If your business name includes cleaning, people who would be interested in you are not thinking about laundry and dishes; they’re looking for good, thorough cleaning.

Your business name may include a benefit. If your vision includes houses or offices that sparkle, you may want to include it in your business name. You will actually get inquiry calls and new clients because of it.

Your business name is really important and must not be changed after you start using it. If you change it and people recognize that you did, they begin to wonder immediately why you had to change your business name, assessing it was for negative reasons.

In some types of training seminars, participants will be placed in “hot seat” by facilitator or trainer. In this situation participant is asked very specific questions to help both them and facilitator better understand their situation. Then trainer will propose some very specific ideas that participant can apply.

On first glance this may seem like a boring event for other participants as one person’s situation is explored, prodded and probed. The reality is that if trainer does a good job of setting up process, each participant can learn much by answering same questions for themselves, reflecting on their answers and using process of creative emulation to apply lessons to their own business and situation.

These are three very different situations, all of which use process of creative emulation as a way to create new ideas and spawn new approaches.

How to Do It

The process is pretty straightforward:

1.Learn all you can about a successful business or business model. This includes reading, interviewing and researching it as much as you can.

2.Think about strengths of that business or process and see how it might strengthen your situation.

3.Look for ways to emulate, modify or adapt those success approaches into your situation.

Where do you find these model businesses? First of all it is important to realize that any business has some unique strength, even if they don’t recognize it, and even if they may not be super successful overall. With this realization, anyone can become a case study for you!

•Read local business section or Wall Street Journal more carefully.

•Read business magazines in industries different than you own.

•Attend a conference as a guest of a friend – in an industry completely different from your own.

•Learn more about people you meet at your next networking event. Don’t stop with exchanging names and business cards. Take real interest in their approaches and successes.

These approaches can get you started.

Brainstorming, benchmarking and problem solving are great tools in your tool bag, but remember you have other options. One of those options is creative emulation. You can apply it in many ways in your business or other professional pursuits.