181 Creating Your Big Idea – Bob Sager

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

It's time once again for The Go-Giver Podcast, where we explore five timeless principles that will increase the profitability of your business and the joy in your life. Now, here's your host, the co-author of The Go-Giver, Bob Burg.

Bob Burg (0:17)

Hello again, I'm Bob Burg, and we have what I hope you'll find to be an interesting and value-packed show today. Not focusing on your competition is not the same as ignoring them. We'll look at that in our thought of the day. In our interview segment, Bob Sager shows us how to be creative and innovative as a way of distinguishing our business from the competition in a very crowded and noisy marketplace. That and more on today's show. I thank you for joining us.

You One of my favorite lessons from the 1910 classic The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Waddles was where he advises his readers to live on the creative plane as opposed to the competitive plane. In other words, focus on the value you can create for your customer rather than focusing on your competitor who desires to have the same customer as you desire to have. However, it's important to understand that not focusing on your competition doesn't mean not acknowledging your competition, not being aware of them or not understanding them. As we've discussed in previous episodes, successful people live in truths. They live in the world that is, not the world they wish it were. Sure, most of us would love to be the only one in our field.

We're not. To deny that is to deny reality and rarely does that result in success. Ignoring your competition, not knowing about their products and services, not understanding their strengths, their weaknesses, their opportunities or their potential threats, would put your business in a very dangerous situation because I can practically guarantee that they know those things about you. So indeed, learn everything you can about them. Just don't focus on them.

Focus on creating immense value for those in your target market, those you serve and those you wish to serve.

And in today's crowded and often hyper competitive marketplace, in order to create that value, you've often got to be more creative and innovative just to be heard and paid attention to. Fortunately, today we get to hear from an expert in that regard who will share with us some terrific ideas for beginning that process. Bob Sager, coming up right after this. Yes.

Imagine being part of a community of business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are committed to your success while supporting one another and co-creating the kind of world we want to live in. If you've read The Go-Giver and the message resonates with you, and you're looking for like-minded people who share your values and a mentor to guide you along the way, I invite you to join the Go-Giver Success Alliance community. This is a leading-edge, private global community committed to helping you build practices and habits to master the five laws so that you can be stratospherically successful and personally fulfilled. This is not a Facebook group. We've created our own private Go-Giver Community Network. And you'll be able to join me personally, along with other successful Go-Givers in our virtual Rachel's Famous Coffeehouse. Just visit gogiversuccessalliance.com or click on the link in the show notes and you can see what it's all about. I'd love for you to join us.

Bob Sager is the founder of Speak Point Solutions, a company that helps businesses dramatically increase revenues via word of mouth, while spending considerably less on advertising. He has over three decades of experience in sales, leadership and training. His forte, though, is creative thinking and teaching his clients how to do the same so that they can innovate more readily, develop effective business strategies, get unstuck and thrive in today's competitive marketplace. He's the author of the personal achievement book Discovering Your Greatness, as well as the book 101 Freaking Brilliant Business Ideas and 10 Ways You Can Create Your Own. He's the creator of the recently launched Business Strategies by Subscription, which you can find at spearpointonline.com, and is the inventor of the creative thinking game, What's the BIG Idea. There's also a game show version of that, which you can find at whatsthebigideashow.com. All of these links will be in the show notes. Hi, Bob.

Bob Sager (4:54)

Hey, Bob. Great to be with you, my friend.

Bob Burg (4:57)

Oh, thank you. Great to have you with us. Your fastball, if you will, is really creative thinking and strategizing.

I love this from the very beginning of the preface of your book, 101 Freaking Brilliant Business Ideas, you wrote, People only pay attention until they think they know what you're saying. Then they quickly move on. Dive into that for us, if you will.