Have you dreamed of opening your own cell-phone shop, tattoo parlour, ice-cream shop bakery, spaza shop or leather work business?
Most successful entrepreneurs started their businesses with a “dream”; not by accident or default.
Entrepreneurship is hard work but it is also great fun! It is tough to take that first leap of faith and get started, but just think, what if you succeed?
Individual entrepreneurs dream, and when others “buy in” to that dream, teams are formed who drive the business to success.
So what does a business dream look like?
According to The Springboard Academy’s Terence Knott-Craig, a business dream is:
A deep desire to make a difference in the lives of others;
A conviction that something – your product or service - will make that difference in the lives of others;
Often not a clear picture of what or how this difference will be made, but a certainty that it will.
What do you need to do with this dream?
Some people, often those who have opened their own small businesses before, will develop the dream into a complete picture and process of the activities that will bring the dream to life.
The dreamer collaborates with others who have similar values and desires, and develops this dream one step at a time. This creative process is frequently referred to as “ideation”.
Ideation is the process of generating and developing new ideas, often through brainstorming. If done in the right way, it can help entrepreneurs and business founders to focus on the right problem and work out how to solve it. In other words, find the problem (need in the market), come up with “the solution”, and develop it into a viable business idea.
So what is this process of “ideation”?
Knott-Craig says the process involves the following steps:
Identifying a problem or need that needs addressing, or a product or service (referred to in future as “the solution”) that will greatly improve the lives of a community or market (Brainstorm all the issues that could be involved);
Doing sufficient research about the receptiveness of the community or market to the introduction of “the solution”. Is it something they actually want?
Researching what value the community or market places on “the solution”;
Knowing that you can deliver the solution better than anyone else. Do you have a Unique Selling Point – USP?
Making sure that the need can be satisfied efficiently and profitably.
What’s next?
If you have answered the last point in the affirmative and with certainty, the next step would be to enter the “planning” phase of the four-step process:
Don’t miss out on next week’s blog post about step two – PLAN.
If you need any assistance developing your “dream”, do not hesitate to contact The Springboard Academy.
In the meantime, dream productively and happy planning!
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