in defining your problem the better the results will be.

Step 2: Uncover Solutions

Now is when the group starts contributing ideas. The group should some pre-agreed rules. Here are some:

• I will listen to others’ ideas.
• I will not be attached to my idea.
• I will attempt to find the good in someone else’s ideas.
• I will give myself permission to be wrong, insane, and stupid.
• I will respect that the person with a problem is best judge as to quality of the idea.
• I will not tell someone else what to do, I will only offer suggestions.

Make sure you have someone responsible for recording the meeting (that person should definitely not be the person who’s presenting their problem).

Brainstorm for a set time. Initially, a lot of obvious ideas will be suggested. After this initial flurry, things will quiet down. Be patient. Risk saying something that makes no sense to you. The better ideas usually arrive after people have relaxed and listened to others.

Step 3: Evaluate Solutions

Here is where the solutions that were suggested can be evaluated. What ideas are the most exciting? If any of the ideas seem incomplete, go back to step 1 and re-brainstorm.

Remember that brainstorming can be an intensely intimate encounter. Thank everyone for their contribution.