Have you ever noticed that, every useful invention – from seatbelts to air conditioning to bottled water – is the result of a problem that needed a solution?
How did the inventors know that there would be a market for their new product? They listened when people complained – and that is the key to seeing new opportunities.
When your friends, coworkers, or neighbors talk about a pesky problem, jot down their complaint on a piece of paper and see if you can come up with a solution. Chances are that anything you come up with will have real success because it is filling a real need – a need that already exists.
My own experience with this came around Christmas one year when I heard about some PDAs that were selling out so quickly that they were going for 150% their value on eBay. I bought two at a nearby store, sold them on eBay, and made $400 PROFIT by filling someone else’s need. And that same strategy later led to my wife Michelle and my developing our real estate flipping methods – the same ones we use today.
Learn to listen to problems and learn to find solutions; that is the key to seeing opportunity everywhere.