Innovation - The GrowthGen Work-Life Framework

The 5th pillar of the GrowthGen WorkLife Framework is innovation.

It sounds like a really big thing – a huge invention. But most of the time, innovation in small business is actually about understanding what you can do just a little bit differently from your competitor.

You don’t have to be the next Apple. You don’t have to bring about huge change to make an impact in your clients business. It's the small changes. Small changes which can set you apart from your competitor. That's innovation.

Remember, every single bit of improvement in the world ever has come about because somebody was unhappy with the status quo.

Let’s look at Uber. Yes, Uber is a huge company now however it's the simplicity of their idea that fascinates us. And it’s a classic example of something really simple that made customers happy straight away. An app that gets your neighbour, friend or a stranger with a car to pick you up - it's such a simple concept. But Uber got that simple idea and put it into an app which made a huge difference in people's lives.

Their other ‘hidden’ innovation was in the payment process. You just get out of the car and go. The whole payment awkwardness simply disappears. It's a simple little thing, but it makes such a huge difference.

Innovation isn’t just for big companies. We can do it in our own businesses.

GrowthGen itself is an innovation – an innovation in small business networking where we combine mindful training and business acumen in a virtual event platform, so it’s something new. Not a work or business community, but a work-life business community.

That comes from a simple insight into small business. Small business owners are more than just business people – they’re people. That means they need support for themselves as well as for their businesses. That’s why the biggest innovations about GrowthGen and are around support and collaboration. We’re not building an event, we’re building a community, with the ultimate goal of fostering support and collaboration between small businesses.

So we have events and you can experience one event, or keep coming. But we also have the GG Boards, and the GG Workshops. There are lots of different ways to experience GrowthGen, different ways to enter the community. But it’s all about a supportive community.

So often, that’s where innovation comes from – a place where people of different backgrounds and ideas meet. Together, they take the everyday and make something new. That’s a core value of GrowthGen and a reason for us all to get together. It’s how we make innovation in small business happen.