What are you going to promote? What is the niche you are going to enter? What is the focus of your business?  It is time to come up with the main idea for your business.

This step is all about finding a niche you’d Like to promote and that can be Profitable. To this end, you are going to: Brainstorm, Study the Market and Do Keyword Research.

Roll up your sleeves. Let’s get started. Read the information below on “Brainstorming”.

Don’t forget. You can ask any questions you might have by posting on the forum.

Brainstorming — what does that mean? Wiki defines it as a “group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution to a problem.”

My contention is that it is an effective tool for one person. Admittedly, it is much better with two even if the other person is only acting as a facilitator. The purpose of the activity as it relates to you here is to stretch your mind and produce creative ideas.

Before you begin, make a list similar to the following:

• What are your hobbies?

• What skills do you utilize at work?

• What are some of your special interests?

• What are some of your favorite places to visit?

• What are your favorite pastimes?

• What do you know well?

• What do others come to for advice about?

• What education or training do you have?

During your brainstorming, you should use this as a guide. Start down the list and name 2 or 3 of the first, then move to the next. Name 2 or 3 of it and so forth down the list. When you get to the end of the list, begin back at the start.

Decide on an amount of time to do the exercise. I recommend 15 or 20 minutes. Once you begin, continue without stopping until your time is up. Once you start, say what comes to your mind. No going backwards. No erasing. It doesn’t matter if it is silly, impossible or daft. This is just forcing your mind to spit out ideas. If other people are present or participating as a favor to you, there can be no ridiculing or criticism.

When your time is up, go back and examine your list. Hopefully you will have a minimum of 25 ideas. Go ahead and sort out the obvious rejections. Some will indeed be too silly to include. Next time we will take a look at some possibilities of expanding this list.

In this lesson, we have taken a general look at the direction this project is taking. We have looked at how to generate ideas.

Perhaps the most important thing you have done is to prepare that preliminary list. In the next lesson, we will take that list a step further.

Go to the forum and post at least 6 of your ideas.

Carol