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These 9 Entrepreneurs Show You How To Encourage Innovation

This month marks the 144th anniversary of inventor Alexander Graham Bell’s patent for his invention dubbed “the telephone.” As I reflect on other major innovations throughout history, from Edison’s lightbulb to Jobs’s iPhone, I think about the entrepreneurs behind those innovations and their tenacity and drive.

With COVID-19 currently upending everything from consumer purchasing behavior to the ways business is conducted, it’s clear innovation must be a priority for businesses wanting to survive and thrive in this turbulent time.

To get a better idea of what’s driving today’s innovation, I connected with entrepreneurs and business leaders to see what present or historic innovation is most inspiring to them and to learn how they encourage innovation at their own companies.

1. Munjal Shah, Cofounder and CEO, Health IQ

It should come as no surprise that Munjal Shah, co-founder and CEO of Health IQ, considers accessible medical research databases one of the most important innovations of the modern era. As he explains, “Free, accessible and credible research made available to the masses is crucial to empower consumers to take ownership of their own health and find the approach that works for them without relying on half-baked trends.”

In his own company, Shah describes innovation as an expectation. After all, the ability to identify a problem and enable your team to arrive at and implement solutions is part of what makes a company successful. To empower his team, Shah says Health IQ celebrates innovations publicly. He notes, “When certain innovations drive substantial positive change, we also name the change for the person that brought about the solution! It helps that innovation become a bit of legacy for me and my team to be proud of.”

2. Valerie Jennings, Founder and CEO, Jennings Social Media & MarTech

Valerie Jennings is most inspired by the new era of artificial intelligence and its application to martech. “Our biggest challenge as digital marketers is not having enough time in the day. Automation has allowed us to get our work done faster and get to the data quicker, so we can focus on strategy. After all, digital strategy is the bread and butter of what we do to drive results for our clients.”

Marketing agency leaders need to be prepared for rapid adoption of tech like this, which is something Jennings plans to speak to at the—now-virtual—Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC20) conference being held next month. Jennings recommend leaders be ready to collaborate with other experts who can help navigate the technical nuances. To ensure her company stays on the forefront of innovation, Jennings says, “We look for specific creative solutions through research, education and collaboration with our senior leadership and subject matter experts.” Another important ingredient? Autonomy. “I give my team the autonomy to research new approaches, and we come together to discuss how we can integrate these emerging trends to help our clients stay relevant.”

3. Ben Walker, Founder and CEO, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC

Ben Walker’s take on innovation centers around management specifically, and he references an influential passage from Winning by Jack Welch. “Jack started calling this method of asking every employee for ideas ‘every brain in the game.’ He told all of his GE direct reports to start asking their direct reports for their ideas and suggestions and then pass it down the line all the way to the factory workers.”

To encourage innovation, Walker focuses on getting every brain in the game, but he goes a step further by asking for direct input on a regular basis. “When we are in need of ideas or suggestions for specific projects, we send out an email asking the people who will be involved in any way to start thinking about it. We lay out what the project is for and some basic details and just ask them to please start writing down anything that comes to mind on this.” Walker advises leaders to carry this approach outside the workplace and get perspectives from anyone and everyone around them, observing that you never know where the next great idea will come from.

4. Sean Cotton, Cofounder and President, Coegi

As the president and cofounder of a digital marketing agency, it makes sense for Sean Cotton to laud the power of the microprocessor. “So many of the products and tools we use every day are now powered by these powerful electronic components which have immeasurably sped up the pace at which we accomplish our day-to-day tasks,” he explains. In the marketing world, this capability is still harnessed as teams move to automated media buying, algorithmic optimization and machine learning and AI-powered marketing campaigns.

The microprocessor changed the world we live in, and it isn’t stopping anytime soon. Cotton encourages other business leaders to stay current on industry trends in order to come up with or capitalize on the next big idea in their field.

5. Annie Eaton, CEO, Futurus

For Annie Eaton, augmented reality is one of the most inspiring innovations of all time. “I’m such a firm believer in AR that I’m integrating it into nearly every solution I create at my place of work. The ability to not only add digital content to our 3D physical space, but to also interact with this merged world is boundless.”

Eaton says that in order to encourage innovation at Futurus, “We regularly tackle internal projects to advance our knowledge of technology, its capabilities and its limitations. If something doesn’t work, we ask, ‘Why not?’ and then we figure out another way to make it happen.” Eaton encourages business owners and entrepreneurs to remember that “constantly iterating, failing, trying again and succeeding are a natural part of our process.”

6. Gabriel Golcher, Cofounder and CEO, ExpatBuddy

As an expat, Gabriel Golcher bestows particular significance on the discovery that the Earth is round. “Sure, I’m being extremely reductive, as the Orient already knew this, and many European scholars already believed this by the time of Columbus and Magellan. But in any case, the generalized realization that the Earth was round changed what it meant to be an expat forever.”

Like others, Golcher believes that innovation is largely about relationships. “I push [innovation] by ensuring we all remain connected with why we do what we do,” he explains. Golcher believes creating a culture of accountability is key. “We’ve decided to eschew overly hierarchical authority structures in favor of lively debate and candor. By keeping each other honest and accountable to expats, we’ll ensure we remain innovating,” Golcher says.

7. Katrina Salazar, Founder and CEO, WeThink Inc.

Katrina Salazar credits the internet as the most significant innovation, calling it “the infrastructure that has launched us into a new age of information. From international commerce to the way we communicate, it has impacted nearly every aspect of our modern lives.”

To encourage innovation in her own company, she starts by “ensuring everyone has a voice and knows they will be heard.” In order to realize that goal, WeThink employees devote time as a team to think about ideas and projects outside the scope of normal work tasks. In addition, Salazar says, “We also encourage our team members to further their education, which we believe will pay hefty dividends for our organization.”

8. Geoff Gross, Founder and CEO, Medical Guardian

Acknowledging the sea of innovations that’s gotten medical care to its current state, Geoff Gross can’t help but look to the future of the space: “The emergence of IoT alongside the explosion of connected devices, platforms and other technologies has the ability to completely transform how we give and receive care as a whole.”

At Medical Guardian, Gross rewards collaboration and initiative ownership, and he recommends that other business leaders make time and space to ideate instead of succumbing to all the day-to-day demands of running a business. “Always prioritize making space and carving out time from a busy day full of deadlines and deliverables to dream, brainstorm, explore out-of-the-box ideas and imagine newer, better solutions to both everyday challenges and larger-scale opportunities,” he urges.

9. Matthew Edgar, Technical SEO Consultant/Partner, Elementive

Matthew Edgar is inspired by the technological innovation used to create maps. “Starting way back in ancient Greece, people tried to figure out how to communicate the complex geography of our world, and that continues to this day with far more advanced technology, like with Google Maps. No one map is ‘the best,’ and map makers are continuing to try to improve upon their work.”

He says, “The best way we’ve found at Elementive to encourage innovation is to take time to question why we’re doing a given task or why we provided a certain recommendation to a client.” Questioning allows the team to break out of routine, ditch the status quo and deliver better results to their clients. Edgar believes the best innovation is data-driven: “Use data to measure the innovations you are making. Pick a few metrics that relate to thing you are changing, and then pull the historical data for each of those metrics.” And don’t forget to watch out for changes needed. Next month, Edgar will be telling MDMC20 attendees to keep an eye on how SEO best practices must adapt as Google rolls out updates.

Innovation is everywhere, and modern tools such as the internet have accelerated the pace of innovation to breakneck speed. With these entrepreneurs and many others like them at the helm of their own business ventures, we can look forward to years of innovation ahead.