Let's see: You're overworked, underpaid, out of time and very much in need of powerful new ideas to grow your business. Not just any ideas, but BIG ideas. GAME CHANGING ideas. NEW product and service ideas - the kind you will recognize as hair-raisingly brilliant. You know… the NEXT BIG THING... or if not the next big thing then at least the thing next to the next big thing. Daily, you rack what's left of your brain. You brainstorm. You benchmark. You strategize. You beg your team. Yet nothing seems to work. You think about bringing someone in from the outside (wherever that is) to facilitate an ideation process, but it all seems so clunky, so forced, so time-consuming. If only it was simpler. Guess what? It is.

What is this?

Lucky you! You've just stumbled across your very own collective unconscious - a merry band of business wizards, mavericks, and visionaries willing and able conjure the new, the different, the extraordinary - even while you sleep. Yes, Virginia, there is a sanity clause.

Here's How It Works:

1. Contact! Contact us and describe your business challenge in detail. We'll let you know if it's the kind of challenge we can help you with.

2. Proposal: If we can help, we'll submit a proposal, detailing timelines, fees, and the terms of our proposed working relationship with you.

3. Engagement Letter: Assuming you're OK with our proposal, we'll email you an Engagement Letter. You sign and fax it back to us.

4. Needs Assessment: Your Idea Champions Bandwidth Leader (i.e. your BrainTrust point person) will interview you and other key players to drill down into the nuances of your challenge, identify deliverables, and clarify the criteria by which you will assess our performance.

5. Team Launch: Assessment done, we'll handpick the perfect alchemical blend of BrainTrustees to ideate on your behalf. Once on board, our Rent-A-Brains will get on with the business of delivering the goods.

6. Evaluation: First wave of ideating done, an independent Review Team will evaluate the ideas generated by your BrainTrustees. In response to their feedback, we will toss out the junk, refine the salvageable, polish the winners, and look for "happy accidents" (i.e. new ideas previously invisible to us.)

7. Presentation: Ideas that make the final cut are presented to BrainTrust's editors who synthesize the output into a powerful resource document for you - the BrainTrust Report. Voila! Now, all you need to do is decide on your approach to pitching this output to key stakeholders.

Ideation Strategies: How We Conjure the New

1. Solo Storming: After being thoroughly briefed by our Bandwidth Leader, BrainTrustees begin their ideation process. Early in the morning. Late at night. Commuting. Showering. Or simply sitting down and musing on your business challenge. Wherever and whenever they get their best ideas.

2. Market Study Immersion: Selected BrainTrustees immerse themselves in project-specific literature and market studies, building the kind of knowledge base about your particular challenge that sparks insights, new ideas, and intriguing new possibilities.

3. BrainTrust Dyads: At the beginning of our ideation process, BrainTrustees form "bandwidth buddy systems" - one-on-one partnerships that park creative collaboration. Two heads are better than one. 1+1 = 11.

4. On Line Brainstorming: Your entire BrainTrust team (or subsets of the team) meet - at selected intervals - for on-line brainstorming. BrainTrustees will also leave seed ideas for each other on our password-protected message boards and Idea Bank.

5. Creative Thinking Tools: BrainTrustees, as inspired, use a wide range of Idea Champions' creative thinking tools and techniques in order to stay out of the box while brainstorming your specific business challenge.

Click here for the bios of our BrainTrustees