Allison Maslan walks through a structured brainstorming tool that helps mentors guide clients toward new revenue streams. Clients map their passions and talents against market gaps and competitor weaknesses, then the mentor identifies patterns and co-creates ideas together. The exercise comes from her book Blast Off.
So this is a tool that was given out at. There was a couple tools that were given out at the member event and this one that probably many of you have never used before, it's called the Revenue Brainstormer. And just to give you a little history on this one, Jamie, where is this on the software that is in the Strategic partner, Strategic vision. Strategic vision and planning pillar? In the library. In the library. In the library. Okay, so this is a tool that we used years ago, before 15 scalable models. And when we had our event blast off and we were helping them come up with revenue streams and you know, we were working with more early stage businesses there then. However, this is a great exercise when your client wants to come up with a revenue stream or maybe they want a new direction, maybe they're getting ready to exit and they want to know what the next stage is, you know, or they just need another, you know, cash flow driver. But it need, they want something that they're really going to love to do. Like they actually, that, that's in alignment with who they are. And so this is a really cool process, but it's how you, you can't just give the tool because it's a partner process. And so what, we used to do this at the events and it would just blow people's minds. And we had lines up at the microphone of sharing their ideas. Probably the mentors that have been with us for a while remember this tool. So first, what we start with is having them write. So the first thing is you would be with your client and you would say, okay, I want you to take the time and they're gonna fill out everything in the first two rows. So they're gonna, first you're gonna ask them. And I would just do one at a time. You know, what is your passion, what lights you up, what's important to you? And you might have to help them on this because some of them are so buried in their business, they don't even know what their passion is anymore. What is meaningful to them. Maybe, maybe it's, you know, something to do with, you know, some, some higher purpose that they're not, you know, some foundation or, you know, some giving back or, you know, what is something that they love doing as a kid that they just forgot? Like, maybe it's, you know, being in the outdoors, maybe it's travel, maybe it's history. And then this is their bucket list. What is something that they've always wanted to do but they've never done before? And it could even be something and if they can't think of anything, ask them to think of what is something a friend of yours has done or somebody on social media that you're like, oh, my God, that's so cool, you know, but I haven't done it yet. Okay, so these first two in the first column is really just tapping into their. Their deeper desires. Okay. Then their talents. This could be that they are a, you know, classic pianist, and it could be that they are super organized. And when I say active and passive, passive would be like, they have a lot of empathy, they're a great listener. So. And they can write it on another piece of paper if they need more room. But this one they're going to need help with because a lot of people have a hard time seeing talents within themselves. And then the challenge finder, we could probably use ChatGPT for this one. But is, you know, what are some gaps in their. Either their industry or. I always like to think of what are things that just annoy you and you wish somebody would invent. You know, I'm sure you all are coming up with ideas all the time, but what is something that's missing or something that you go through your day and it. It just. You don't have that thing that you wish you had, you wish somebody would invent. Okay. Or maybe just, you know, some sort of offering in their industry that. Or maybe it's just what they have out there is not that great. Okay. So this gets to be fun because they really get to. They get to get in their innovative mind and get creative. Okay. And then we get to. And you're prompting them on all these things. Okay. Then it's, what is my competition not offering? So they're going to have to really kind of think about that. And it could be as simple as, you know, the restaurants don't allow dogs. And, you know, it could be just. It could be a little thing. But what is it that they're not offering? Because I think that we always. We look at competition, at what they're doing, and we're like, oh, I want to do that, because I'm not doing that, but instead do the opposite. And then this is where it starts to get fun. Now what you do is they have filled these first two rows out, and then this would actually be a really fun process to do amongst the mentors. Actually, I think this would be really fun. But then what you do is now the mentor, you're going to read it back. You're going to read it back to them so that they. There's just something that happens in the brain and I don't really know what that is, but when they're hearing it from you, okay, and then all of a sudden you're going to start seeing a common thread. It happens every single time. Like we've had people stand up and they're like a dentist and they realize that their whole life they've been inside. But as their real passion is they love these outdoors and they're, they've spent 40, 50 years inside and they're trying to find why they're not happy. You know, so it, it is just really amazing. It could just be that they do this and find that they're in the exact right place that they're supposed to be. But like, what is the common thread that you're seeing? And you will see a common thread here and then, and then come up with the revenue stream ideas. That's the last thing you do. But again, this is a, this is something that you do together and you're helping pull it out of them. But you know, we do this at the events and like, you know, 30 minutes. So it's definitely something you can do. You could take more time on in your session. But yeah, I hadn't actually seen this tool in a long time because we, we haven't been using it. But I actually, as I look at this, I think it is such a great tool and a great exercise. And this actually came out of my first book, Blast Off.
