How To Develop A Mini eMail Trade Show!

No matter where you look on the web, the key to making any money online is wrapped up in the list. Without one, you’ve got a major hurdle to clear. The following concept, may be your answer to fast-tracking exposure! At some point in time, you have probably visited a trade show within your industry. You saw legions of companies within your industry, selling goods from booths and visitors looking to buy or develop leads for themselves. Using this model, why not create your own mini trade show with friends or colleagues who compliment each other’s businesses? By combining the lists from say five to ten companies, who share the same target audience, put together a promotion to present a series of services to this body of contacts and feed off of each other. Here is how you could approach it:

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How To Develop A Mini eMail Trade Show!

Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.

All too often small business owners fall in love with the idea of creating something that is totally unique.  Something they can lay claim to as original and their own.  Something they can tell the world that they created first.  But that is easier said than done.

Coming up with great ideas is hard enough.  Coming up with great ideas that are new, totally unique and truly innovative is damn near impossible.  The fact is that almost all the “new” content and information we come across on a daily basis is in some way, shape or form recycled.  This is especially true in the world of marketing and business development.

So what do we do?

Start looking at the concept of innovation in a different light.  I say rather than obsess over being the very first to do or create something, be the first to discover a relationship between your area of expertise and what is already known.  The fact that you see a connection that others do not makes your observation unique and allows you to be truly innovative.

Take Richard and Maurice for example.  After running their drive-in restaurant successfully for 11 years (which made them rich) they decided to do the unthinkable… shut it down and start over.  The goal was to make food faster, offer it to their customers at a better price and eliminate their biggest headaches (which were finding new cooks and car hops and replacing broken glassware).  They began by switching to paper cups and plastic wrapping eliminating the losses created by broken glassware.  Then they decided that instead of car hops coming out to take orders and deliver the food they would have customers come up to the window and place their own order directly eliminating the problem and costs associated with finding and training car hops.  Finally, drawing inspiration from Henry Ford’s auto assembly plant, Richard and Maurice completely re-designed the kitchen area to be less like a typical restaurant Kitchen and more like an assembly line.  This allowed then to train new hires to do one simple task over and over again (like cook meat on the grill, dress the burgers or make the fries) which effectively eliminated the need for finding and hiring short order cooks.  It also allowed them to make the food faster and at a lower cost than any other restaurant could.  They called it the “Speedee Service System” and it became the cornerstone of modern day fast food restaurants.

Richard and Maurice McDonald did not create the assembly line.  They did however discover a potential relationship between the assembly line and the restaurant business and they were handsomely rewarded for doing so.  Thanks to the Speedee Service Sytem created by the McDonald brothers and the vision and determination of Ray Kroc, McDonald’s has thousands and thousands of locations across the globe and is among the world’s most recognizable brands. 

Interestingly enough, Henry Ford’s assembly line was a direct result of his visit to a Chicago meat-packing plant where he noticed that the entire process was divided up into specialized tasks.  While this was common place in the meat-packing industry, it was not a part of Henry’s industry.  Henry discovered a potential relationship and applied it to his area of expertise.  He made his dream of putting the average man behind the wheel of an automobile a reality and became extremely wealthy in the process.

There is an endless supply of examples showing the power of discovering new relationships between an area of expertise and what is already known so don’t get hung up on trying to create something totally unique and never seen before.  Don’t be afraid to learn outside of your area of expertise as that is where the truly unique and innovative connections are made.  Most importantly, be aware and alert because you may find that breakthrough connection in the most unlikely place.

My business partner and I have always prided ourselves on being innovative.  We have come up with some pretty unique and creative things over the years.  Sometimes it works and we smash one out of the ballpark and other times we are just too far ahead and the market simply isn’t ready.  Either way we have never been afraid to steal or as I like to say “borrow” the gems from outside industries or experts.  We have been looking to outside industries and experts for inspiration since we started our first business as teenagers and it has always served us well.

Before I get accused of encouraging theft let me be clear.  I’m not suggesting that you take your competitor’s products or information and copy them.  I’m also not suggesting that you take products or information from businesses outside of your industry and copy them.  I do however want you to realize that just about any good idea that you can come up with has most likely been done.  So rather than rack your brain trying to discover something new, look to other industries and try and find a connection.  Borrow concepts, protocols and things that might otherwise be taken for granted in one industry and see how you can shape and bend them to fit your industry.  Follow in the footsteps of giants… discover a relationship between something known and apply it to your area of expertise. 

 “Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso