Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr

Compare and Combine
Risk Taking
Expand and Shrink
Ask What’s Good? And What If?
Transform Your Viewpoint
In Another Sequence
Visit Other Places
Incubate
Trigger Concepts
Youth’s Advantage
Exhibit 11.1. Creativity Techniques
1. Compare and Combine
The first technique is actually two-in-one. They are somewhat related, in that they
involve putting together unrelated concepts. Both, however, are standalone ideas.
The first, Compare, conjures up analogies to determine how something is like
or unlike something else. Consulting is like climbing a mountain because . . .
Pringles® used this technique to create a new way to package potato chips. If you
were a potato chip manufacturer, you would know that your greatest challenge
would be packaging and shipping your product to avoid breakage. No one wants
to buy a bag of chip crumbs. Pringles established an analogy that stated: potato
chips are like leaves because ...Because when they are dry they break. Because
when they are moist they are pliable. The way that Pringles are shaped and packaged
while still moist occurred due to exploring the similarities between two dissimilar
items.
The second, Combine, is a technique in which your thrust two concepts together
for a unique result. Once you force the two concepts together, you pretty much
stand back and see what transpires. When Gutenberg combined a wine press and
a coin punch, the printing press was invented. When Swift combined a refrigerator
Marketing: Can It Be Fun? 225