Last week I mentioned that the key to great content that gets you clients isn't the volume of information you share, it's your ability to create “lightbulb moments” for your potential clients with that content.

It's these breakthrough ideas that show them you're a real expert and can offer something different to everything they've tried before.

But, of course, real breakthroughs aren't easy to come by.

Here's a technique I've been using for years that works well for me and I think could work for you too. It's got three simple steps.

The first step is to identify conventional wisdom in your field. What is it that everyone believes to be true? For example in sales, conventional wisdom says that you shouldn't reveal the price of your product or service until you've had a chance to establish its value. That's because most customers don't initially realise the size of their problem, so telling them the price of the solution when they don't realise they have a big problem will scare them off.

The second step is to turn that conventional wisdom on its head.

In our example that would be to say that you should tell people the price of your product or service up front before anything else.

Now, of course, just saying the opposite of what everyone else in your field says may set you apart. But if it's not correct then it's not really a great idea to share with your clients.

And typically, if you simply reverse conventional wisdom then it will be wrong. After all, conventional wisdom is conventional wisdom because it's usually right.

That's where step 3 comes in.

You see, conventional wisdom is right most of the time, but not all of the time. There are exceptions to every rule.

If you can find the exceptions where your reversed idea is correct, then you're on to a winner.

So in which circumstances would telling people the price of your product or service before you established its value be the right thing to do?

Well, if everyone already knew the value for one. That's unlikely to be the case. But there will definitely be some people who already know the value.

So what if you had so many potential clients that you can afford to scare off the majority and focus only on the ones who already know the value of your solution?

That would make sense. You can avoid wasting time and focus your efforts on the people it's going to be easiest to sell to.

So for the situation where you have a lot of leads, it can actually be best to narrow them down by telling them your price up front.

Do you see what we've done there?

We've taken something that's the opposite of conventional wisdom and found a situation where it's true (I'm sure there will be other situations too).

So now we have an idea (tell people your price up front) that runs counter to what all our competitors are saying – yet is true for a specific group of people (those with many leads).

If we focus on those people as potential clients we have a real breakthrough idea that's valuable to them and is different to what everyone else is telling them.

All from a few minutes thinking.

I'm sure you can do it for your business too.

Just start with conventional wisdom in your field.

Turn it on its head.

And then find the circumstances or group of people where it's actually true (because conventional wisdom may be true the majority of the time, but is never true all the time).

Good luck!