Here’s A Wild Idea: Use What You’ve Already Got

Earlier in the week I was chatting to a friend whose business I find fascinating – you see, he runs what is essentially ‘the Wikipedia of celebrity dating gossip’. He’s been doing so for years, and he makes a good living from selling the advertising space across the site.

But this week he surprised me with his latest news. – He was about to add an entirely new revenue stream to his business. One that would add 50%+ to his yearly bottom line in just one deal!

That new revenue arm?

Selling the up-to-date celebrity data from the website.

This is data that he already has, and has had all along. Yet now, it’s representing a huge growth in his business revenue!

It’s one of those funny things… When we think about change, we so often think about taking on something newer. Often something shinier.

So here’s a wild idea for you this week:

Find value in what you’ve already got by asking:

“What other problems can we solve with this?”.

It’s simple – but the best things often are.

 

Something To Ponder: Valuable Advice

A couple of weeks ago, the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) hit the news. “‘Serious questions’ over use of taxpayer money as CIT awards nearly $8.5m in contracts to two consultancy companies” – was the headline.

What was that $8.5M for?

Along with some decision making structures, a large portion of it was for:

“strategic guidance and mentoring services to executives and staff”

Now, I won’t pretend to know if all that expenditure is above board – but what is clear is that there is big money being spent on advisory and mentoring. This should be a wakeup call for anyone resisting capitalising on shared expertise.

In fact, two conversations I had this week highlights this further.

The first was with one of my new personal advisory clients – who described her own proclivity for backing herself with an expert mentor or advisor whenever she takes on a new challenge. (Side note: that proclivity is one of the wisest things I’ve heard in a while…)

The second conversation was with an executive whose staff base is aging – she is staring down the barrel of substantial knowledge loss over the next few years. To counter this, we started exploring what a peer advisory & mentoring program could look like.

It doesn’t matter whether the expertise is external or internal – the target outcome is the same: accelerated capability. My own experience is that not only is this true (I too work with mentors), but it’s also far more effective than any single day training session.

How can you better harness expert advice within your own change efforts?