You're building strong foundations. You now know the four key roles in your business, the five habits for your team to get into and the nine maxims that create a culture of high performance. You've seen that entrepreneurs start out as apprentices, they become good workers and then they become Key Persons of Influence who create inspiring companies. It's a process and it takes some time to master.

You understand that entrepreneurship is an emotional rollercoaster at times and you'll need some supportive peers so that you can stretch, get resourceful and be held accountable for the results.

All of that is important, because entrepreneurship at its core requires you to turn ideas into valuable assets. Many years ago the word ‘alchemy’ was used for the process of turning lead into gold. Today, entrepreneurship is a similar disciple.

Next we need a better understanding of how things move from ideas into valuable products or valuable businesses. Every time you begin working on an idea, you know what lies ahead of you.

There's a predictable cycle that turns ideas into remarkably valuable creations.

You start out as imaginative, coming up with ideas that could work and you end up creating valuable products and businesses that make supernormal profits.

The journey along the way is entirely predictable.

1. The idea. The idea needs to be good and you need to turn your idea into a powerful pitch. However, as I said, there's no money in the ideas anymore. If you're waiting for someone to come and write you a big fat cheque for your ideas, you're going to be waiting an awful long time. People don't pay for ideas, they pay for remarkable implementation; and you're a long way from that at the ideas stage.
2. The mess. As soon as you act upon your idea, you'll predictably make a mess. Having the idea that you want to bake a cake is easy, the next step is to find the ingredients and start baking. This takes time, energy and resources. If you start something and don't push through to completion, all you do is make a mess. The disciplined creator doesn't start projects unless they are prepared to push through to a remarkable result. This is still quite far off if you're in the mess.
3. The beta version. When you begin working on your idea, only you truly understand what you're aiming for. Even when people give you feedback on your idea, you can't be sure that what's in their head is even remotely similar to what's in your head. Often people think they are on the same page when, in reality, they are worlds apart. Your first step, before you can get valuable feedback, is to create a beta version of your product or business. You should do this as quickly and cheaply as possible so, if the feedback is bad, you can change it easily and without being too discouraged. A beta product could actually be a well-designed brochure that features mock-up designs. It could be illustrations. It could be a competitor's product that's been altered for the purpose of illustrating your points of difference. The key here is to create something that people can look at, touch, feel, listen to or experience in order for them to give you genuine insights based on a shared reality of your idea.
4. The commercial version. When you take on board the feedback you get from others, and the feedback you get from yourself once the beta version is complete, you will eventually make something that is ready to sell. A product or a service that others will pay for is what I call a commercial version. The commercial version is ready to go out and sell day to day. People will consider it against other commercial products or services, and some people will then pay a normal price for your version. Predictably, a commercial version will generate enough money to cover your time in selling and producing it. This will often feel very disappointing after all the effort and money you've put in until now. I regularly see people who've spent over a year starting up a business get very discouraged when they start making an equivalent of their previous wage. Originally, they had imagined that this product, service or business was going to make a lot of money or provide a lot of freedom. Now it turns out that all the blood, sweat and tears that went into creating something merely pays a wage – and it requires work too! At this point, many people believe their idea is flawed and so they go back to the drawing board and have a completely new idea. This begins the cycle again. People who ‘make it’ don't do this. Instead, they push through to the next step and build something that stands out as valuable.
5. The remarkable version. A remarkable product, service or business is one that people start to tell their friends about. It does something different, it's fresh, it's unique and it's valuable. Because people are talking about it, you get inbound enquiries, you make easier sales, you seem to be in demand and often you can charge a higher price. When you had a commercial version, it felt as if it was all about trading your time for money. Now you feel like you've created an asset! The energy required to take a commercial version to a remarkable version is often more than all the energy that went into creating a commercial version. The commercial version got you into the market, but the remarkable version is what everyone in the market wants to create. In order to build something remarkable, you have to take risks. You have to be willing to do things differently, you need to let your philosophy shine through and be willing to lose a few people because of it. To be remarkable, you need to invest in every touchpoint that exists in your business and make sure each and every step is worth talking about. A remarkable business has remarkable brochures, a remarkable sales process, a remarkable service process, a remarkable design, remarkable team members, a remarkable website… the list goes on. In the growth accelerator my company runs, we recommend to our clients that they make a list of every possible way a client ‘touches’ their business and audit it. Ask the question: ‘Is this part of my business an idea, a mess, a beta version, a commercial version or is it remarkable?’ A profitable, growing business typically has a list of over 50% of all touchpoints in the business being remarkable.

THE FORMULA FOR MAKING SOMETHING REMARKABLE

There are three consistent ingredients I see again and again in remarkable businesses and products that people are driven to buy regardless of price.