6 Questions to Uncover Intellectual Capital in your Business
1. How do you do what you do?
You likely spent a great deal of time and effort learning how to do what you do. Others will pay for that knowledge—to shorten their own learning curve, avoid costly mistakes, and achieve greater success than they could on their own.
2. Have you created new ways of talking about old issues?
For decades, people have been writing about how to lose weight. You’d think everything there was to say had already been said—yet new diet books come out every single year. That’s because people are always coming up with new theories, methods, stories, or perspectives. You can do the same in your industry.
3. Do you have new insights into your business, industry, or clients?
Share them. Hint: You don’t have to wait for insights to hit like lightning bolts. There are ways to cultivate them, such as looking to completely unrelated industries to see what ideas can be adapted to your own business to create new approaches.
4. What do people outside of your industry not know?
What’s standard knowledge within your industry but virtually unknown outside of it? Open the door on this insider information. It’s fertile ground for training and education products.
5. Can you ask questions that will help others come to useful insights?
You don’t need to have all the answers. Often there is value in asking the right questions and helping people find the answers themselves.
6. Can you anticipate the future?
Look at what’s happened within your industry in the past. Examine factors that contributed to its formation and growth, revolutionary changes that have altered the field, and important developments that have already occurred, especially over the last 12 months. If X led to Y, and Y led to Z, what can you guess about where Z might go? Help people prepare for, or participate in, that future.
What are some other questions that have been helpful to you in developing knowledge products?