If you are going to copy (or creatively swipe) don’t copy from your competition or own industry, it just produces sameness. Find another industry, look at what they are doing and do what they did. But don’t mimic the product, just mimic the process they used.

If you’re looking at building a community online go to Lego or Harley Davidson. If you want to radically change your customer experience look at Starbucks or Apple. Thinking about word of mouth marketing, consider what Ikea and Amazon did. Large companies I know, but so what? It worked for them and it can work for your small business.

Discover what they did, how they did it and then challenge yourself, your team and, if you’re adventurous enough, your customers to create similar developments. It’s likely that you will identify things that are just not done in your industry and that what will set you apart. Nice!!