Where do million-dollar ideas come from?

When it comes to developing a new idea or product, most people hit some sort of an invisible “wall” that stops them dead in their tracks, and washes defeat over even the strongest levels of enthusiasm before you can even get started.

This happens simply because like love, you may be looking for inspiration in all the wrong places. See, most great ideas aren’t really new ideas at all, they’re just answers to questions. And the more successful the product, the more people were asking the question the product was the answer to.

Make sense?

Here, let’s look at a couple of examples:

In the 1920’s, several publishers were having a hard time selling books through mail order, at a profit. Customer acquisition costs were simply too high, and unless there was some kind of a huge back end product to offer, the business just didn’t make sense.

If these companies could somehow sell multiple books for the same customer acquisition cost, then the business would make sense and be profitable.

So, Harry Scherman, an ad man from New York thought to himself, “Why not sell books on a monthly basis, like magazine subscriptions?” And with that idea, the Book Of The Month Club was born, as was their USP, “Don’t miss the important new books you want to read.”

See, Scherman asked the question, “How can we sell more books to the same customer so we can make a profit?”

And the answer to his question launched an empire.

How about this one: In 1913, James L. Kraft was a 29 year-old unemployed salesman who desperately needed to earn a living. So he began peddling cheese door to door, and he discovered a few things along the way.

For starters, the flavor of the cheese was inconsistent and unreliable, because the packaging was so poor and inadequate. Not to mention, it wasn’t very clean and sanitary.

But while Kraft was making his deliveries, he took notice of the fact that the milk inside the bottles left on his customers front doors, somehow managed to stay well preserved, regardless of the temperatures outside.

So Kraft began tinkering with pasteurization and packaging, and within a year, he nailed the formula down so that the cheese he delivered was flavorful and consistent, as well as sanitary.

Last quarter alone, Kraft Foods did almost $10 Billion in sales.

But it all started with a question, “How can I sell fresher, and better quality cheese?”

Next time you’re looking for inspiration, ask a question you need an answer to. And I mean that, literally.

Figure out the most pressing problems your customers have, and ask the question of yourself that will give you the solution to solve their problems.

Sit down with a yellow pad and a pen and write down the question at the top of the page. Don’t have anything else going on in the background like e-mails or the television or whatever — just you and your thoughts.

You’ll be amazed at the answers you come up with once you put your mind to it, and… once you actually ask the right questions.

Because remember, only the right question… gets you the right answer.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Need hot leads who want to do business with you? Find out how to get LOADS of ’em, right here, and… find out, step-by-step, how to write a lead-generation “free report”: http://www.kingofcopy.com/leads

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