Our core product is good but I think we’re not leveraging it in a creative or strategic way.

Our core product is good but I think we’re not leveraging it in a creative or strategic way. How can we start to think differently about it?

Sometimes a good business idea just doesn’t seem to fulfill its early promise. Externally the business looks ‘okay’ but as an insider you know that the money model is a bit clunky and that the business is not as profitable as outsiders would expect.

Recently a business owner summed up the issue like this: “Our core product is good but I don’t think we are doing it justice. We are not very creative with it and we are not very strategic. I think we could leverage the product a lot better, but we don’t know where to start.”

Funnily enough I also see plenty of businesses which, to be honest, have a fairly uninspiring product but then they do amazing things with it. These businesses seem to have the gift of turning the mundane into marvels.

So how do they do it?

Well one common theme is that the CEOs (or management teams) of the mundane-to-marvel businesses are very inquisitive about other businesses. They don’t confine their interest to businesses in their industry but rather they are fascinated by, in general, how other businesses work.

And it is by looking at these other businesses that they find inspiration for their own businesses.

If this doesn’t come naturally to you then you can follow a bit of a process to get yourself into the habit.

First of all, when meeting someone in a different industry to you, be genuinely interested in their business. Ask them about how their business or industry works. Provided you are not a threat to them most business owners are very happy to talk about their industry and their business. They will be flattered that you want to know!

Next, make use of the conversation. What aspect of the way that your interviewee does business could you emulate in your business? Call these ‘analogs’. And what aspect of the way your interviewee does business could you do in the opposite way? Call these’ antilogs’.

Keep a log of these conversations and your thoughts about analogs and antilogs and talk about them at your management meetings. Your findings will stimulate a good discussion and should ignite a bit of imagination.

If you need an example of analogs and antilogs a good way to think about it is this. Gillette are famous for their money model which sees the company selling state of the art razors at a relatively low margin and the repeat purchase – razor blades – at a high margin.

The product and repeat-purchase model serves as an analog for Apple’s iPod and iTunes. But Apple then turned it on its head, they sell the iPod at a relatively high margin and the songs (the repeat purchase) at a low margin. That’s the antilog at work.

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses:Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business”  and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).