Picture it… Miami, Florida 1995

It’s the middle of the summer and I’m DJing at Amnesia, one of the hottest clubs in Miami at the time.

Little did I know that I was soon to discover one of the most valuable lessons that I still carry with me today.

The music was 🔥 (the Macarena went viral that year), the foam was flowing 🧼 and I was in a groove that night 🎧🔊

As midnight approached, the promoter came into the DJ booth to tell me that he had a “special” act performing that night.

Some "boy" band from Orlando or something… (BTW boy bands weren’t even a thing yet)

So these 5 guys dressed in the wackiest coordinated outfits I had ever seen hit the stage and the promoter gave me the sign...

“Awwwww yeah party people! Let’s give it up for The Backstreet Boys!!!!!”, I yelled into the mic.

The Backstreet Boys? Seriously? These guys will NEVER make it! 😂🤣

Within a few months they had hit #1 on the worldwide charts, girls were going CRAZY over them, and they were international superstars! 

So much for my career as a talent scout...

This drove me nuts! How did I miss that? What was it that other people saw in them that I didn’t?  How did I not see the trend??? Here I thought I was a great judge of music… 

It rocked my world and set me off on a journey to look at everything through a different lens. 

I vowed to never let this happen to me again.

I needed to stay ahead of the curve.

The lesson I learned: Don’t discount ANYTHING without having a deeper understanding of it.

🔎Dig Deeper

From that moment on I became obsessed with understanding trends and coming up with ideas.

It’s something that I continue to do today in every aspect of my life and business. I attribute a big part of my success as an executive and as an entrepreneur to this practice. And I suggest you make it a part of your daily, weekly, or monthly routine too.

It will pay off BIG TIME 💰

There’s a ton of different ways you can go about spotting trends, and I can probably spend an hour going through my exact process, but this is a quick version of how I do it:

I normally set aside an hour a day (usually while I have my coffee ☕️ in the morning) and look through a handful of some of these platforms, sites, and tools:

• Reddit
• RedditList
• Product Hunt
• Kickstarter
• Indiegogo
• Exploding Topics
• TrendHunter
• Think With Google
• TikTok
• Twitch
• Twitter

***plus a couple of other cool sites, podcasts and newsletters I subscribe to.  

I tend to spend 10 to 15 minutes on the ones I’ve chosen for the day.

My focus while on those sites is on a couple of things… (this isn’t your typical social media browsing routine where you just scroll and hit like)

First, I focus on what’s trending on each of those sites’ front pages and click through to learn more on each topic. Then dig a little deeper to read the comments. You tend to learn so much more in the comments sections! 

If something catches my attention, I usually note it down in Notion or the notes app on my phone so that I can take a deeper dive later on.

Next, I use the search function to look for keywords specifically around my industry or things I’m interested in. This gives me tremendous insight! Much more than the standard boring industry websites and magazines that “everyone else” reads.

❓Ask Questions

My next go-to tactic? I’ve learned to ask young people a TON of questions. 

• What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen recently?
• What are you watching?
• What are you playing?
• What are you reading?
• What are you listening to?
• Have you seen any interesting products lately?
• What brands are doing awesome things right now?
• What apps should I try?

This list goes on..and on…and on… 

The key here is to have a genuine conversation with the intent to listen and learn.

That’s how I discovered TikTok and Twitch. Both platforms which I’ve embraced and been able to leverage much sooner than any of my competitors. 

If you’re wondering how effective some of these platforms can be for your business, we just launched a campaign with some Twitch streamers and it generated over 2,000 email signups in less than 10 minutes. NUTS!

All because I asked my kids, nieces, and their friends where they’ve been hanging out and seeing cool stuff.

👀 Side Note: If you haven’t been on Twitch or Tiktok, you need to check them out and use the search tool to look for things you’re interested in. For example, I’m an Excel nerd. Some of the BEST excel tricks I use every day I’ve found on TikTok! So there’s more to that platform than silly dances. You just have to look deeper.

These trendspotting exercises keep me “in-the-know” about upcoming products, music, services, and movements both in and out of my industries. 

It also helps me to have great conversations with different people around these topics.

But the most important thing it does is generate a BUNCH of new ideas for me💡

Then I start to figure out how they either fit into my existing businesses or what kind of new business can be born out of these ideas.

I’ll spend next week’s issue breaking down my “Idea Workout ⁨💪🏼” and how I turn these trends into actionable ideas.

I’m pretty sure you don’t want to miss that one!

So with that...to quote another famous boy band, “Bye, Bye, Bye!”

Ralph Q out!

P.S. - If you want to know more about my trendspotting process or tools, let me know by replying to this email or by posting a question in my Big Idea Society Facebook Group

P.S.S. - Thanks SO much for the great feedback on last week’s issue! Keep it coming. It helps this get better and better 😃