Putting that Great New Idea into Action

How many times have you walked out of a seminar or workshop all fired up, carrying a bag full of brochures and copies of the PowerPoint presentation the keynote speaker had just shared? The topic may have been an inspiring new marketing idea or a better way to improve production processes, etc. Whatever it was, the presenter had made it sound easy, exciting…doable.

Then you hurried off to the next workshop, where you heard more heart-pounding motivation that was sure to turn your company or department into a wonder. You couldn’t wait to get back home to put feet to those ideas and reap the rewards.

So, as soon as you arrived back in the office, you called a meeting to share all the new ideas with everyone. You put various staff members in charge of getting the ball rolling, to make it happen. Unfortunately, after a short while, you noticed these NEW IDEAS were getting pushed to the back burner.

You look back over your workshop notes...and somehow ideas don’t seem quite as exciting as when you left the meeting. You’re thinking, “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, after all!”

Or, MAY I SUGGEST—implementing good new ideas takes more than a little “Rah, rah!” and temporary stabs at application. It takes a commitment and some good-old-fashioned elbow grease!

A while back, one of our clients (I’ll call him Troy) called to tell me about a workshop he had just attended. The speaker—another business owner from his industry—had shared a unique, “proven” (he said) way of bringing in new business. As Troy had listened to the speaker, it occurred to him that 90 percent or more of the people attending the workshop would NEVER implement the speaker’s ideas, even though they were some of the most exciting ideas Troy had heard in a long time. Would Troy become one of the 90 percent?