Fuel Your Reinvention: Tips from Josh Linkner

Business and technology move fast in today’s market. Are you keeping up? There are constant changes and new competitors threatening to steal your market share. It’s hard to stay afloat sometimes.

How can you stay ahead of the game? That’s the question we sought to answer at this year’s IT Nation conference. After a good balance of work and play at the two day conference, it’s been a bit over a month and our partners are still buzzing with new knowledge from our 10th annual IT Nation. They’re burning with passion to take their business to the next level and inspired to reinvent their business.

In addition to the keynote from ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini, Josh Linkner took the stage to share his wisdom as a four-time tech entrepreneur and CEO, bestselling author, and venture capitalist.

Here are some key takeaways from Josh’s keynote speech and how you can apply them to your business:

1. Encourage Courage

New ideas fuel innovation, but not every idea starts out fully formed. Bold ideas about a new way of doing things can give companies a competitive edge. You’ve got to concentrate on how to get those ideas flowing. Josh knows that “not every idea is fully defensible,” so don’t be too quick to dismiss ideas that start out slow. Just like the best diamonds, it might take a bit of elbow grease to find a gem. Encourage all ideas, and make sure you’re challenging them in constructive ways.

2. Shed the past

Sometimes we are so proud of our business accomplishments that we revel in our own past success. Celebrate, by all means, but keep the same mindset that made you successful. What worked in the past might not carry into the future. Stay creative and imaginative and focus on how to keep evolving to maintain your success.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

3. Defy tradition

Will you disrupt or be disrupted? Whether you defy tradition or follow it to the end could make all the difference. Linkner shared how Cleveland Whiskey completely revolutionized the process of making whiskey. The existing process took decades, but Tom Lix created a new process which took only one week. Someone will come up with new ideas in your industry, someone will defy tradition. Why shouldn’t that someone be you?

4. Get scrappy

You’re not a millionaire and money doesn’t grow on trees. We get it. Sometimes you have to “get scrappy,” as Linkner puts it. Not every idea needs a million dollar budget. An example? When a hospital had their window washers dress up as superheroes, the impact on the patients and their families was exponentially greater than the cost of a few superhero costumes. Think about how a potentially inexpensive change could impact your business.

5. Push boundaries

Linkner encourages us all to ask more questions. What if? Why not? Great ideas are born when someone asks the right questions, and knowing which ones are right comes from asking all the questions. Don’t be afraid to question the status quo, challenge norms, and buck tradition. Paving your own path could be the key to your success.

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” Frank Zappa

Applying these five tips to your business means seeing results sooner. Imagine the possibilities, but don’t get too overwhelmed. Reinvention isn’t a one-time huge project but more of an ongoing process. We are continuously reinventing ourselves here at ConnectWise, to guarantee your success.