7. Ask your current customers. You could contact some of your existing customers by phone or e-mail and ask them what kind of new products they would like to see on market.

8. Combine two or more products together to create a new one. For example, you could take a brief case and add a thermos compartment inside to keep a drink hot or cold.

9. Survey people who visit your web site. You could post a survey or questionnaire on your web site. Ask visitors what kind of products they would like to see on market.

10. You could create a new market for your existing product. For example, if you're selling plastic bottles to a pop company, you could turn around and sell those bottles to a fruit drink company.

You walk up to a product that you've seen elsewhere in a comparable department store and look at price and you're very pleasantly surprised. It's same price as at other store so they think they're getting a bargain.

Example 4 - Consulting Firm

Then there's a masterful strategy that one of my clients in consulting profession implemented. Their firm focused on consulting to other professional service firms. They found that there was a certain type of client that they had most success with and were most pleasurable to deal with.

Given that, they decided to have a qualification or client selection process in that potential clients needed to qualify before they became a client. They needed to meet a dozen or so criterion based on attitudes of partners, firm profitability and size and marketing focus.

The result was that they were inundated with firms who wanted to qualify or mould their practices so they did qualify.

Example 5 - Dentist

By now, everyone has probably heard story of Paddi Lund, a dentist here in Brisbane. He has built his practice up on referrals. In fact, you can only get into his surgery if you're referred by another patient (or guest). As you can see, there's merit in madness. This "scarcity" mindset can work to your advantage if applied correctly. Having said that, if you want to adopt it into your marketing efforts it's vitally important that you don't simply pay "lip service" to it. What I mean is that "scarcity" that you are promoting must be genuine. In other words, you must genuinely have a qualification process that rejects xx% of prospective clients.