5 Ways Creativity Can Help a Business

5 Ways Creativity Can Help a Business-

I think there has been a bad stigma with creativity lately. Any one who is really creative is viewed as a stuck up arrogant person who doesn’t obey the rules but produces valuable results. But that’s not the case, I believe everyone is creative. So I hope that you can begin to incorporate more creativity into every aspect of your business rather than just the creative department, after hearing some examples of how creativity can help your business elsewhere.

1. Management-

Being a great leader means a lot of different things. Mostly it means to inspire others to work harder. Being very versatile is an important trait for most leaders these days. Try sprinkling a little creativity into an already active leadership style, or perhaps into a failing leadership style. Being creative and specific to your team’s goals and dreams will help inspire your team to be the best they can. If your team works for a sports company try offering a team orientated goal not sports related. It may seem counter-productive but your team is already so heavily involved in sports let them explore their other passions. Perhaps a team trip to a comedy show or laser tag/paintball.

2 (1B). Problem solving skills-

I made this 1B because management uses this skill a lot however everyone uses this skill always. I find this to be a very important topic among today’ business youth. I recently attended a conference where I got some advice from a fellow marketing major one year older than me. They said that the main reason managers hire their interns, is because they don’t ask any questions. They understand the business and just figured it out on their own. Managers don’t have time to babysit employees, therefore they will hire someone who will leave them alone and figure it out themselves. I really liked this advice, because being creative can solve a lot of problems. The other day the projector in one of my classes wasn’t working with the computer. So a student took out their phone and played the video through the ELMO (A device similar to an overhead; but digital). Of course the sound was hard to hear but we didn’t have to waste time the next class attempting to watch the material.

3. Marketing -

Lets get the elephant in the room covered. Creativity is a very useful tool in your companies marketing plans. From an internal sense being able to appeal to current workers and provide an image that helps control employee turnover. Google does this very well, by providing employees with various perks of working on site. If you haven’t seen the movie The Internship I suggest it. Creativity does a lot for branding. Differentiation is one of the hardest parts of the business world today. By focusing on creative opportunities a business can separate themselves from their competition. Customers want what represents them the best, but sometimes just giving them that is pretty boring and digs a deeper hole. Being creative can fix that. Take the Dollar Shave Club. They built an amazing brand from such a creative idea and they just rolled with it.

4. PR/Customer Service-

Being creative in customer service is necessary. Social media is blowing up and right now a very popular topic. So if a consumer has something nice to say or offers a valuable review, make sure to be creative and authentic when responding. Don’t just send them a thank you tweet. Be creative and fun. Perhaps thank them and offer a chance to tour the factory, or thank them and publish their tweet on a bill board near their hometown. Make someone’s Facebook comment your cover photo for a day or show a picture of it hanging in the marketing/sales department for inspiration. There are tons of things you can do that helps build the consumer to business relationship that other companies are not doing.

5. Product Development-

Sure your product might be great on all levels and I’m not suggesting to fix something that’s not broken, however, the phrase “Just Keep Swimming” comes to mind. Don’t just stop developing; you need to be prepared to grow. In the business cycle products will eventually start dying out and you will need to rebuild interest in your product. Apple sets up their products years in advance and predicts the competitions developments and then implements ideas that keep them ahead of the competition.  So the only advice I can give is be open minded to every one in the company. A lot of people have great ideas but are too afraid that they won’t be heard. Make sure to offer a place for them to brainstorm together, perhaps a white board in a break room.

I hope that you can begin to incorporate more creativity into every aspect of your business rather than just the creative department.

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Creative Business

This week I want to discuss the idea of creativity in the business world.

Creativity is what drives a successful company. Creativity promotes new products, increases company growth brings change to society. This one aspect can make or break businesses.

I recently watched a few TED talks on creativity one of which from Alan Iny. He brought up this idea of creativity being unlocked by doubt. At first I was blown away by this idea. In order for one to create or better an idea, they must first doubt themselves. They need to throw away any previous beliefs that they had. They had to think inside the box.

However which box does one think in?

Person life box? Marketing box? R&D box? Or maybe management box? By thinking inside one of those boxes you can begin to be creative. Alan’s amazing example was the company BIC. They made pens, all different types and colors. But one day in a meeting someone said lets make a razor. They thought inside the box. Instead of reinventing the pen lets reinvent the company. As drastic of an example, imagine how crazy the person sounded who pitched the idea.

But that one individual did doubt. They doubted the idea that BIC was a pen company and realized they could be more. That is true growth.

In a talk by Joseph Pine, he discusses what consumers want and how it is effecting businesses. He touches on this idea of authenticity. Being different but staying true to yourself. If you mean what you say, consumers will feel more connected to your brand.

He builds on this idea of consumers changing what they want. Business began by providing commodities to consumers. Eventually this changed to goods, which evolved into services, and now there is a new way of selling to consumers. Selling the experiences. This way of branding has affected creativity greatly building the ideas that come from creating an experience. Now creatives need to plan the marketing, the in store mood, where things are placed, how they are perceived on social media. Everything is involved.

So many doors are going to open in the business world for individuals who can think differently in or outside the boxes. That is what I want to do. Bring the next level ideas to companies and help push their growth. My only question for the readers are:

What do we sell after experiences?

I personally haven’t come to a conclusion but I hope I can be one of the first. There’s so much potential profit to be made when the market changes. I haven’t the slightest idea of where to begin in my search but I’m sure in the next generation we will begin to see a change.