Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, what do they all have in common? Every one of them had crazy ideas they trusted, believed in and took proper actions to turn those into an awesome reality. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. This famous quote was the genius of Rob Siltanen.
We live in a time where you have more opportunities to turn your crazy ideas into an awesome reality. Just think about it; jet-setting the world, making music or starting a new business were never as attainable as they are now. Nothing is off limits when you have opportunity drivers such as social media, crowdfunding, business incubators nowadays.
Everybody gets great ideas, it’s turning them into a reality that makes all the difference. Think about Google X projects like the driverless car or Google Glass. How about the innovative genius of Apple products when they first came into the market? iPods and iPhones and Apple computers all have revolutionized digital products. Can you even imagine your life without these devices?
These were all crazy ideas once. That was before someone took great efforts into making them come alive. So what did they do? You know you’ve got to do something about that brilliant idea you have before it fizzles out of your mind. Here are five ways to turn them into reality:
1. Stop Talking and Start Doing
When people have crazy ideas, they get excited and go tell their friends or share it with their family. If you don’t have the proper foundation to defend your idea, then you are ridiculed, shamed or even forced to give it up before you did anything about it. So before you declare your crazy idea to your inner world, consider writing your idea down on paper first. This is to make sure you don’t forget it. Once you’ve written it down, do a SWOT analysis and begin a market research to see if your crazy idea is crazy enough to take off the ground. Do a survey or give out samples to know your potential audience. All this work will help you know if your crazy idea has any potential to turn into a reality.
2. Know How to Sell Your Idea
With the perfect market research, numbers and answers in check, prepare yourself to defend your crazy idea. Your crazy idea is your important product and who’s to say it won’t turn into profitable venture someday? So how can you sell this message across to venture capitalists or people who can back up your crazy idea? If you’ve ever watched the popular TV reality series “Shark Tank” you know pitching your idea has to be done in the simplest way. Easy does it. Can you explain, in under two minutes, how your crazy idea solves a problem? Because if your idea doesn’t improve anybody’s life then you may not have any takers for it. For example, you have this crazy idea for a script or a book, then get assistance on it before you pitch it. If your idea can turn into an app, make a great pitch about it so vendors buy your idea and make the app the way they want later.
3. Break It into Milestones
According to Harvard Business Review, there is a stark difference between planning for new venture and planning for an existing company. Breaking your crazy idea into milestones will help you see how it will evolve and knowing this helps planning better. Each stage tells you what the drawbacks were and you can then come up with solutions, change plans and deal with the next stage. Milestones help you test previous performance and is key for decision making because it won’t be based on estimates. Estimates are more often away from reality. Performance-based reviews are more likely to help you project future behavior. Every milestone will further work on deadlines which helps build a momentum to turn your crazy idea into a reality!
4. Build Momentum
If you want to achieve what you’ve set out to turn into reality, you need to infuse your plans with great momentum. If you see obstacles in your path, people may ask you to wait until they pass. While sometimes this could be true, other times it could just mean you are procrastinating. The more you wait to get something done, the harder it will be, to get done later. Prioritize to take the most necessary actions first. Take consistent steps to stay on course.
5. Don’t Focus on Results
.. too early. Let’s say you’ve started a blog and you’ve posted articles, but you don’t see those 100,000 daily visitors you planned to see in the first six months. See if you’ve done everything in your power such as SEO, posting articles that improve people’s lives, used social media or guest posted to attract traffic. What else can you do to make it better? If you’ve done everything, there will be results. If these results are not what you expected at first, then chances are you will be discouraged. If you shift your focus, you are guaranteed to not see those results anyway.
So what you need is a meticulous plan, motivation to see it through, stay on your course and remain focused to turn your crazy idea into an awesome reality.
