What is the difference between a new opportunity and a bad idea?

Dear Aunty B,

We start to develop these ideas and then abandon them as we find they start costing us money.

How can we tell at the start if an idea can be incorporated easily into the business or will cost us a bomb to develop? We have just had to shelve an idea that I pitched to the board as a new stream of revenue and then we find out that it would send us broke.

Wondering,
Victoria

Dear Wondering,

Oh, I am an expert on that, having learnt the hard way of course. I work in a profession that has more good ideas than sense.

It is only when you get to a certain stage of developing the product that you have the “oh no” moment and it occurs to you that the way you will be selling the product is different and your sales staff need different selling skills and the sales support role is different and there are different risks and different distribution channels… and suddenly it occurs to you: you have not created a product that you can leverage across existing products. You are now running a new business for which you do not have the skills, expertise or manpower.

And that is when you look at your costs to bring in the skills and resource the thing properly and the great idea turns into a bad idea.

Our growth expert Tom McKaskill has a great list that we have adopted in our company:

Our rules:

• The new product must fit the vision.
• New product should be able to be developed within existing R&D.
• It should be sold into similar markets.
• It should be sold to customers who buy in a similar way.
• Current staff can sell the new goods and services.

That is not to say that we don’t launch new things that cost a bomb. It just means that we know it will cost a bomb because early on we say “hey, this is a new business!”

Good luck!
Your Aunty B

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