If  you live in an area with a high concentration of second home owners – or indeed in an area where residents spend part of the year in second homes elsewhere – then you could take inspiration from Esther Healey who runs Snowbird Services in Norwell, south of Boston Massachusetts.

Many local residents move to Florida for the winter. For $50 a visit, Healy performs 25 tasks including checking all exterior doors, windows, and the roof for signs of weather damage as well as flushing toilets and running taps to check for frozen pipes or any leaks.

It seems that there is a gap in the market in some areas for a service that falls between doing nothing and a full blown property management operation. This is something that could be done by anyone without any skills, equipment of know-how.

Many people like the idea of having a portrait painted. Many talented artists are making very little money. That’s the situation that underpins fabulous Noble, a UK website which enables anyone to upload a photo of themselves and have it turned into an affordable, personalised portrait by an expert artist.

Just heard a guy on local radio who runs a company called ‘Small Car Big City’ in London. The company run personalised tours around the capital. There’s nothing unusual in that other than the mode of transport – all the tours are undertaken in classic iconic British mini’s from the 1960’s.

This seems to be a great way to differentiate this tour company from competitive ones,  and is something that’s likely to appeal to overseas tourists looking for the full British experience. It’s an idea that could be copied in any area of the UK, or indeed the world, using area-appropriate transport. I can easily see a Beatles inspired tour working around Liverpool in a classic mini, or how about using a psychedelic Rolls Royce instead? Maybe a tour around the Cotswolds or other rural area in classic British Land Rovers would work. If you’re in New York, Yellow Cab tours are an obvious choice.

Perhaps it’s worth thinking about what would work in your area.

http://smallcarbigcity.com/

When you’re operating in a crowded market, you sometimes have to come up with an angle. And that’s what Danish brewer, Rocket Brewing Co. have done with their Problem Solver Beer.

The company claim that creative thinking and problem solving can be aided by beer, but only in specific amounts. The magic figure is 0.075%, and the company provide an indicator with each bottle showing how much you would need to drink for a given bodyweight to achieve the desired effect. An 85kg man can drink a full bottle, whereas a 65kg woman only needs half a bottle for example.

I’ve no idea whether this works, but it’s an interesting marketing approach that differentiates the product from competitive ones. Is there some way you could use this idea with your product?

Could you legitimately say that it could enhance  thinking or problem solving? Or could you claim that it has other unexpected properties? You have to be careful with this for obvious reasons, but sometimes there’s a legitimate story hidden away and waiting to be told.