LOOK FOR AND FIND OPPORTUNITIES
Let us start on how to find and look for opportunities. To successfully start spotting opportunities, you have to look from four different angles to the world around you. These angles, not surprisingly, are:
• The “need angle”
• The “means angle”
• The “Application method angle”
• The “beneficiation method angle”
It is not important from which angle you start looking from, however, certain people have a tendency to focus only on one angle, and that should be avoided. It is important to look around you from all four angles and to get into this habit.
Support personnel and service orientated marketing and sales people are typically looking from the “need angle”. Their whole approach is to look at the requirements of their customers. “What do they like, what do they need and what problems do they experience?” They are good to identify the needs their customers. They are also great, to evaluate whether their customers would have a real need for a new product, service or solution. Remember these people’s strengths; you might like to use it when you start looking for opportunities.
Technical and scientific people tend to look from a “means angle”. They have marvellous ideas for products, gadgets, patents and technological or scientific stuff. They can design the most wonderful means to achieve many things. However, it is not uncommon to find them developing these wonderful stuff, and find that no one else thinks it to be so great! If you now really want to see a true “techie” swoon, ask them to develop you something. They are great problem solvers. You just have to ask the right question to get them interested to design something for you. It also happens quite frequently that we know what the “means” are, but don’t know where to find it. When that happens, go and talk to purchasers in the relevant industries. They are quite keen to share their knowledge when it will not impact on their business. Purchasers in larger co operations have excellent detective skills, being able to find things that we so often battle to get.
Project managers, business process designers, business consultants and even logistic personnel, just love finding ways and methods to apply things, to get things done. Normally they are less concerned about the means and the need angles, but more inclined to look from the “application method” angle. If you have trouble in finding good ways to apply the means to fulfil the needs, these are the people to assist you.
And then there are the business brokers, the financial guys. As a group, they think only about themselves and money. (Perhaps a bit harshly put, but you get the point!). They can devise incredible nifty methods to benefit the most from almost any business deal. They are used to think in this manner. They continuously think about ways of structuring things to make sure they get a slice of the pie without even baking anything. They think continuously from an “beneficiation method” angle. To think like them is a great habit and skill to acquire.
You have to acquire the habit to think from all four different angles and to learn from the people who practise their particular angle every day.
Perhaps a word of caution here. When approaching people, be aware that they very quickly might latch onto your opportunity ... and guess what they just might do? It is just good practise when looking for opportunities, to listen more than you talk. Just give enough information, or create fictitious but comparative scenarios, to extract from them what you need. Off course, the best would be to talk to people who you can rely on not to pursue the opportunity on their or cut you out of the benefits you are entitled to when the opportunity turns into business!
What helped me a lot to look from all four angles, was to create four different “angle” cards and to carry them, one at a time, in my shirt pocket. I swapped the cards every morning, and prepared myself for the day by thinking about the “angle” and the questions associated with each angle. I have included a sample of the cards that I use in addendum A. Each is a double sided card, with the particular angle and main questions on the one side, and the four element opportunity diagram, on the other side.
The following examples of questions are not complete at all. .As you become familiar with using the questions, you will start asking your own questions when looking from certain “angles”. However, they will definitely help you to get started.
Looking from a “need angle”:
When we look at the world around us from a “need angle”, we should ask the following types of questions:
When looking at people, ask the following:
What do they need but don’t have?
What would make their life easier?
What do they value but don’t get?
What do they struggle with or have problems with?
What do they find irresistible?
What can they afford?
When looking at physical “things” or “items”, ask the following:
Who would like to have that?
Who could benefit from using that?
Who would be prepared to pay for that?
Who would use it but have not access to it?
Who should use it but cannot afford it?
When looking at processes, methods and procedures, ask the following:
Who needs a method similar to this one?
Who would benefit from applying this same method but in a different context?
Looking from a “means angle”:
When looking at people, ask the following:
Where could they provide more value than they currently do?
What abilities do they have which are not used?
Who will value their capabilities more?
What do they need to acquire before increasing their value for others?
When looking at physical “things” or “items”, ask the following:
What is it used for?
What can it be used for other than what it is used for now?
Where else can it be used?
What can be done with the “thing” if there is lots of it?
Where will it be in demand if there are very little of it?
What else might substitute it that will be cheaper, better or more available?
Looking from a “method to apply angle”:
When looking at people, as the following:
Why are they doing things the way they are?
How could they do, whatever it is they do, better, more reliable, more sustainable, faster, cheaper, easier?
When looking at physical “things” or “items”, ask the following:
What happened to the “thing” before it was as it now is?
Where was it before?
How is it used?
How can it be used better, faster, more efficient?
How can it be used more repeatedly or more often?
When looking at processes, methods and procedures, ask the following:
What is processed by this method and which other things might be processed in the same manner?
How can this process be improved?
What is wasted during the process?
Where is a bottleneck in the process?
How should the process change if its throughput is to be multiplied by a thousand?
Looking from a “method to benefit angle”:
When looking at people, ask the following:
What are they paying other people to do for them?
What value to they expect to receive from services they pay for?
What are they being paid for?
What value to they provide for getting paid?
When looking at physical “things” or “items”, ask the following:
Can the item be sold?
Can it be rented or hired?
Can it be swopped?
Can information about it be sold?
Can I charge someone, who would like to get this item, a fee or a commission because I know where this item is, or know where they can find the item?
When looking at processes, methods and procedures, ask the following:
Can the process be documented in detail?
How would I be able to sell the process, procedure or method, to someone not familiar with it?
Would someone be willing to pay to get trained in using the process, method or procedure?
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Thea Els
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