A picture is worth a thousand words and an idea worth a million bucks. We will talk about a picture another day and focus on ideas today. A story is told by Harold Ross, editor of New Yorker Magazine, in 1935 of a man who went into Coca cola offices in 1896 and said he had an idea which could help them make millions and millions of dollars and will reveal it to them on payment of $50000. The executive at Coca Cola was very amused and shooed him off thinking the man was crazy.

Remember in 1896 the entire cash available at Coca Cola was just about 50000 dollars. It is still a very large amount today but It was huge then. The visitor persisted for many weeks before he was allowed to meet the founder and president of Coca Cola Company, Asa Griggs Candler. Back then aerated drinks were not sold in bottles. They were sold at soda fountains and one had to go to the retailer, usually a drug store, to drink the refreshing cola. After a solemn agreement had been drawn up the stranger forwarded a neatly folded piece of paper on which was the million dollar two-word advice.
“Bottle it.” It said.
The rest, as they say, is history..

The story may not be factually true. Even Harold Ross (A High school drop-out by the way) the founder of The New Yorker magazine in his note calls it a legend. A biographer of Candler tells us that he got the idea not for $ 50000 from a strange but free from his wayward nephew. Candler did not implement it for many years which might have helped the legendary “bottle it” story to spread and be accepted as one of those simple ideas that changed the course of an iconic company. Whether the story is factually true or not is not important here what is important is an idea can change your or a company’s life and implementing an idea and making it a commercial success can change the course of a company and make history.

An idea is at the root of a business plan. If you have an idea which you feel will help fulfill a need of a large number of people and you are passionate about it you will have a big business. So it is important to keep the ideas flowing. There are some naturally talented people who can, by simply looking at things or processes, see that they can and should be different or done differently. It is possible for mere mortals like us to too train ourselves to generate ideas. The first step to generate new ideas is to question the old way of doing whatever it is that you are doing especially if you expect different results.