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Sometimes a great way to refresh your business and earn some buzz is by shaking things up and breaking a few traditional business rules. A few ideas to get you started:

1> Your store hours
2> Your website
3> Your order process
4> Check it out: Rogers Park Cheetos

1> Your store hours

If you’re trying to shake up the supply and demand ratio or inject a little buzz into your business, try adjusting your store hours. Los Angeles’ Never Open Store — a tiny shop filled with eclectic art, clothing, and antiques — only opens when owner Stephanie Mata feels like unlocking the doors. In an interview with the L.A. Times, Mata explains she’s often working in her shop (assembling crafts or composing art) and doesn’t want to be bothered. She also likes to hand-pick her clientele. The thinking goes against most basic business principles, but it works for her. While other stores have “For Lease” signs in the window, The Never Open Store has a steady flow of hand-picked customers and plenty of curious outsiders trying to get in.

The Lesson: Mix up your store hours — a special midnight sale, an all-day event, unconventional weekend hours — to break the rules and your business rut.

Learn More: Los Angeles Times

2> Your website

According to Google, there are now more than a trillion active URLs on the web. That’s a trillion reasons to consider breaking a few online rules to make yours stand out. Ad and design agency BooneOakley did just that when they did away with their standard website and compiled everything into a single YouTube video. Their creative, functional, and unconventional website earned them a bunch of headlines, lots of positive feedback, and some well-deserved admiration for their bravery.

The Lesson: With so much competition on the web, you risk being invisible if you’re not willing to risk breaking a few rules.

Learn More: BooneOakley.com

3> Your order process

Your order and fulfillment process holds lots of opportunities to amaze customers (and break a few old-school rules, too). While legends like Zappos and Amazon continue to redefine the online ordering experience, few offline brands have been more daring in reinventing the order process than Japan’s small Ogori Cafe. Though bold, the concept is simple: You get what the person before you ordered, while the next customer gets what you order. Initially, the idea seems ridiculous, but it leads to a bunch of conversations, curiosity, and creates a sense of adventure among customers.

The Lesson: The purchase process is a huge part of the customer experience, and most of your competitors are overlooking opportunities to make it unique.

Learn More: PSFK

4> Check it out: Rogers Park Cheetos

Blogging is a paradise for rule breakers. Take for example this blog that photographically chronicles nearly two years of abandoned Cheetos bags around Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. It’s a funky concept, and after checking out a few of the photos, you might never look at a lonely, empty bag of Cheetos the same again.

Check it out: Rogers Park Cheetos

Brian Goulet makes handmade, inscribed wooden pens. Truly fantastic stuff.

But how does a one-person business stand out in a mass-produced, mass-marketing world? A small business can’t advertise their way past the clutter. You can’t do a mass-outreach campaign.

But you can use your uniqueness to your advantage.

Do what Brian did: Start giving unique products to loud people (like me). Bloggers, press, evangelists, socialites, and influencers. We each reach more people than Brian can, and his product is something that we use when other people are watching. We carry it around, we sign books with it — and people ask where we got it.

It works because a mass-produced product doesn’t get remarked upon. Everyone has it. The specialness is what starts the conversation.

That’s how word of mouth happens — one conversation at a time.

Thanks, Brian!

P.S. Check out Goulet Pens.

Cargo ships are giant fuel-guzzling polluters.

• Sailboats were invented 6,000 years ago.
• What if we stick a sail on cargo ship? Reduce fuel use, cost, and pollution 35%.
• SkySails invented it. (More on how GE cargo ships are using it.)

Satellite communications need giant dish antennas.

• Disaster zones don’t have them, and they are too hard to move.
• What if we put an antenna inside an inflatable balloon and you can carry it in your luggage.
• GATR Technologies invented it. (More on how they are helping in Haiti.)

Support your local inventor: They are going to save the earth. (With ideas that are simpler than you expect.)

Dear PR Department:

Why are the videos on our website copyrighted? Why are they in some weird proprietary player?

Why can’t people just grab them and put them on their blogs and websites?

I thought the whole point of making corporate videos was to get press and exposure.

Doesn’t making the videos impossible to share defeat the purpose? Aren’t we wasting a massive (and expensive) marketing asset?

Suggestion: Take every video the company has ever produced and get it on YouTube tomorrow. Link to the YouTube video from our sites instead of using our own player. If we do that:

• Every prospect who watches a video will be able to share it with colleagues, increasing leads and sales
• We’ll get more leads for free, because YouTube is the second largest search engine (bigger than Bing and Yahoo!)
• We’ll get a ton of free coverage and a ton of web traffic
• Our fans’ blog posts about us will be more interesting and accurate if they use our video instead of making up their own stuff
• Our web hosting costs would go down

Is there something I’m missing?

Thanks.

Answer: Team up with friends!

Your little business may not generate break-through buzz. But a crew of similar businesses with more to talk about can become a buzzworthy story.

12 local Chicago childrenswear designers joined together to create the Kooky Children’s Shop. They now have enough collective activity to support a group website and pop-up stores around the city.

Buzz for one results in buzz for all — including a major plug in Daily Candy:

Gift buying can be spooky,
mysterious, and ooky.
It helps to take a looky at
the pop-up shop Kooky.

Local designers sell their
art, bags, and cute kids’ wear
(like Pluto and Juja Bear!) at
the pop-up shop Kooky.

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

For just two months it will stay,
in time for the holidays.
So be sure to find your way to
the pop-up shop Kooky.

Lesson: More people talking can make a better conversation.

Come to BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media on April 7 in Cincinnati to hear Dell, Duke Energy, Procter & Gamble, Hilton Worldwide, AT&T, Tyson Foods, Rogers Communications, and General Mills share case studies in corporate social media.

You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell San Diego:

Alexandra Wheeler and Matthew Guiste’s big idea: If it doesn’t matter on Twitter, it doesn’t matter.

Alexandra and Matthew’s case study covered how they got management buy-in, how social fits into a larger digital strategy at Starbucks, and how they use Twitter as a monitoring tool.

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Finding a good teammate means better ideas, more resources, and better buying power. A few opportunities to make it happen:

1> To sample new technology
2> To get better pricing
3> To make it familiar
4> Check it out: Interactive Kaleidoscope

1> To sample new technology

It can be tough to get your new technology in the hands of consumers to try out, let alone adopt. Ford faced this issue recently with their SYNC technology, which generally requires driving a car to experience. To make it easier for customers to sample it, they found a partner in Best Buy which allowed customers to try out SYNC in stores and receive a $5 Best Buy rebate. In the first month of initial tests in about 30 Texas stores, Ford was able to demo the technology to more than 3,500 customers.

The Lesson: Even if you’re not a tech brand, get your new technology in the hands of customers by teaming up with a business that is.

Learn More: Wall Street Journal

2> To get better pricing

One of the big advantages of teaming up with another business is buying power. After years of intense competition, Ohio-based Scorchers and Wing Warehouse found a way to work together. With costs increasing, the two restaurants explored opportunities to buy in volume. But the partnership quickly blossomed into something bigger: Wing Warehouse owner Darrell Guariniello ended up buying out the Scorchers owners and hiring them as employees — immediately increasing both market share and buying power. While it may seem like a long shot, it never hurts to ask a competitor if they’re interested in exploring an opportunity that both businesses can benefit from.

The Lesson: It might surprise you how friendly a competitor can get if you’ve got an opportunity in which the two of you could immediately benefit.

Learn More: Ohio.com

3> To make it familiar

If you’ve got an unfamiliar product or service, sometimes you can team it up with something familiar to make it more comfortable for new customers. L.A.’s Learn About Wine does just what its name suggests: educates people about all things wine-related. Their classes naturally draw vino enthusiasts, but to attract the more casual, laid-back wine drinkers, they partner their exotic tasting sessions with something familiar. Recently, for example, they hosted a tasting that paired their wines with In-N-Out burgers — a local fast-food delicacy. While not an official partnership, Learn About Wine found a way to team their service offering with something familiar for a new demographic of customers.

The Lesson: Finding a great teammate for your product or service doesn’t have to involve negotiations and formal contracts. Sometimes just finding a familiar, loved brand is enough to bring in new customers.

Learn More: Dig Lounge

4> Check it out: Interactive Kaleidoscope

Remember those toy kaleidoscopes you played with as a kid? Someone made an online one, and it’s pretty cool!

Check it out: Interactive Kaleidoscope

How do you prevent your dental assistant from frying herself with X-rays all day?

The “on” button is OUTSIDE of the exam room.

There is no way to do it wrong. You have to leave the room to turn the machine on.

Your homework: Find one thing that keeps getting screwed up and change the process so it is impossible to blow it. You’ll be amazed at how simple the fix will be.

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You can never have too many good ideas. How a few smart brands are finding their next big innovations:

1> Ask employees
2> Ask the industry
3> Ask the world
4> Check it out: What the Hashtag?!

1> Ask employees

Some of the best innovations can come from within your own walls. In his TED Talk on the science of motivation, Dan Pink cites Australian software maker Atlassian, which generates ideas through “FedEx Days.” During these events, employees are given 24 hours to work on whatever they want — as long as it has nothing to do with their existing projects. Teams then present their ideas to the company at the end of the FedEx Day, aptly named because they have to deliver something overnight.

The Lesson: Before you spend gigantic dollars on the consulting firm, try getting your team energized and creating fresh ideas with an intense brainstorming session.

Learn More: Dan Pink

2> Ask the industry

Not all big ideas have to originate within your own company. Your industry probably has lots of solo entrepreneurs, research companies, and suppliers constantly introducing new innovations. Procter & Gamble taps into this rich ecosystem with their Innovation Network, inviting everyone from government laboratories to entrepreneurs to submit ideas for P&G. The result is products like GLAD ForceFlex trash bags, Swiffer Dusters, and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser — all of which came from outside ideas.

The Lesson: Rather than putting up competitive walls within your industry, look for ways to partner with the smart thinkers out there who are coming up with the next game-changing technology.

Learn More: P&G Connect + Develop

3> Ask the world

Fans and customers — the folks who use your products every day — are some of the best sources for new innovations. Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbucks’ MyStarbucksIdea have both been constant idea generators for their respective brands, and now Coke Zero is getting into the mix with their Department of Fannovation. The program is the result of Coke Zero’s partnership with CBS Sports and NCAA Basketball, and is asking sports enthusiasts to submit ideas to enhance the fan experience during college basketball games. The best 64 ideas will make a tournament, with fans voting on their favorites until a champion is selected for implementation. Where in the past similar efforts relied on surveys and focus groups, this project drastically increases the amount of available ideas.

The Lesson: Increase both customer engagement and your sources for great ideas by making it easy for fans to share their suggestions.

Learn More: MediaPost

4> Check it out: What the Hashtag?!

If you’re having trouble following and understanding any of the hashtags on Twitter, try this user-editable encyclopedia that tracks and explains a bunch of them. And if your business relies on a particular hashtag, it might be a good idea to submit a definition for it here, too.

Check it out: What the Hashtag?!

What if you provide a service that the customer never sees?

When we travel, we use a cat-sitting company. We leave, they come, we return, they’re gone. All’s well if the cat is happy and the crap is gone.

Our new service, Out You Go, did a great job of leaving a lasting impression: A gift basket full of doodads. The cat toys and treats remind us where we got them. The trick is to use gifts that don’t get used up. A food gift would get eaten and forgotten, but the toys, Post-its, and pens put their brand in front of us every day.

Lesson: Create a thank-you gift that provides a constant reminder of what you did.

I used to be a fan of Guy Kawasaki’s “Don’t Worry, Be Crappy” just-get-it-done-and-make-it-better-later mantra. I still am for most entrepreneurial situations.

But lately I’ve been nailed a few times by a band-aid solution.

#1: We own a giant mobile battery for camping that can also jump start a car. One day the car wouldn’t start. So we jumped it ourselves. And again, and again, and again for two weeks. When we finally went to the dealer, they replaced the bad battery for free in 20 minutes.

Because we had a bad solution — the ability to jump ourselves — we lived with a problem for weeks instead of fixing it for real.

#2: Our office has a firm on contract to fix our computers. Increasingly, they aren’t around or aren’t available, so we fix little things ourselves. No big deal, we’re good at it. But when we have a big crash, these guys aren’t there when we need them. Should have seen it coming, should have replaced them.

Because we had a bad solution — the ability to fix it ourselves — we lived with a problem for months instead of fixing it for real.

Lesson: Learn to spot an inadequate solution that hides a problem instead of fixing it. A quick fix is good, but a crutch that lets you ignore a bigger problem isn’t.

Take two decent, similar products from two decent companies.

Give one a set of instructions that are well-written, clear, and easy to follow.

Guaranteed — all the word of mouth goes to the company with the better instructions. “Buy from Staples. Their stuff is so much easier to assemble.”

Making customers happy is always good, but this is also a critical differentiation strategy when any competitor can copy anything you produce. Build a brand around the instructions instead of the product.

Here are the instructions from a Staples office chair – click for close-ups. My 6-year-old was able to build it (but he’s a genius, of course).