CHRISTOPHER DUTTON has great news and tomorrow we’ll go into detail. Until then, it’s ED ROTH with another basic marketing essay. Enjoy!

The Anatomy of an Original Idea   It’s the middle of the night and you’re fast asleep. Your dream is more vivid than usual, and you suddenly wake up with an epiphany. Good thing you have a pad of paper next to the bed, so you confidently jot down your nocturnal brainstorm and fall back into a sound sleep, confident in the knowledge your insight is intact.

The next morning, you are not disappointed – your subconscious has done right by you with the breakthrough idea you didn’t even know you were looking for. In the days that follow, you research it (Google it), test market it (talk to some friends) and pass it through a systematic review (think about it in the shower). No doubt about it – you’ve got a winner!

Now it’s time to act on your idea that will change the world, or at least your world. Since it sprang from the recesses of your incredibly original mind, nobody could possibly duplicate it; moreover, if you don’t go public with it soon, somebody might steal it.

You go ahead and write the description, fill in the blanks, and complete your pre-production. So far, so good – no obvious flaws in the concept, so you shoot, edit and post.

The response is terrific. Wow, who knew it was this easy? In fact, it does so well, you hear from strangers that it’s even better than that other thing out there that is just like yours.

Wait, what?

Turns out, in your rush to stake out your ground in the public arena, you forgot to do your due diligence and see who else has done the exact same thing. In fact, now that they mention it, you vaguely remember seeing something like this online, but that was a few months ago! Hmmm…

As you see it, you have three choices: a) Regret not doing your homework, pull it, and decide you’ll never do that again; b) Adjust yours so that it’s just different enough; or c) Pretend you don’t know about that other thing that wasn’t as good and move ahead.

Then again, there is one more option: Remove that pad of paper from the side of your bed.

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Think About This: “Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”  ~ Salvador Dali