How do you increase the value of your business? What do acquiring organizations want to see when they make a decision to buy a business? What are the intangibles that make a business more valuable than the revenue they generate? Can you create the next big thing with your business?

What do investors value in an early stage startup? Business value is in the eyes of the customers, potential buyers, and investors. Today, I don’t believe that you can build a business with the buyer in mind. The global economy has increased your competition for implementing and taking new ideas to market faster. Creating the next big thing can help you create significant growth opportunities for your organization.

I do believe that you can do several things to help ensure your clients see increasing value in working with you as your business grows. I will share several today that have worked well over the past 30 plus years and, judging by my recent conversations with corporate development people, they still work today.

The first strategy to create extraordinary value in your organization is the most elusive, but also the most valuable. You can create the next big thing. Peter Thiel suggests this may be the best way to ensure your success in the market. The next big thing requires significant entrepreneurial skills. It also means you must be willing to take significant heat from others telling you what you propose can’t be done.

It’s easy to see why innovation and disruptive ideas require a different set of skills. There are many great ideas brought forth every year by entrepreneurs. Few are really the next big things once you dig behind the hype. Next big thing entrepreneurs tend to think in ways that most of us don’t.

Next big thing entrepreneurs not only see the future, but they see a variety of solutions for their key clients or customers. They are visionaries with the ability to implement their view of the future. They are also good at looking at a variety of factors in deciding how to create their product or services.

When done correctly these entrepreneurs not only impact their customers and clients but change the way their industry works. In the most successful situations they change the way we live and work. Think Facebook, Google, or PayPal. All these organizations created significant opportunities for many other entrepreneurs to take advantage of by changing the way they interact and engage with customers.

So is the next big thing your best strategy? It takes a special person and team to be able to use and implement this strategy. Over the next several weeks we will share several examples with you of this approach.

Want more information on how to identify the next big thing? You might enjoy an earlier blog How Can Entrepreneurs Pick the Next Big Thing? 

On Friday this week, we will talk about two additional ways to increase the value of your organization. These other ideas can also help you build more value into your organization’s growth.