Episode 129 – Cross-Pollinate Business Ideas
When it comes to creating new business ideas or strategies, there is no universal rule in doing it. Most of the time, creativity and hard work can bring out the best ideas. In this episode, Adam Stott talks about how cross-pollinating business ideas from different industries can be very effective. Adam also shares the Bounce Back program which recognizes entrepreneurs’ ability to adapt in the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Show Highlights:
- How Adam Stott conceptualized the Bounce Back Program
- The moment when Adam Stott realized the coaching business
- How the Business Events Members Network works for its 12,800 members
- How is Cross-Pollination works with business
- Strategies Adam used to make Cross-Pollination effective
Links Mentioned:
Business Events Members Network
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Hey everybody, Adam Stott here welcome to Business Growth Secrets, got some cool business growth secrets for you today. We’re gonna talk today about the power of coaching and I’m gonna talk about a new initiative that I’ve just set up which is really awesome which you can be able to access for free because you’re gonna added on our group, Big Business Events Members Network.
Some of that we’re gonna be doing and I’m gonna be calling it bounce back series, the bounce back series. What I’ve done is I’m instructing my head coach Ross Temple to go and interview our top clients and they don’t know this yet. So, if you’re one of our clients and you’re listening, your wanna reach out to Ross and ask to participate in the bounce back series and I’ll be announcing this this week when I do my gold circle, my business academy mean. I’ll tell you that one in a moment.
The premise of the bounce back series is to interview lots of our clients on how they’ve got through COVID, what is it they’ve done and we might even take a couple of the interviews if they’re really good and put them on the podcast so you can actually see what they’re like and you get to hear some different voices about what they’ve done and how they’ve bounced back.
The premise is that we want to understand how the coaching helps them through the difficult times, how they were able to bounce back, what is it they’ve done differently, what things did they put in place that made a difference for them and we’re gonna profile those people and this is gonna be great great great exposure for our clients because they’re gonna be out on our group, we’re gonna put the videos on the group. It’s 12800 business owners in that group, and its’ a brilliant opportunity and to get the message out, their business out, their brand out in front of those people. It’s also a great opportunity to see how people have adapted, how they’ve changed and how they’ve been able to, so the buzzword is PIVOT, in what’s been a difficult time for many many people.
One of the things I’m really really proud of all of our clients because they kept the mentality on point, I think it’s probably easier for them in a way but this is where we get to the power of coaches, probably easier for them in a way, because imagine this when they get stuck, they are able to pick up the phone and it as you pick that phone up and have a conversation with somebody that can help him to get unstuck. And I think a lot of people under estimate or don’t realise how helpful ways to a business owner because a business owner has challenges constantly.
Almost on a daily basis and been able to actually run that by coach [00:02:17.02] path already makes life a lot lot lot lot easier. Now, I’ve discovered coaching actually pretty late on my first business where I’ve been running my first business I didn’t have any any real coaches from really 2008 when started through to about 2013. So, went five years on my own. I could honestly say, they were the most stressful five years I’ve ever had. You know, constantly try and figure things out, trying to come up with the answers that were challenging. I mean in a way they help me to hone my skills, trust my instincts and build myself but things became easier and successful very quickly afterwards once I got the right coaches around me and they help me.
So, with the bounce back series, it’s not all about the coaching I want to hear about their businesses, what they’ve done differently, because what I’m hoping that will do is give lots of people that are in the group or those following us an idea or maybe some ideas that they can put into play, and I’m a big believer in sharing. Like one of things that holds a lot of business owners back is when instead of sharing their knowledge and sharing information, they try to hold onto everything hold on to; I don’t want my idea copied, I don’t want people copy my ideas, and what they get my idea… the reality is, it’s a big big big big world and somebody copies your idea it’s not a big deal.
The reality is your clientele probably not gonna see someone’s copied it and I think that that’s a big thing. There is enough clients out there for everyone and I think sharing and training and developing is really important. When I’m in my first business I was kind of like that. I really got [00:03:56.05] when people took my ideas but the reality is and you heard this before is copying is one of the best forms of flattery. And the reality is someone can copy an idea and they can take that idea they can run with it, and maybe they get a little bit of success but they are gonna be second or third, fifth to market with it.
The reality is, if they haven’t got the ability to come up with their own idea and they can’t come up their own ideas regularly, then they’re aren’t gonna be a true force in business anyway. So, it’s nothing to worry about. So, I think that’s an important thing to understand and is even worse if somebody like doesn’t have any innovation because they’re worried or they don’t take any action just to say it differently. Somebody doesn’t take action because they don’t want people to see their idea, that’s like crazy. You know the reality is if you’re gonna grow a business, you got to get your market right, you got to get you’re branding right, you got to get your message out there and the quicker you do that, the quicker you’re gonna can see results. So, I think that’s really important to.
We’re really interested to see what our clients have done, we have such a variety and think it really show the variety of people we help. We help people in insurance, we help people in financial services, we help people in property we help people that we’re marketing, we help people in service-based businesses, product-based businesses, you know, large products like [00:05:12.12] agents and like automotive, travel. You know, we help all these people in different industry so you’re following the group which is big business events members network and you should go over there and join on, its free to join. You’ll be able to see all these different series of interviews we do with the clients to really look at how they’re creating much, much better result and I think that will add real value to you.
I think that as a business you probably been in this situation before, that when you need some inspiration, you know this is what I see a lot of business owners do is rather than realizing [00:05:43.16] needs some inspiration, they kind of like they just do what they used to doing. But in order to succeed, you need to innovate you need to do things differently. One of the best ways to do things differently is to do a cross pollination.
Now cross pollination is imagine a bee, a bee goes from flower to flower and pollenates lots of different flowers and if you imagine all the different industries out there in the world of flowers, imagine you took an idea out of the travel industry and you bought it into the automotive industry and it’s never been seen before. That is not no idea if it is been used in a different industry but all of a sudden you cross pollinate that Idea from travelling to automotive all of a sudden, you got sound fresh, you gonna sound new. So, I’m a big believer that you should study different industries and see what they are doing and test those ideas in your industry and that’s how I’ve come up with some of my best ideas. So, you can say that cross pollination is gonna be the business secrets for today.
One of things is that when I started the coaching business and events business, I took a lot of ideas out of automotive where I’ve very very successful, I’ve had ups and downs, but for the majority over 9 years, I was extremely successful in the area dominating a lot of the market and I took those ideas into the events and coaching business and those ideas are never been seen before so all of a sudden, they bought fresh impetus and they gave like electric growth. And I want you to start cross-pollinating and you do that and you bring your ideas and vice versa, and [00:07:16.12] it’s got a lot of ideas back into the car business or I took ideas into the market business, or I helped our clients in other industries take ideas from those different industries and created amazing results.
I think it’s really, really vital that you learn from other businesses and other industries, a lot of people get really focus on the industry and they want to learn everything in their industry, where the secrets that you need to know, the secrets that can help you to get that electric growth actually out there, they’re probably right in front of your face but you just need to recognize them by understanding, studying other industries and business models and bringing them into your own and then that will make you truly unique in your industry cause a lot of people don’t do that and it’s called cross pollination. It’s something that was taught to me many many years ago by one of my coaches and I found it to be truly valuable. So hopefully you can take that on board.
Maybe what I will do is just write down two industries a month that you’re gonna look at and you’re gonna study or look of their model and if you do that you just studied 2 a month then you know your over the course of the year you’re gonna have tonnes and tonnes of new ideas and new ways that you can add innovation and unique attributes to your existing business.
So, what should you from here? Well, go for it write down two industries a month, work on that and the other thing the two industries a month work on those, the other thing go and join the group and start studying this bounce back series which is gonna be launched in about a week’s time, first video so in a week’s time by next Tuesday’s podcast or net Thursday’s podcast, you’ll be able to check in on that group and see and what I probably will do is take one or two of the best ones and put them on the podcast as well so we can share that information there if in case it’s really important.
So that’s today’s business growth secrets, hopefully you’ve enjoyed our chat, hopefully, you now can see that the viewing figures are skyrocketing on the podcasts and so if you’ve been away for a little bit, if you come back, welcome back. If you haven’t already make sure you go and leave us a review on iTunes and all you need to do is go and give us a 5-star review and say that that you enjoy the podcast, we really appreciate it because that kinda drives me to keep going and keep giving better content and more consistent content when I can see people enjoying it and hopefully you’ve enjoyed today’s session and I’ll look forward to catching up with you very soon!