While this is one statistic I don't actually track (because doing so would take WAY TOO LONG and produce no tangible benefit), I am nonetheless certain that 99 percent of all my ideas are crap.
- Why don't they put weed killer in those blue-water toilet sanitation devices, so I don't have to have my sewers snaked every five years?
- Speaking of toilets, if they had a foot pedal that lifted the seat (and put it back down when released) it would eliminate the second biggest dispute of all time between the sexes. (The biggest is tooth paste squeeze or roll -- Cindy solved that one by giving me my own tube.)
- Why haven't they invented siding, gutters, porch railings and other outside home surface coverings with hidden compartments containing Christmas lights? Time to deck the house? Just throw a switch and all the compartments open with the lights installed and glowing.
Of course I have 10,000 or more ideas per day, so that means I'm good for at least 700 nuggets of brilliance a week. The trick, as you may imagine, is cutting the wheat from the chaff as efficiently as possible, and then boiling them down to the few that are within the realm of pursuing. (If I manufactured siding, I'd actually look hard at the hidden lights idea.)
Here's my three-step process for capturing these ideas, filtering out the garbage and deciding what to try. Maybe it will generate an idea for you.
- Idea Capture: I have a file on my computer desktop (lower right corner -- almost always visible) titled Ideas.Txt. Whenever an idea flashes, I click, type, save and close. (I don't even bother to decide how valid the idea is.) That clears my brain of the idea without losing it, so I can get back to the task at hand. I also carry a pocket recorder (it's one of the 20-year-old models with the small tape) just about everywhere I go. Same concept, click, record, click -- idea captured. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is jump on my bike for two hours with my recorder. That's usually good for more than 50 bad ideas!
- Filtering The Garbage: Once a week I scan the idea file and delete all the obviously stupid stuff, plus I listen to the recorder and transfer the good ones to the Idea.Txt file.
- Try It: Once a month I go through the Idea.Txt file and pick one to five things to try the following month. Sometimes I run them by trusted advisers. (But to be honest, most of the time I just pull the trigger and ride the bullet.)
Two years ago one of my seemingly stupid ideas was the spark that launched Yellow-Tie.
Between Christmas and New Years two weeks ago, the main idea I decided to implement in 2007 was this one:
- What if I helped salespeople for free, with coaching and training, and charged only when I helped business owners and sales managers with higher-level issues?
Of course, only time will tell whether this idea joins the 99 percent group.
Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association