Hello Friends,
There is an interesting trendy proclamation out there that ideas are crap and it is all about the execution. Like most absolute statements similar to "There are no absolute statements", the answers are more nuanced. Here are some scenarios:
A bad idea tends to die quickly or slowly depending on resources and execution.
A bad idea can evolve over time with great execution and flexibility.
A great idea can die quickly with poor execution.
A great idea can succeed with great execution.
A great idea can become greater through pivoting and can be successful with great execution.
A great idea can become great through pivoting and be successful with great execution and proven over a long period of time.
An idea can be big or small, it doesn't have to be a business, but can be anything that is added to a strategy.
An idea begins a process that continues with commitment and develops over time with a positive impact.
Here are two ideas that have lasted a long time that I like (Since it is my blog and they are mine) 😂
LightSPEED Technology's Employee Donation Program
Twenty years ago today, is a great way to start a song...but it was about twenty years ago that I had an idea where I worked at LigthSPEED Technologies from 2000-2008. LightSPEED is a great company "that provides instructional audio solutions and has a mission to help students hear every word in the classroom" summarized from LightSPEED's press release. I had moved to Chicago, IL and was covering Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri sometime around 2002. At our annual sales meeting I shared my employee donation program idea with my Sales Manager. The premise of the idea was that every LightSPEED employee would receive an Instructional Audio system so that LightSPEED employee children would improve their learning environments and reap the benefits that people at LightSPEED truly believed in. I learned early in my career that an idea can't just be explained and expect it to be implemented without a plan and some work. It also had to be sold by the right person. I decided that my Sales Manager had a great track record of having ideas implemented. He presented the idea and the rest is history. "Our employees care about our mission, and it starts at home", said David Solomon, Chief Executive Officer at LightSPEED in Press Release. He also stated "This program provides an opportunity for our employees to share the benefits of our technology with the teachers and students, who are important to them personally." While this program was an idea that I am very proud of, it was made possible with great execution over the years. It also would of never happened without the idea, the right person to sell the idea, and a commitment to the idea over time. With these factors the execution is much easier. It also has had a positive impact with employee's families and shows that it is not just a company selling technology but is a company with a purpose-driven mission.
I have always liked the concept of selling your technology with your product. This is a perfect example of using the product to sell it. Schools happily receive technology from a parent/employee and see the benefits. It is an idea that is bound to spread to the rest of the school and the district. I used to present LightSPEED to architects at a "Lunch and Learn." We would bring in lunch and they would hopefully learn about our technology. I would always start off talking without a microphone and introduce myself. It was hard to hear with all of the lunch noise from chips being crunched and bags being rattled. Then, I would turn on the microphone and they could hear me clearly and they instantly got IT. This was one of the most interesting products to sell in my career because the benefits were obvious but they needed to be displayed to be understood. Nice execution LightSPEED! Here is a link to the article: LightSPEED Employee Donation Program
GolfSwingFreak Guinness World Record
In 2011, I launched GolfSwingFreak.com, a social network based on putting your golf swing on video. You could upload your swing on video and it included all of the modern day video, story, liking, commenting, etc. It was definitely too early and lasted a couple of years. It was almost acquired but I eventually shut it down. Mobile was still taking off and only the newest iPhone's had video at the time, funny to think that all Mobile Phones didn't have video capabilities for the first 3-4 years.
One idea that I thought of and implemented was setting a Guinness World Record. I set the Guinness World Record, "Most Golf Balls Hit Into A Target Area From The Knees In Twelve Hours." View the record on the Guinness Website here: The most golf balls driven into a target area from the knees in 12 hours is 2,575, achieved by Brian Lovegren (USA) in Buckeye, Arizona, USA, on 20 December 2011. It took on a PR life of its own and people still comment to me about it today. I learned how to hit golf balls from my knees with my driver from an early age and when I am hitting it poorly I will hit a few from my knees to get my confidence back. I thought of the idea because I met someone at the PGA Show that had the World Record for hitting a backwards drive. He was so excited about it that I thought it would be fun to try a record myself. A lot of the records would take a long-time, for example "most golf holes played in a year", I knew the return on investment on that one wouldn't be worth it. I saw a record for hitting the most golf balls in twelve hours from their feet, and thought of the Knee Driving record. The execution was a lot of work as I had to figure out how to video it, how to have it officiated, I needed someone to tee the ball up for me, I needed a place to do it, there were a lot of logistics. If someone flies out from Guinness it would of been around ten grand. That was definitely not in a solopreneur's marketing budget. The great news is that the record still stands, see the news story here: ABC News. Since then many companies have capitalized on setting Guinness World Records. It is an effective way to combine amazing creativity and performance with both intrinsic and extrinsic results.
Employee donation programs and Guinness World Records are two strategies that involve coming up with a great idea and applying best practices for a successful execution that can be applied to Golf and Business. Ideas are not dead...long live ideas, but don't forget to apply hard work and best practices for optimal execution.
If you want help generating ideas and coming up with a plan for implementation, please feel free to reach out me at brianlovegren@yforest.co or text/call (503) 741-7560.
Creatively,
Brian Lovegren