Become Creative to Succeed in Business
Becoming creative with your ideas is a prerequisite to any business success. Marketing, whether online or offline, is the hardest part of doing business. Many businesses collapse due to a lack of good marketing methods. In Uganda, I have seen many businesses cropping up every day. But a few last for more than five years. In fact, on the building where we have our business, every month there is at least one new small business starting up. But there are several of them that close. Why do these businesses collapse? I always hear people say that they fail to pay rent. But I don’t think that’s the major reason.
One of the primary reasons is the failure to get customers due to the lack of proper and sustainable marketing methods. Of course, there are others, like not having unique products and services, lack of good leadership and financial management, etc… But believe me or not, business survives on persistent marketing. As a business owner, you need to focus on effective ways of marketing your business. You don’t have to sit back and just be in business. Becoming creative will give you better ways to succeed in your business.
What Does Becoming Creative Mean?
Becoming creative is about coming up with different ways of doing something. It means looking for ways to do things differently. Additionally, it means thinking outside of the box. You have to break with the routine and do something different to reach your destination. The destination I mean here is your business success – when you can make money from your business. I hope I am not insulting anyone. But I know many Ugandans like copying. They jump into a business just because so and so makes money in it. They use similar marketing tactics thinking they will make money. That’s a wrong business model. Be creative instead! And always think about becoming creative!
By becoming creative, you get out of doing things the normal way. This is the problem with the majority of the people. Once they are used to doing things in a certain way, they tend to stick to that whether it’s effective or not. They don’t think outside the normal boundaries to explore other ways of doing things better.
Secondly, they forget that situations change and only wake up when it’s too late. But by becoming creative, you make it possible to compete favourably. Being creative isn’t only for a certain category of people. We can all be creative in business if we allow ourselves to be. Becoming creative only requires you to use the right part of your brain to get new ideas. It doesn’t require you to use the left brain that controls logic and order. The challenge with most people is that they don’t see themselves as being creative. Probably it’s because they don’t allow themselves to be creative. They don’t create situations for their mind to focus on generating better ideas. Becoming creative simply means opening your mind to new possibilities of doing your business.
Why Is Being Creative in Business Necessary?
Becoming creative, as already said, is a key to business success. As a business owner, you must know that you are living in a world of competition. You want to get a big market share. Secondly, you want your business to survive. Thirdly, you want it to grow. But you cannot achieve all those without coming up with creative ways of doing things better. Becoming creative enables you to come up with ways of promoting your business and to stand out from the crowd.
Discover Great Ways of Becoming Creative in your Business!
You should now be asking yourself how you can become creative in your business to succeed in it. Am I right? Ok. Here are some ideas I would like to share with you to cultivate your creativity in you.
1. Find a Good Environment
Becoming creative requires you to be in a relaxed mood. It requires you to be in a new environment to let your mind think outside of your normal routine environment. You must have a place where, when you go there, you find yourself coming up with better ideas. What’s that place? Create time in your programme to go there more often. Most Ugandans in the business concentrate on the routine. They work so hard and get tired by just doing the same things. If you are like that, then I challenge you. Give yourself time to be in a good environment that will enable you to get new ideas.
2. Ask the Right Question
As already mentioned, most Ugandans go into business because they have seen others making money in them. They don’t do research and have no business plan. Yes, it’s good to do a similar business you have seen elsewhere. For instance, we are in the engraving business, which we also saw from somewhere. The only difference with us is that we did some research and developed a plan for our business by asking ourselves the right questions. Instead of just copying what we saw from others, we asked ourselves “How can we create unique engraved products and offer quality engraving services for our target market”? There are other questions we put forward and for which we know the answers. Asking the right questions is one of the great ways of becoming creative.
3. Organize a Brainstorming Session
If you are a team in your business, create time to brainstorm. This should be done outside your workplace. Being creative requires you to be in a conducive environment for your mind to think freely. Refrain from criticizing your team members’ ideas. Accept all ideas. You will be pleased with the results.
4. Use Benchmarking
You may consider using TV reality business programmes to benchmark for good practices. You may also use methods of other businesses in your niche. When you see something that pleases you, think about how you could apply it in your business in a different way.
5. Think About Fun Creative Activities
Here you look at the kind of activity that would get attention for your business. Such activity could easily be achieved through a brainstorming session.
6. Become an Expert
In Uganda, the majority of people in business do not long so much to become experts in their businesses. If that’s what you are, then learn from me that expertise attracts creativity and customers. You have to become an expert in your business niche before you can be creative in it. Successful business people don’t just like knowledge, they long for it. They never stop asking questions, and they always go beyond what they’ve learned from teachers and books.
Establishing yourself as an expert is a great way of becoming creative in your area. For instance, we run this blog to establish ourselves as experts in engraving and business as a whole. It’s one of the reasons behind maintaining this blog alongside our official website. Luckily, it’s paying us because people always buy from experts, especially if it’s a job that requires skills and good knowledge.
7. Run a Competition
Think of a competition you can run to attract attention. This could attract new customers.
8. Use Press Coverage
Think about an activity that could do to attract the press. This could be an opportunity for you to get known.
9. Write Down Your Ideas
Becoming creative requires you to generate lots of ideas. It’s is so important to keep a record of all the ideas as they occur.
10. Be Open and Aware
Creative people always look for possible solutions. You do this by becoming more aware and practising things. This involves making a deliberate effort to notice things and practice them.
Conclusion
Becoming creative is one of the best ways of standing out of the crowd. When you come up with a new marketing idea or approach, make sure it attracts the right people you are targeting. The idea/approach should carry the right message about your business. It should also blend with your business brand image. What creative idea do you think can help to improve my online marketing methods? Please share with us through the comment section below.
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