CHAPTER 9

Mindset on Creativity

Creativity—The Seat of the Imagination; The Ability to Create What You Saw First in Your Mind

Creativity to the entrepreneur is like water to a fish. It is necessary for survival. Entrepreneurs create businesses from a mere idea that once existed only in the mind. Taking an idea from concept to market requires the ability to imagine. Creativity is activated each time an entrepreneur thinks of ways to invent a new product or service, improve upon an existing one, or to solve a complex problem.

Creativity is also useful when you have less resources than what you need to make your business goals come to pass. When I coach emerging entrepreneurs, I always tell them that it is their creativity that can make up for what they lack in terms of resources, including money. This is a truth that I’ve applied in my business many times. Never underestimate the power of your creativity. It is in your nature to create and make something out of nothing and to make something that’s already great even better. This is why it is imperative that an entrepreneur is intentional about nurturing his/her creativity. Creativity is the birthplace of new ideas.

If you can imagine it, chances are that you can do it. Not every thought is worth bringing to life, but many of them are. Have you ever gotten a fleeting thought of some new invention that would be cool if it existed, but never acted on it? Or, maybe you’ve thought of a technology or a cool device that would make people’s lives better. These are moments of creativity that you might have underestimated as just another random idea. Your life could drastically change if you just took the time to nurture the random creative thoughts you get. You might just be missing out on a million dollar deal!

If you are struggling with getting creative ideas to flow, consider the following questions:

• •What information, product, or service do you wish you had to make your life or someone else’s life better?
• •What technology that doesn’t currently exist would make life, work, or business easier?
• •What processes do you feel that you could improve upon?
• •What do customers frequently complain about on companies’ social media pages?
• •What product or service offering could you pitch to an existing company and perhaps partner with them or contract out your services?
• •What issues do you often notice other people around you are struggling with?
• •What social problem in this world bothers you or angers you that you wish you could solve?
• •What recurring problems show up in media headlines?

Be thoughtful in your responses. They will reveal solutions that are probably needed for a group of people. These group of people are your target market who can then become your customers. These customers will then pay you. This is how simple starting a business can be. You don’t need a 30-page business plan and investor pitch deck or a million dollars in startup capital. Just start with a good idea.

I use the Memo app on my cell phone every time a new idea comes to mind, even if it’s 3:00 a.m. I have enough book titles to last me a lifetime! Some ideas I act on very quickly to prevent the opportunity from passing me by. In my downtime, I find time to create new product ideas, new services, new ideas for marketing campaigns to discuss with my team, and much more. Everyone is creative, but not everyone is in an environment that is conducive to birthing new ideas. Surrounding yourself with the right people, places, and things will inspire you to do so.

Figure 9.1 Ideation Process

For whom are you creating your idea (product, service, etc.)? Answering this question will reveal your intended audience, demographic, or target market for which you are creating. What type of concept, solution, service, or product is it? Is it an app, a prototype for a new invention, or an implementable process that will improve the way people do things? This will specifically define the thing that you are creating. When do you plan to have it completed, implemented, or launched into the market? A date or time frame gives context to how long the process will take to get from concept to reality. Where do you plan to implement or sell your concept, solution, service, and so on? Think in terms of platforms, geographic locations, online, and specific places. How do you plan to implement or sell what you create? Your answers should reveal the process or steps you plan to take to sell or implement your creation.

I would also encourage you to open your eyes and be intentional about seeing what problems exist in the world for which you could come up with creative solutions to help lots of people, and then cash in on them. When I travel, I tend to see more opportunities than at any other time. It’s just one more reason that I love to travel. I see more solutions to problems than I have time to entertain. Try out different environments to see what makes your creativity come alive. Get away from your daily routines and habits and go somewhere different. You might discover that being near water, a fireplace, overlooking a particular scenery, listening to certain music, hanging out in a coffee shop, or just having brainstorming sessions with other likeminded people spark your ingenuity.

When you are intentional about doing something with the ideas that come to you, you are making room for your creativity. This will expand your capacity to receive more and more ideas. Start by writing them down or using a memo or voice notes app to record them. Then begin to implement the ideas that seem to fit into your life right now. Which ideas do you have the capacity to act on today? Don’t worry that you don’t have all of the people you need or the financial capital to get things going. Write a plan, start taking small actions toward making your idea a reality, and the rest will follow. You might have the next Hollywood movie script inside of you or the next invention that will revolutionize the way humans cook food. The world is waiting for your idea to come to life. What are you waiting for?

Examining Modern Trends in Entrepreneurship

Whatever creative ideas you generate for your business, modern trends dictate the direction of entrepreneurship and how business is being conducted. You must pay attention to these trends if you want to stay relevant and on the cutting edge of doing business. At the time of the writing of this book, we live in the digital age, also known as the information age. There is a focus on cryptocurrency, which is a form of digital currencies. Artificial intelligence and robotics are also areas where many companies are spending millions of dollars on research and development. Cloud computing has now replaced the need for physical devices such as servers to store digital data.

Blogging has also been a creative way for writers to monetize their skills into a business. With a large enough following, bloggers can become platforms for advertising. Because most TV ads can be skipped on playback with DVR, companies have begun to capitalize on the captive and highly targeted advertising of bloggers’ audiences. If you’ve ever wanted to have your own radio or TV show on a particular topic, a technology like podcasts allow you to self-produce content from the comfort of your own home. You can broadcast it to your audience by video, audio, or both. Once you have reached a certain number of followers, you can attract advertisers who will pay you to promote their brands with your audience.

YouTube influencers with a large number of subscribers are doing the same, in addition to getting paid for doing product reviews on their YouTube channels. Individuals with thousands or millions of followers on Instagram and other social media platforms are getting paid to endorse products and services and have the influence to make videos go viral with just one post. Some YouTube channels do beauty tutorials or offer lifestyle and travel tips and a whole host of other things. Celebrities and entertainers have even jumped on the bandwagon of the social media craze and have gotten their products or music to go viral through the social media accounts of ordinary people.

If you have a deep knowledge or expertise in a particular area, e-courses can be created and sold through sites like Udemy or Kajabi. This is one way to sell intellectual property with no overhead, no employees, and no major active involvement in the business activities. If you are able to market your courses well, this is a viable way of creating an income stream for yourself. You’d just have to think of some information that would take others years to acquire, create an e-course out of it, and then sell it.

Affiliate marketing is a passive income strategy that allows people to earn a commission from an online retailer for directing traffic to its website for sales. It usually involves a trackable link that traces sales that are made when a customer clicks it to make a purchase. The Amazon Associates program is one of the most respected affiliate programs worldwide. If you have a website, you can allow Amazon to advertise its products on your website in exchange for getting paid an advertising fee. It’s a relatively easy way to earn money for promoting a company’s products and services.

E-commerce is a growing trend that facilitates buying and selling products online. You can buy the products you want to sell, or make them yourself, and then use an online shopping platform like eBay or Etsy to sell them. This replaces the need to restrict selling products to a local physical brick-and-mortar store and opens your business to national and global audiences. If you want to get into the retail business without the hassle of maintaining the inventory yourself, you can use dropshipping to profit from forwarding order details to the supplier who is responsible for shipping the products. In other words, the customer places an order and then you send the order to the wholesaler or another retailer to fulfill without ever touching the product.

What Are Other Entrepreneurs Saying?

More fresh voices in the global entrepreneurship community weighed in with their insight on where they believe entrepreneurship is going in the 2018 Forbes article, 23 Trends That Will Shake the Business World in 2018. (Young Entrepreneur Council)

Here are some of their thoughts on the areas to watch going forward if you want to think like an entrepreneur.

Blockchain—Blockchain is the technology that records cryptocurrency transactions. Entrepreneurs with high-tech skills will want to consider developing a technology that will increase security for blockchain users. The banking industry has already begun to integrate blockchain technology into its business processes, and more and more industries are looking to do the same.

Live video—Digital media is increasingly becoming the norm given the way people consume information globally. Traditional media such as news outlets and magazines like Forbes have already begun featuring video segments on its various online “channels.” More companies like BuzzFeed are providing a unique form of infotainment to its audience. Facebook and Instagram have a live feature that allows companies to interact with its audience in real time by live video.

Customer contact by text—Once considered spam, a growing segment of customers now welcome text messages as a form of communication. Whether it’s an invitation to an exclusive sale, or a notification that your order has been shipped or delivered, texting is no longer considered an unwelcome form of communication between customers and their businesses. The Facebook Messenger app and WhatsApp are currently popular platforms for companies to communicate with their customers.

Chatbots—If you think you or your team must be present at all times just to be at the beck and call of your customers, think again. Chatbots can automatically create tickets to a company’s help desk while setting the expectation of response time to your customers or generate automated responses to simple inquiries asked by website visitors. It’s another way for you to communicate with current customers and capture the contact details of potential clients.

Coworking arrangements—Both established and emerging companies are using a more collaborative work environment to facilitate teamwork and idea-sharing. The layout of a coworking space is often a concept of an open office space without walls or partitions. Some coworking offices are dedicated for the exclusive use of entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and freelancers. This setup is conducive to networking, synergy, and eliminating the isolation of being a solopreneur. It’s also a great money-saving strategy for startups and a great alternative to leasing office space with long-term contracts since many coworking spaces offer membership with flexible terms.

Nontraditional education—With the increasing number of students trying to avoid student loan debt and find the fast track to earning a good living, formal education is not as coveted as it used to be, neither by students nor by employers. There are alternative means of getting education such as through certifications (especially in the tech industry), which are sometimes equally valued, if not more so. With the growing trend of millennials and Generation Z looking at owning their own businesses, obtaining a viable skill set through nontraditional education is becoming a popular choice. Massive open online courses (MOOC) and Coursera are examples of alternatives to traditional education.

More dependency on automation—Automation is the entrepreneur’s best friend. Here’s a list of business processes that can be automated:

• •Directing phone calls
• •Some email responses
• •Getting signatures on documents
• •Initial customer service or IT ticket requests
• •E-commerce orders
• •Social media posts
• •Lead-generation campaigns
• •Newsletter subscriptions
• •Abandoned shopping cart email reminders
• •Appointment scheduling and reminders
• •Recurring invoicing and billing
• •Payment reminders

There are many more processes that can be automated. Manual processes cost time and money because you need to hire a person to do them. Automation not only saves time and money but it also increases effectiveness (reducing the chance of human errors) and efficiency (productivity).

Marketing segmentation by social media platforms—As different social media platforms emerge, it gives way to the different audiences that exist and how your business might more effectively cater to them. There is very little overlap between Snapchat users and LinkedIn users. For example, 86 percent of Snapchat users are aged 34 and below, whereas 64 percent of LinkedIn users are aged 30 and above. You can partly identify your target market based on which social media platforms they use the most and begin advertising and engaging where appropriate. (Spredfast)

Mobile retail sales—Capturing more sales from customers who frequently use mobile devices should be a normal part of doing business. In 2012, retail sales from mobile devices only comprised about 11 percent of all sales. In 2016, that number jumped up to approximately 48 percent and is still rising. Consumers have access to cell phones and other mobile devices like never before, and this is likely not going anywhere anytime soon. Running web ads is simply a smart way to capture new business.

Focusing on diversity—Increasingly, companies are seeing the value of promoting gender and ethnic diversity within the organization and giving such diverse groups a fair and equal representation. As such, entrepreneurs who do not view diversity as a core value may risk appearing insensitive and alienating an entire segment of customers. Diversity is viewed as an element of your company’s social consciousness by potential customers and other stakeholders.

Have these ideals shaped the way you perceive entrepreneurship? The days of conventional offices with cubicles where employees only interact with customers by phone or email are slowly becoming a thing of the past. If you are thinking of going into today’s business climate expecting the traditional work arrangements as your parents or grandparents did, you will have to do a mental paradigm shift to embrace what I call neo-entrepreneurship.

Examples of Creative Business Models

Once you have completed the ideation process and come up with what you want to sell and to whom, you will need to decide on a profitable business model to operate your business. According to John Mullins, author of Customer-Funded Business, there are at least five business models that you should consider to circumvent startup or early-stage funding challenges. Four of them are explained below.

1. 1.Matchmaker model—Business platforms that bring buyers and sellers together are using the matchmaker model. These companies are not in the business of selling the products or services of others themselves, but act only as an intermediary and use their websites as meeting places or a marketplaces where transactions can occur. One example is Travelocity, which connects travelers to airlines, car rental companies, cruise lines, and hotels. Travelocity collects a fee for each transaction that is made. It is responsible for providing the technology and some customer support.
2. 2.Pay-in-advance model—Requiring payment upfront works well for some types of businesses. Some medical service providers require a copayment. Consulting, home remodeling, or construction projects may require a deposit to secure booking or to purchase materials. It is not unusual for service shops such as clothing alterations or shoe repair businesses to charge their entire free upfront.
3. 3.Subscription model—Memberships, premade meal delivery, e-courses, beauty products, offering a discount for automated ongoing customer billing, digital streaming, massages, and many other products or services can be sold on a subscription basis. If customers purchase something on an ongoing basis, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually, it can most likely be sold as a subscription. Some examples include Amazon Prime, Netflix digital streaming, and McBride Sisters Collection wine club.
4. 4.Scarcity model—Have you ever noticed the companies that use ads that claim that quantities are always limited or offers are only available for a limited time? Then you have just observed an example of a business that uses a scarcity model. Other examples of this are flash sales. These are companies that thrive on turning over products at a rapid pace, and, more likely than not, they have made a deal to pay the supplier only after the products have sold.

Based on the above list, you can choose one business model, combine business models, or develop an altogether new, unique business model. There is no right or wrong business model, only the one that works best for your company. This is the beauty of creativity. If you can imagine it, then you can achieve it.