10 Great Ways to Generate Business Ideas

Ideas are things that come and go and fairly frequently too. However, the really great ideas usually spring unexpectedly in moments of inspiration. The reality is that great ideas are around you, yes I mean you, it’s your duty to find and nurture them

To start your search for that powerful idea that's going to set the world on fire, come with me to take you through the idea generation process. In this article, we are going to explore some of the possible ways we can generate marketable business ideas for our dreams and visions
Here are 10 ways to keep your mind fresh and open to enable you to generate your own Marketable and top-notch business ideas for your business and dreams.

1.     Meditate: In this world of technology and information overload, we are so distracted that our minds can’t function to its full capacity. A busy, stressed mind is unlikely to access the inspiration and clear thinking required to come up with a business idea, and build that idea into a reality. Taking some time to clear your mind and become aware of the world around you through meditation could open up a myriad of potential ideas.
2. Go online & explore: Almost all the top businesses and founders can be found online, you can get billion-dollar business ideas by surfing the Internet. Don’t waste your time watching or sharing funny videos and images online, Go on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and search relevant hashtags to see what people are talking about. For example, if you’re interested in social finance and social innovation, consider hashtags such as #impinv (impact investing), #socfin (social finance), #socinn (social innovation), #susty (sustainability), #socent (social entrepreneur or social enterprise). Visit popular entertaining websites, question and answer platforms, popular forums, Youtube, Blogs and learn what people are talking about.
3. Meet new people: In the words of Albert Einstein “The thinking that has brought me this far has created problems that this same thinking can’t solve”. Talking to new people who don’t only think like you but who don’t know how you think can help freshen up your brainstorming process. You can talk to people around your community, School, workplace, networking and learning events. This will help you gain new perspective and knowledge to help you develop and sharpen your ideas.
4.  Solve a Problem or a Challenge: If you look around your house, Community, workplace, Place of Worship or even across the globe, you’ll see a huge number of problems or mundane tasks that could potentially be made easier by a new product or service. If you identify a problem in your community, write it down and do some marketing research on that idea, chances are there will be a huge market for it. This is how most of the world great inventions and ideas came about. Just like how Richard Branson Started the Virgin Empire of business, he was quoted by saying “We were trying to catch a flight to Puerto Rico, but the local Puerto Rican scheduled flight was canceled. The airport terminal was full of stranded passengers. I made a few calls to charter companies and agreed to charter a plane for $2,000 to Puerto Rico. I divided the price by the number of seats, borrowed a blackboard, and wrote VIRGIN AIRWAYS: $39 SINGLE FLIGHT TO PUERTO RICO. I walked around the airport terminal and soon filled every seat on the charter plane. As we landed in Puerto Rico, a passenger turned to me and said: ‘Virgin Airways isn’t too bad—smarten up the service a little and you could be in business”. That was how Richard Branson got the idea to start Virgin Atlantic which is now an empire of global Successful Businesses. You can do more looking at the myriad of challenges we face every day in our communities or the world in general
5. Travel More: There’s a whole big world out there of great ideas that aren’t yet in your market. If you see an idea you love in your travels, you can take it back home and give it a new spin that specifically addresses the needs of your market or community. Even if you don’t find inspiration, traveling will help take you out of your surroundings and refresh your system. There’s also places around the world that has ideas waiting to be commercialized, such as in universities, research Centers etc. 
6.  Tap into your interests: Thousands of clever people have taken up hobbies and turned them into a successful business. Tim and Nina Zagat, who launched the Zagat Surveys, a publishing empire that sells restaurant guides for many major U.S. and European cities, are great examples. In the early 1970s, the Zagats were high-priced corporate attorneys whose passion was dining out. For fun, they created a newsletter in which they asked their friends to rank popular restaurants in several categories. Each year, the newsletter encompassed more restaurants. Eventually, it became such an expensive and time-consuming undertaking that the couple began charging money for it to allay their expenses.
7.  Examine your own skill set for business ideas. Do you have a talent or proven track record that could become the basis of a profitable business? To find a viable business idea, ask yourself, "What marketable skills and experience do I have? Will people be willing to pay for my products or services?" If you answer positively to the above questions then proceed to seek coaching and mentoring to help you unearth that idea and bring it into reality.
8.  Keep up with current events and trends: If you watch the news regularly with the conscious intent of finding business ideas, you'll be amazed at how many business opportunities your brain generates. Keeping up with current events will help you identify market trends, industry news - and sometimes just new ideas that have business possibilities. Just like the recent invasion of block Chain and 3D printing, one can innovate around that to build or develop a million Dollar business ideas.
9.  Read more books and get Coaching: Reading can show you where to start and coaching can help you nature and develop new ideas, books can help you to learn many lessons, give new business ideas and understanding how to implement them.
10. Build your network: Building a good network of Influencers and Change makers will give you an opportunity to switch from working hard to working smart. Connecting with professionals in the sphere of your business niche or industry can bring not only understanding of The highest customers’ needs but can help you to get tons of smart advice from influencers and top leaders.

These are among others some of the ways you can generate some great ideas for your vision but remember that “The values of ideas lies in the using of them”.

Book Ibrahim Mustapha to grace your occasion as a Guest Speaker or to train your members in Public Speaking, Team Building, Sales Presentations or Business development. Email: mustapha@mustaphainspires.com or call via +233209022398