Small Business Innovation

The 4 P’s That Spark Small Business Innovation

Start Using Creativity to Stimulate Advancement

Small business innovation is the leading driver of productive inspiration as well as job growth in the United States. That said, when you’re running a small business, actually taking on efforts for innovation can be quite a struggle due to restrictions in time, resources, and funding.

However, just because it’s a struggle, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worthwhile. Being able to come up with new and innovative policies, programs, solutions, products, and services can keep you a step ahead of the competition and can ensure that you always keep your customers increasingly satisfied.

The following are the 4 P’s for encouraging innovation through creative approaches and can be applied to virtually any kind of small business, regardless of the size or resources. Use one or all of these tips to get the inventive parts of the mind working, so that good ideas will be generated.

• Problem Solve as a Team

• Pet Project Day

• Play a Different Role

• Pose Questions to Customers

Problem Solve as a Team 

Encourage everyone in your company to make a habit to try to solve problems in a constructive manner. Instead of simply highlighting problems, have employees consider possible solutions so that the problem and its possible fix can be discussed at the same time.

In order to help build this habit, keep an open discussion with employees, and, when presented with a problem, encourage the team member to innovate by asking “What do you think we can do to solve this?” Don’t forget to actually listen to the response!

Frequently, employees will already have considered potential solutions to a problem and simply need to be asked their opinion in order to share it. When they don’t have an idea, brainstorming among all affected individuals can also help them to learn to innovate as a regular habit.

Pet Project Day

Another great way to encourage small business innovation is to allow your employees the time to concentrate on tackling their own struggles. To this end, everybody should be given one day every couple of months in which they can take on a challenge in their job and try to come up with an idea to solve it.

This allows them the chance to focus on the issue without having their actual daily work in their way. The main rule is that the project must be started and finished within that workday. This isn’t something that can be picked at throughout the next two months. The purpose of having the pet project day is to solve the problem and stop it from taking away from their regular work time.

At the end of the day, the employee will present the outcome. This can allow the company as a whole to continually improve itself and polish its processes and procedures while minimizing problems that can cause frustrations or inhibit an employee from being as productive as possible.

A pet project day works well in virtually every department, from product development to administration, customer service and sales.

Play a Different Role

To truly understand the company and to ensure that you know how things work, have every senior employee within the organization take turns working on tasks or at jobs that would not otherwise be a part of what they do. For example, the head of product development could work in sales, or a marketing manager could spend a few hours – or a full day – in customer service. The sales manager might also do well to spend some time on the operations floor.

This is a great way to open up the eyes of the senior employees to understand the true contribution of a certain job, how it functions, and what the struggles may be. Sometimes, all it takes to see the issues holding back a department is to have someone take a look from an entirely different perspective.

One of the most common inhibitors to small business innovation is the status quo. When an individual gets used to doing the same job every day, they can become accustomed to some of the struggles, and will simply accept them as a normal – albeit unpleasant – part of the day. A fresh set of eyes will often zoom in on that type of issue so that it can be highlighted and then potentially solved.

Pose Questions to Customers

Don’t forget that the main purpose of all of your efforts is to encourage sales so that you will earn more money. In order to do this to your greatest potential, you need to please your customers. Therefore, it only makes sense to actually ask those customers what they think.

Look for feedback by asking customers – through online surveys, for example – if they are happy with your products and/or services. Find out what else they would suggest that you do so that you can improve their satisfaction. Ask them what particular features they like, and why they prefer them over other features. Customers can offer a great deal in terms of practical, workable solutions.

With these 4 P’s, innovation will become a more central and standard part of the regular functioning of your business.