Month: July 2016

When I was a kid, I would come home from school and play my piano for hours on end. There were evenings when with great irony, I took for granted the very time signatures at my disposal. In these moments, whether I knew it or not, I would enter the elusive state of creative flow. The rest of the world would fade away as I disappeared into the haunting melodies of Schumann and Chopin. While my mother slaved away, I annoyed my siblings with repetitious exercises that promised dexterity to the diligent student. Or not. As the case may be. 

Ah, those were the good old days! Entrepreneurs rarely have the luxury of endless hours for brainstorming and creativity, yet I still think it is possible for us to enter into the sublime state where creative juices can flow. The problem for entrepreneurs is that such opportunities come wrapped in a package that looks very much like it was run over by a truck. It looks so bad that we frequently mistake it for something completely other than a gift. You may have been fooled by some of these gifts yourself.

Here are ten unusual sources of creative flow that are usually disguised in a frumpy, dumpy package:

Restrictions-  Anyone can be creative with endless resources. It is under restrictions that the real genius comes out. Real innovation is born when we are forced to do more with less. 

Mistakes-  Yes, we blow it. We waste materials. But it is the ones who get out there and make the most mistakes who accomplish the most. We go back to the drawing board. Remember, in the wake of seemingly hopeless mistakes, entire new industries have been born.

Frustrations-  While too much anxiety is always dangerous, there is a productive kind of anxiety called Eustress. Eustress is positive stress that promotes growth, much like the struggle of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Problems and frustrations are often our greatest sources of new ideas. They just look like piles of crap. Which leads to our next ingredient:

Fertilizer-  What causes the most beautiful blooms in your garden? The application of generous amount of––well I’m too polite to say. Got a load of crap? So get a shovel and work it in. Plant Dahlias or something. In sheer audacity of hope, and before anything grows, sign up for the Biggest Blooms contest at your local State Fair. Sure, shxt happens to the best of entrepreneurs. This is shxt redeemed.

Distractions-  Diversions can be the catalyst for oblique strategies. How can you think outside the box if you cannot find at least one hole to peer out? Don’t be afraid to take a walk, or purposely find something different to do for a few minutes.

Necessities-  Those old wives were not as dumb as they look. Blatant need has been the primary point of discovery for many an invention for centuries.

Messes-  Until we are comfortable with making messes, we will never dare to try something new. Messes cause innovation to happen much faster than tweaking and testing for marginal improvements. (Where’s the kaboom? There was suppose to be an earth shattering kaboom?)

Insecurities-  Adults famously try to avoid situations where we do not know what to do, and where we have the potential to look stupid. The reality is, the very moment we feel most insecure is the moment when we are closer to a solution than ever before. Comfort is the enemy of creativity.

Obstacles-  Obstacles do not get in the way. They jog our thinking. Obstacles make us stretch to get over them. Stretching always improves our performance.

Monkey wrenches-  It is also human nature to take the easiest path. We get complacent when things are always the same. Monkey wrenches force us to take a new look at old things, and see them as we have never seen them before.

So the composition of creativity is not the romantic things we might expect. The next time you receive a generous package of Insecurity or Monkey Wrenches? Look up and do your best to be grateful. There may be a priceless gift inside. God uses these unwelcome packages to help us to discover our capacities. They help us to learn that we can survive and come out the other side a more resilient, more creative person. We are more capable than we think we are, we learn that we can make it work, and that we do not have to do it alone–that other people want to help.

Thus the symphony of creativity begins with dark, low notes. It develops with peaks and valleys, high notes and low notes, and finally recapitulates in joyous tubular bells. 

That builds our confidence. 

And that, my friend, will get you in the groove.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful your graphics, they will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your vision, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will make with your target customer. We want to help you find the gold in your business. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Answer this:  What does my business provide that no other company can provide? What can my business say about its products or services that no other company can say?

It may seem too difficult to define. Yet, any company that we have served in our professional history that was able to articulate this difference has become a thriving enterprise. It is called a unique selling proposition, or USP. While a USP is not easy to define, it is a tool well within the reach of the smallest of entities.  It requires little or no capital to create. Whatever time it takes, it is well worth it to improve the function of every other tool in your marketing toolbox.

I do not pretend to understand macroeconomics. I do understand the law of supply and demand, (as do most people who can balance a checkbook). Simply stated, this law states that the value of a product is the direct inverse of its availability. But even if your product is available everywhere it is still possible to create a unique way of doing business.

If you can articulate the difference, you are no longer a commodity. 

We can learn much from the music industry on creating your own signature style. Take the Billy Strayhorn Jazz Standard “Take the A Train,” made famous by the Duke Ellington Orchestra for an example.  It would be impossible to count the number of times this tune has been covered by other artists, whether recorded or performed at a live outdoor music event. Why did the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Maynard Ferguson, or Wynton Marsalis record this song, when it had already been recorded countless times before? While they played the same song,  each artist brought their own particular style and creativity and made it their very own. It has never been recorded the same way twice.

Perhaps you work in an industry with cut-throat competition. Finding a unique way of doing business seems virtually impossible. Re-framing your thinking is in order. Too much competition in your market is a very good sign indeed. It indicates an abundance of demand, and demand is always the first marketing hurdle.

Next, what resources do you have at your disposal? And what disadvantages do you have? Disadvantages?Yes, disadvantages! You can turn them into assets too! Dizzy Gillespie’s horn was bent on accident, right before he was to go onstage to play. A comedy dance team stepped on it while fooling around backstage. Dizzy went on with the show and played it as is. His trumpet not only became his trademark, the horn’s unique sound made Dizzy a jazz sensation. Billie Holiday burned her hair while preparing to sing in a nightclub. She put a gardenia in her hair to cover the damage. The flower became a trademark to her fantastic set of pipes, and the rest, as they say, is history. Woody Guthrie’s songs were so unique that he decided to use a copyright that allowed everyone to copy him. He knew that wherever his songs were sung, it would only add credence to his work as a folk singer and songwriter.

So everyone else is singing your song! Practice till you can sing it better. There are plenty of covers that people love more than the original. Elvis’s famous Hound Dog was originally sung by Big Mama Thorton. Over the Rainbow, originally made famous by Judy Garland, was resurrected to contemporary fame by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. Oh What a Beautiful Morning, from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma, could not be more beautiful as sung by Ray Charles. You probably have a few favorite covers of your own.

The more a business focuses on playing their own unique song to the best of their ability, the less they have to look for fans. Sing your own song. Sing it the best way you know how.

Become the best you can be and the fans will come looking for you.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful your graphics, they will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your vision, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will make with your target customer. We want to help you find the gold in your business. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

We are living in an age of unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs everywhere. Hyper-connectivity is reversing the Tower of Babel. In the midst of swirling conversations, the economies of the world are folding and bending and snapping together in new ways, much like Transformers in some giant, world-sized toy box.

Success is equal opportunity–with an equal opportunity to crash and burn. If you fail in business today, you cannot say you did not have enough information. If you are not taking advantage of all the free training from the world’s finest universities, (available everywhere while podcasts last), it is to your detriment. The tools to apply this knowledge are ever more accessible and approachable too.

Yet, for all the business advice dispensed, the application remains a cautionary tale. One size does not fit all. Just because Amazing Strategy A works for Enterprise B, (insert flashing starburst containing the word Amazing here), it does not necessarily follow that this strategy will produce the same results for you. Terms and conditions do not always apply, even if you read them. Your particular environment may be different. Many rabbit trails are pursued in the name of a famous founder, with less than stellar results. Context is always king, followed quickly by timing, constraints, opportunity, and available elbow grease.

Despite all available risk, I remain a U.P.: Unquenchable Possibilitarian. I remain hopeful that these changes in our world will bring about a marvelous evolution of free enterprise. 

What stands in the way is a strange dichotomy. While the environment is subject to continual change, humans resist it. We are subject to the Laws of the Universe, and specifically, Newton’s First Law of Motion: Inertia. This law states that things, including people, want to keep doing what they are already doing. If they are at rest, they want to stay at rest. If they are moving, they want to keep moving. It takes nothing short of great force to suspend inertia.

It can cause quite a problem. It takes an earthquake to make us change our habits. (When was the last time you gave up something yummy to eat before the doctor told you that you had to?) On the other side, once we are on a roll, we want to stay on a roll–even if being on a roll does not accomplish the right things. We long for things to stay the same, and try to insert as much predictability as we can into an unpredictable world. Inertia plagues the best of entrepreneurs.

But for entrepreneurs who want to go the long haul, we need to practice the discipline of change. Even making small changes to your daily routine can be a start. Beyond just getting used to the idea, we need to practice changing gears at a moment’s notice–all in the name of a higher purpose. Begin by taking a look at every activity for which you have said, “we have always done it this way”.

Whenever we assist a budding enterprise with graphic representation of their Vision and Mission, we start by helping them to divine their purpose and their trajectory.  “Where do you want to be in five years?” After a bat of the eyes, and an incredulous stare, they usually ask something akin to, “How it is even possible in this day in age to think five years out?”

It isn’t possible.Guessing where you will be in five years is a crap shoot at best. Yet, the entrepreneur that realizes a calling and a purpose bigger than themselves will thrive in an environment of change–far beyond the entrepreneur who is only concerned with survival. The entrepreneur with vision is prepared for change. When the environment zigs, she can zag. She is ready to jump if the opportunity arises, or take wing if the bottom falls out. (She has taken wing so many times that she has accumulated frequent flyer miles.) Most importantly, she is fit to survive, because she is concerned not only about her own success, but the success of everyone around her. She succeeds with her customers– never without them. She focuses on making herself and her company useful to a changing world.

Entrepreneurs must develop a plan to avoid Inertia. Change is the new daily homogeneity.  Few businesses that have achieved any measure of stature are the same as the founder originally planned them to be. Only one mantra remains a constant in entrepreneurial cosmology: all that can change, will change. 

We need to make daily effort to defy Newton’s First Law of Motion. Plan your own quarterly earthquake to avoid apathy and indifference. Find a mentor to hold you accountable for the vast difference between busy and productive. It will take Herculean force, because change is here to stay.

We are perched somewhere between the Now and the Not Yet. No one knows what tomorrow will bring or what we are yet to become. But today’s entrepreneur understands the risk and is prepared to engage and evolve into all that they are destined to be. I have watched many entrepreneurs transformed into a dynamic force for good. It is very encouraging in a messy world to say the least.

May you be fearless to embrace your own evolution. And may you become my fellow Unquenchable Possibilitarian. 

Have you enjoyed this series? If so, please let me know in the comments below.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful your graphics, they will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your vision, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will make with your target customer. We want to help you find the gold in your business. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.