$100M product ideas

Read time: 4 minutes

Hey there 👋 - it's Brian.

In today's issue we'll cover how to hit your revenue goals by creating new opportunities.

We’ll look through a case study on how my team helped one of the largest banks in Mexico meet their $100M new revenue goal.

We'll learn how a big leadership team can effectively brainstorm new revenue opportunities for:
• New products
• Increased customer retention
• Increased spend on existing products
• New customers for existing products

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The bank's CEO faces a challenge: reach $100M in new revenue or risk losing his job

It's pre-COVID. Luis (name faked for confidentiality) steps in as the bank's new CEO. He’s been working his whole career at the bank and he finally did it. He made it to the top.

But he's nervous.

The bank has a new owner and Luis wants to make a strong impression at the role he’s wanted his whole career.

So he challenges the bank’s leadership: he increases revenue goals by $100M!

Leadership is in shock. How do we get $100M in the next year?

So they called my team for help.

We ran workshops with bank leaders to help them come up with ideas to close the revenue gap. And in the end, we hit $100M in revenue.

So how did we do it?

Here are 7 things we did to create the best environment for teams to create revenue ideas (and principles you can apply to your business):

1) Inspire with ideas from other industries

Creativity is taking ideas from other contexts (e.g., industries) and bringing them into your own.

Start the workshop by presenting innovative ideas from other industries (that could apply to your business). This gets everyone thinking beyond their day-to-day and considering what's possible.

For example - here are some companies with best practices we learn from:
• GEICO for customer service
• Apple for customer onboarding
• FinTechs (like Mercury) for partner ecosystems

Collect cross-industry examples of innovative ideas and share them with your leadership.

2) Low pressure environment

No "quality" pressure. Set expectations that ideas should have no filter. The "worst" ideas can trigger someone in the room think of the $1M idea.

No time pressure. Don't pressure them to come up with ideas on the spot. The best ideas won't come during the brainstorming part of the event. Instead, when you least expect them (after the event, bathroom breaks, at lunch etc).

3) Make it easy to submit ideas outside the event

Give people a template that's easy to submit. Not a lot of friction. We want the most ideas possible.

Give them a week or two after the workshop to continue to submit ideas.

4) Incentivize ideas submission

Since we want as many ideas as possible, incentivize people to submit.

For example, the person who submits the winning idea gets to:
• Choose the offering name
• Be a stakeholder
• Choose the logo

5) Create new experiences

Clean desks are best for analytical thinking. Messy desks are for creative thinking.

Why? Messy desks mean a lot of objects on the table. Each object is an opportunity to remind you of a big idea.

Now, we don't want a messy workshop, but we do want to create opportunities for attendees to be reminded of a big idea.

Here are a few ways:

Gamify the experience:
• Write ideas on cards and tape them to posters around the room
• Place candy and toys around the rooms
• Have people walk to different stations
• Play music

Have a theme.
Steal ideas from theme parties. The best theme is one that has some connection to your business or strategy.

Once you've chosen your theme, align logistics to your theme:
• Food
• Music
• Posters
• Decorations
• Team names

Place leaders in breakout groups with people they don't normally talk to. Hearing comments they don't normally hear sparks them to come up with new ideas.

6) Apply guardrails

Counterintuitive, but you need constraints to be creative.

Why? Because your mind bounces from idea to idea and thinks "does this apply?"

It need something to anchor on. It's harder to answer the question: what's your favorite food? Than it is, what's your favorite pasta dish.

Business strategy pillars.
Your business strategy needs to have a few areas it's prioritizing (if it doesn't, here's a guide to creating strategic priorities).

Focus the ideas on opportunities within your strategic priorities.

Brainstorm by category.
Show a visual of the 4 categories of revenue opportunities (list below).

Ask: what opportunities can you think of within each category?

Reminder: These opportunities could be…
• New products
• Increased customer retention
• New customers for existing products
• Increased spend on existing products

Ask questions to guide thinking.

Here are some examples:
• Ask: What have you heard today from other industries that could apply to the business? • Show example customer feedback. Ask: how could we use these comments to improve the business?

7) Invite people with diverse backgrounds

Make sure the business leaders in the room come from different functions and levels. Diverse backgrounds means diverse ideas.

We hosted ~15 events and found the workshops with only senior leaders had the least original ideas!

That's a wrap! Ready to create new revenue ideas for your business?

See you again next Thursday! 👋

Brian
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