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The Art of Brainstorming
The Art of Brainstorming
If you’re running a small business you will be carefully planning your every move and without large budgets your scope for risk is reduced – and this is where brainstorming can really help your business.
Brainstorming can lead you to ideas that you would never have come to just through logical thought. Once you understand the main principles of brainstorming it can be a really liberating process, no way to get it wrong, no pressure to come up with the right answer.
Two Heads are Better than One
You’ll find you can only get so far brainstorming solo, so if you have the opportunity to get together with a colleague or business peer then it is easier to bounce ideas off each other.
No Idea is Stupid
It is very easy to dismiss an idea if you don’t think it fits with your client or project but don’t veto ideas during the brainstorming process. Thinking freely is one of the key elements to brainstorming and in order for that to work there can be no judgements; it might be the genius marketing angle you were missing! 
Quantity Over Quality
For many areas of business, it is best to have a few solid quality ideas but the opposite goes for brainstorming. Generate as many ideas as possible. You can refine and flesh out the best ideas later.
Visuals
Use post it notes, white boards, flip charts or a note pad. Just get the words or images down. As you are looking at the ideas contributed so far, you may start beginning to see how they link together and in turn spark off another idea.
Build on ideas
When brainstorming as a team always keep positive, accepting others ideas and building on them will lead to the wild thinking required, be bold, be brave, but above all be positive.
Stay Focused on the topic
This may sound like a contradiction to notion of lateral, creative thinking but it is good to keep bringing yourself back to topic. You may very well have some great ideas on another subject but if not related make a note and think about those later. Once you have gathered lots of ideas it’s good to review what you have and then discuss their potential further.
You might want to look at some brainstorming techniques to help the process: https://business.tutsplus.com/articles/top-brainstorming-techniques–cms-27181
If you need help with your business or brand direction do get in touch for a chat lindsay@reddesk.co.uk
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A Year in the Life of a Red Desk VA
A Year in the Life of a Red Desk VA
2019 is almost at an end so we thought it would be nice to take a look at a year in the life of a Red Desk VA.
Red Desk 10
In November 2018, Red Desk Virtual celebrated 10 years in business. We did a little retrospective on how Red Desk has developed over the last decade and how, although we work virtually, many of our clients and contacts are local to North London.
Client Referrals
You may wonder how we get most of our clients, well mostly through recommendation. One of our first new clients of 2019 was a local building company who wanted assistance with their website and social media. It has come full circle as they are about to launch a different strand of their business and we are branching out into project managing the website build plus managing their online presence.
Live Twitter Coverage
In February, we were brought in last minute to assist with some event promotion of an awards ceremony. We very quickly built interest around it and monitored Twitter during the event (retweeting and interacting where relevant). This has led us to stay on with the client, encouraging nominations and raising awareness of the event ahead of the 2020 ceremony.
Holiday Cover
The advantage of being a Red Desk VA is that you have someone to cover for you when you go on holiday. For many self-employed freelancers, the thought of taking a two week break involves a lot of hassle but at Red Desk Virtual, we always have someone to cover for us. When we meet a new client, we explain that one person will be the main point of contact but there is a second person to cover for holidays or can be brought in when the workload increases.
Administration
Although the majority of our client base is social media focussed, it is nice to have the occasional administration project. We have been very lucky to have been working with a soft skills charity over the past year which has been running workshops in Further Education colleges in 9 boroughs of London. It is really rewarding to be part of a team that is able to boost young people’s confidence and employability chances from organising these workshops. We are looking forward to continuing with this foundation in 2020.
Pipeline Projects
December 2019 has been extremely busy for us with meetings with a number of new clients that we shall be working for in 2020. We are looking forward to researching the markets for these varied businesses and managing their online presence.
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