Topic: How To Keep Creativity and Innovation Alive in Your Business.

“Stay ahead of the culture by creating the culture.” - Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com

Innovate, innovate, innovate. The days of learning a trade and doing that well forever are long, long, long gone. We already know that, and yet often operate our businesses as though we are the only basket maker in the village and we can afford to just keep making the same baskets we’ve always made, marketing them in the same way we’ve always marketed them.

The sometimes hard to swallow truth is this: The second a business stops innovating, they are dead.

If you are to create – and maintain – a truly successful business you must:

• Create something new
• Deliver something old in a new way
• Market something old in a new way

At the January Downtown Sparks Meeting, we’ll talk about how new ideas emerge in this cynical, risk-averse world and where inspiration comes from. You will leave INSPIRED and ready to unlock your own BRILLIANCE and unleash it on the world.

BRING A FRIEND AND RECEIVE $10 OFF YOUR NEXT SPARKS MEETING. Bring 2 friends, and receive $20 off. Bring 3 friends and your next Sparks Meeting is FREE.

“Harness the internet or prepare to become obsolete.” – John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

No matter what your business is all about, you can use the web to: build trust, personalize your core message, connect with clients, extend your advertising message, deliver products, build communities of like-minded clients, and carve out a place as an expert in your industry.

At this month’s South Denver Sparks Meeting, discover ideas for how you can generate more business using the tools available to you on the web. Learn about some unlikely businesses that are pulling in tons of business via the internet, and how you can too – even if you don’t have a web site and don’t know the first thing about internet marketing.

Our South Denver Meeting Facilitator is Patrice Barber of Taylor Made Small Biz.

Patrice is a speaker and tactical business consultant who has authored training programs and taught Business and Program Management for entrepreneurs, consultants and corporate clients. By applying her B.S. in Industrial Engineering, Patrice has become a sought after process improvement specialist and has worked with over 35 Fortune 500 and 100 companies between 1992 and 2001. Read more about Patrice…

BUT – it is also extremely important that the delivery of that message and the way that message is communicated varies regularly. The exercise that Chris suggests in this post, will help you to add some creativity into your day to day life. And, of course, that will also translate over into your business. Which is always a good thing. So – read Chris’s post and try to do what he says.

Thanks, Chris.

Find Three Patterns and Break Them

We operate our lives largely by repetitive patterns. In the morning, we do the same handful of things. We go off to work and do the same things. We eat the same things. We say the same things when people talk with us. Let’s mess with that. The goal isn’t to improve anything. It’s SIMPLY to take any pattern-based  and swap it out with another one for a few days.

Find three patterns – ANY patterns – and write them down. Do you buy a Starbucks Latte every morning? Do you say “not bad” when people ask you “how’s it going?” Do you watch two hours of TV after dinner?

The day after you read this, take a piece of paper and a pen with you. Write down a pattern as you recognize it. Then, write down what you might do differently. If you do Starbucks, try McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts, or try diet Coke, or water. Remember, the goal isn’t to do anything “good” or “healthy.” Let’s just change the activity.

Try the verbal ones. Say something COMPLETELY different than you typically do when people greet you.

Now, do this for three or four days (more than two, please). Write me back a few words about what you noticed, if anything, from the experiment. Did you observe anything about yourself? Did your changes make you think differently about how you conduct yourself? What about the verbal ones? Report back and let’s talk about it.

He does this by helping clients market themselves better and thus, makes them the most obvious, desirable choice for employers. I will post the interview in it’s entirety right here very soon – you’ll definitely want to listen to it. It’s extremely insightful.

But he said something that has been on my mind ever since and so I thought I would share it with you now. Here’s what he said:

“When you decide who you are, and when you’re really strong about telling people who you are, and what value you deliver and how they get that value, then you can use that… as a shield. And all the [unwanted] opportunities and all the [unwanted] potential clients, they bounce off. And all the ones that will really get the most value from you, and that you will enjoy working with – they are attracted, and you let them in behind the shield.

And that’s exactly what I have to tell job seekers because they are in a scarcity mindset. They think there aren’t enough opportunities – and that’s not true. There are [opportunities], they’re just harder to find. But their natural tendency is to open up and say, well, I could go do anything. And that’s exactly the wrong [thinking]. … That will keep them unemployed longer. But if they’ll tighten up on their profile – this is who I am and this is who’s going to find me useful – then they’ll find [the job] faster. It’s a lot easier to find a job that way.

And that’s primarily what I teach – figure out who you are and go find that and forget everything else – the rest of it’s not that important.”

I hope you see the application here to running and marketing a business. Most business owners I work with are also in a scarcity mindset. And who can blame them? It appears that there aren’t enough opportunities out there and that they must market their business as everything to everyone. Scott is right – this is always a bad idea. It’s always harder and less effective.

Instead, take Scott’s advice and market who you are. Market what your business is really about. Embrace and celebrate the fact that you are not the right choice for everyone. Embrace and celebrate the fact that you are the right choice for some – for those who will get the most out of the very thing that you love to deliver.

This is not only the most rewarding and satisfying place to be – it is also the most profitable.

You’ve heard it before: Narrow and define your niche. If you want to market effectively you must clearly define the group or people that define your “ideal” customer or client. That if you try to market to everyone, you will effectively market to no one.

I agree, and often push the issue with my own clients. I often receive push back as a result. Some business owners feel that their product or service really is for everyone.

I get it. But here’s the problem with that: Some businesses have products and services that really could be of interest to everyone. Except they’re not.

Everyone isn’t your customer because everyone isn’t interested in purchasing your product or service. It’s as simple as that. It would be great if they were. But, they’re not.

It’s not that everyone doesn’t have the potential of being your customer, but rather that everyone doesn’t choose to spend their money on the same things. After all, I have the potential of being a bleached blond, but that doesn’t mean I choose to be. True – if you are marketing bleached blond hair color I am potentially your customer simply because I have hair. Except, you will waste oodles of time and money marketing to me, because I have no interest in buying what you are selling.

The fact is, we all spend money on those things most important to us – right now. Everything else is invisible – or easy to say no to. So why spend valuable time and money marketing to those who have no current interest in your products or services?

Your customers are those who have an interest in spending money on your products or services – NOW. Spend all your time and marketing dollars on them – and them alone. Spoil them and they will reward you. Forget the rest.

My youngest daughter is running for student council (3rd grade) and has to give her speech tomorrow. We worked on it this evening. She faces the same problem that every one of us in business faces: how to articulate the value we know we can provide before we actually provide it. My question: Is this sales or is this marketing?

I believe that marketing is everything that happens before we ever have to make the case for why we are the best person for the task at hand; before we ever have to make the sale. It’s about building trust. Ideally, the sale comes easily after trust has been firmly established.

The new client I met with today trusted in my advice before I even walked in the door. The new partner that I met with today has spent the last 9 months evaluating my competence before meshing their business with mine. And the potential new partner I met with this afternoon had to look me in the eye and trust that his idea would remain in confidence. And then…. each of them just had to risk it.

Considering all that our partners and our customers risk in choosing us is important. It’s what marketing is really about – building the trust that enables people to just say “yes”. To put in their vote. Make their choice. Plunk down their money. Feel good about their decision.

It seems to me, that at some point in our lives we are faced with the risk of engaging in the work that is truly meaningful to us. It also seems to me that this work is rarely considered meaningful if it doesn’t also require that other people trust us. Good marketing builds trust. Delivering authentic value maintains it.