Let me explain. Say you own a small business and your business sells ties. Say that across the street a larger tie selling business pops up and is offering ties at a cheaper rate and is more innovative at selling ties. You might think how the hell am I going to compete with this larger and more powerful tie company?

You could always copy the ideas of the larger tie company and offer similar if not identical services but then you risk getting ridiculed and called a “copier”. Not to mention the inevitable lawsuit that would follow for “copying” ideas.

The best solution would be to think up new and improved ideas, right? This would require thinking outside the box and what some think would be countless hours of time formulating innovation. Honestly you would end up thinking to hard and spending all that time for nothing. Trust me I have been down this road and it does not end well.

So what if I said you could beat out your competition just by stealing? Now before you go off and call the popo. I am not talking about stealing ties from your competition. I am talking about stealing ideas. This does not mean you need to go all Mission Impossible. It means stop thinking about how other tie companies are beating you and think about how other companies not in direct competition with you are doing their business.

In this example lets use a a fictional company called Buy Club. The Buy Club stores give shoppers memberships that allow them to exclusively shop their stores and get discounted prices. Why could you not just steal the membership idea for your business and offer something innovative your competitors don’t? Thus solving the Business Paradox

I strongly feel that most people try so hard to find out what “thinking outside the box” means and not really thinking outside the box. I am sure if you look at some of the most innovative ideas in business you can narrow the origin of said ideas to many companies across many fields. Overall thinking outside the box is more literal then we might think. Think outside your own market and steal ideas from other markets. In the end making you the innovator by not constricting your ideas to one field.

Thoughts, ideas? Leave a comment!

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