Innovation is essential to the success of small business owners—but are you innovating as effectively as you could be? During the Manta’s free Experts webinar, “Disruptive Innovation: How to propel your small business forward,” innovation expert Steve A Di. Biase teaches the following concepts: *Definitions of innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship *How to promote “innovative behaviors” within your small business *Tactics to becoming more innovative *How the collaboration process drives innovation *The definition of success

1. Crowds with Cash
Alternative Financing is a Mixed Moneybag
of Opportunity for Small Business
Hello!
Welcome to Manta’s Small Business Expert
Series
Thanks for joining us today.
We’ll get started right at 2 p.m. EDT
#mantaexperts Sponsored by

2. Disruptive Innovation:
How fresh thinking can
propel your small business forward
#mantaexperts Sponsored by

3. CEO
Welcome
John Swanciger

4. @carie_ferg
Help Q&A
Resource list
How It
Works
@Manta

5. The Story
54% of small business owners believe their business would
not be successful without innovation. *Manta survey
“In every work of
genius, we
recognize our once
rejected thoughts.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. Meet the expert: Steve Di Biase
• Poll
Mobile marketing and small business
• Definitions of innovation, leadership and
entrepreneurship
• Deep dive: What is innovation?
• Tactics to become more innovative, key success factors
• How the collaboration process drives innovation
• The definition of success & collaboration strategies
• Poll
• What you want to talk about: Q&A with Steve
Let’s Talk About

7. Meet Steve A. Di Biase
Click on the speaker widget to learn
more about Steve.

8. Innovation is the human response to,
and exploitation of, change yielding
wealth in the present.
Innovation Defined

9. Leadership Defined
Leadership is the
series of insights that
an individual offers a
group of people
convincing them to
subordinate their
self interests for the
good of the entity.

10. Entrepreneur Defined
The entrepreneur or
intrapreneur converts
the innovative concept into
a profitable business.
Entrepreneurship is the
journey of exploring
opportunities, managing
risk, while creating profit
and/or social good.

11. • “Fractal”
and
situational
• Strategic
• Requires
hard work
What Are The Characteristics of Innovation?

12.  Something new in response to the change
 Adjacent to the current business
 Present and future orientation
 Solution to a “lead user’s” problem while reflecting a
large market problem to provide scale
 Plausible, possible, and reasonably probable
 Starts small
 Strives for leadership
 Creates value from launch onward
Fractal Elements of Innovation

13. Strategic Imperatives of Innovation
• Are the
innovation and
business
strategies
aligned?
• Is the
innovation
process
disciplined?

14. Do’s and Don’ts of Innovation
• Don’t be clever
• Don’t diversify
• Don’t innovate for
the future, just the
present

15. Key Success Factors
• Only people
can innovate
because
only people
can think
• The thought
process needs
to be
educated

16. Key Success Factors
• Learning must occur in multiple ways
• The environment needs to be safe to fail
• Fearless environment
• Collaborative
• Involves diversity and many skills
• Results from trial and error
• Driven by inquiry
• Expanded by imagination
• Has to be fun

17. What Innovators Do Best
• Recognize, question and analyze
• Allow curiosity to characterize
the change
• Develop a hypothesis
• Test, measure the hypothesis
• Assess the results
• Create a new hypothesis
• Repeat the process

18. • Respect curiosity
• Believe everyone is capable of it
• Creating a fear-free environment
• Innovative behaviors can be taught & learned
• Once mastered, the discipline of innovation is
never forgotten
• Innovators are also problem solvers
• Innovators solve more problems
• Innovation is fun to teach & do
Cultivate Innovation

19. • The adjacent possible
• Liquid networks
• The “slow hunch”
• Serendipity
• Errors
• Exaptation
• Platforms
Get Disciplined

20. • The adjacent possible
• Liquid networks
• The “slow hunch”
• Serendipity
• Errors
• Exaptation
• Platforms
Get Disciplined

21. • The adjacent possible
• Liquid networks
• The “slow hunch”
• Serendipity
• Errors
• Exaptation
• Platforms
Get Disciplined

22. • The adjacent possible
• Liquid networks
• The “slow hunch”
• Serendipity
• Errors
• Exaptation
• Platforms
Get Disciplined

23. How Do Small Businesses Collaborate?
• Join forces to
achieve economies
of scale
• Power in the
collective
• Critical success
factors

24. Promote Collaboration!
• Internally via organizational
design & norms of behaviors
• Externally with vendors,
customers, third parties
• Using Social Media and
Web-based tools

25. Effective Collaboration Strategies
• Networking
• Build informal alliances
with like-minded
companies
• Adopt a “support
small business" mindset

26. Successful Internal Collaboration
• Leverage existing “core business” in order
to become profitable quickly
• Critical success factors

27. Successful External Collaboration
• Critical features
• External resources
• Mechanisms
• Processes
• Tools and metrics
• Supplier focused

28. Open the resource list to get more information about our upcoming and on-demand
webinars. Don’t miss “Customer Retention Strategies that Work—Keep your best
customers coming back” on Nov. 18 at 2 p.m. EST.
Ask the Expert: Steve A. Di Biase
Visit community.manta.com/ to Ask the Expert
Sponsored by

29. Manta believes in empowering small businesses to achieve
success. We’re inspired by your determination and energy. And
we understand that every company is unique.
We strive to provide the marketing tools and educational
resources you need to stand out, connect with your customers
and your peers, and grow your business.
Send us a note and let us know what you’d like to learn from
upcoming webinars like this one.
events@manta.com