How Do You ‘Keep it New’, ‘Keep It Fresh’?

If you have been doing the same job for many years, how do you keep the job new and exciting? In marketing it is vital to stay on top of new ideas and bring a fresh perspective to your products. There are many ways to do this. For some it might be to take a vacation away from everything pertaining to work to give your mind an opportunity to refocus, refresh and renew. When you come back, you may see everything in a different light. Another way is to seek out classes or courses on the latest changes in your industry and/or field of work. You might also visit trade shows for your industry and spend an entire day just walking through all the exhibits to see what others are doing and how they are doing it.

My personal preference is to take classes and/or courses. I have never attended a seminar or course in which I didn’t walk away with at least one new idea. Sometimes it’s a matter of taking a new idea and manipulating it to fit your business. The hard part is to actually implement the new idea once you get back to your daily job. It is too easy to ‘put it off’ until you have more time. That day never comes. So add it to your current ‘Must Do’ list to make sure it does not fall through the cracks. Sometimes a new idea or concept works for a while and then starts to lose value. If that’s the case, then it’s time to stop using that concept and come up with something new. For example, a number of years ago I attended a seminar that suggested the Sales and Marketing Dept. hold a weekly meeting in which everyone wrote with crayons and sat playing with modeling clay while coming up with new ideas. It worked for a while, but like many things, over time the meeting and concept became so ordinary that it no longer assisted us in developing new ideas so we stopped the meetings. Now we have impromptu meetings, sometimes at lunch over pizza to brainstorm new ideas.

Feel free to share with us your ideas on how to keep your products fresh and what you do to inspire creative thinking.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.