If you want your business to be different and more innovative, try thinking outside the box.
Finding new ideas or niches to market on the internet very often means coming up with new or different ideas to make you stand out from your competitors.
Most people have heard of the cliche; 'thinking outside the box'.
Perhaps you have been to brainstorming sessions.
Or perhaps meetings with consultants, it is certainly their kind of language.
When these people talk about thinking outside the box, they mean coming up with creative ways to solve problems, or new ways to look at problems.
Thinking outside the box means being unique and not following what every one else is because it has already been taken and most likely will not work for you because it has been used many times by others.
Thinking outside the box really means thinking of new or different ways to sell products, or solve problems.
The idea is, to challenge your assumptions,you need to see things from a different angle.
Break away from conventional thinking formed by past experiences.
Most people should be capable of thinking outside the box; you do not have to be a great innovator.
But how can you do your own brainstorming to come up with some creative ideas? Before you think outside the box, it is important to know what the box is.
Then we can look at ways to get outside of it.
The box is the conventional way of looking at your business or particular problem that you may have.
It is also the normal way we do things.
It is basically the way you have lived your life in the past and have accepted it as the norm.
In the box thinkers are often not capable of accepting unconventional ideas.
Their first reaction to a new idea is that it can never work, or that the idea may carry too many risks.
They are good at killing new ideas and think that one problem can only have one solution, so finding more than one answer to a problem is a waste of time.
Getting outside the box means challenging conventional thinking.
It is easier said than done, but there are things you can do to speed things up.
Of course, the most difficult thing will be to come up with new or different ideas.
First of all, try to let your mind run free.
One way to get inspiration and possibly get some ground breaking ideas is to take a step back from what you are doing, slow down and give your mind space to be inspired.
Think of as many unconventional or ridiculous ideas as you can relate to your product and then try to find ways to make sense out of them, one good way to get results with this is by asking 'what if'.
Another way to get creative solutions is to challenge common sense.
You may think that that it may be better for your business to have fewer customers.
Perhaps increasing the price would be an advantage.
May be a site could be set up where members provide most of the input rather than the site owner.
Try to get out and about to see how others are doing things, and try to look for a different spin to apply to any ideas that you come up with.
Many people like to be quiet and undisturbed in order to get creative ideas.
Try to have your own brainstorming session, come up with as many unconventional ideas as you can, then try to make some sense of those ideas to make your business stand out from the crowd.
It certainly is neither necessary nor reasonable to expect that you'll have great new ideas come to you every day by thinking outside the box, but the occasional one can make all the difference, in fact it might be the big one for your business, and repay you for all the time spent brainstorming silly concepts that went nowhere.
Let's suppose you get into the habit of thinking outside the box and you have many useless ideas, so you fall back to the conventional way of solving your problems.
But now and again, you do have a great idea that may possibly double your income or sales and changes your life dramatically.
Do you now feel that a flash of creative genius may be beneficial? It is now time to step outside the box; you may be pleasantly surprised by what you come up with.