Sometimes it is difficult to start, no one starts at the top. Almost all of us have to overcome one major obstacle in the beginning.
If you're looking to market yourself and your business on a tight budget, you've got to learn to be creative and you've got to learn to start asking creative questions.
Ask yourself:
1) How can I
A different question to get started with:
2) If I needed help with (blank) this person could help me. This is a fantastic question to remember.
Here's another one:
3) Who might exchange for ?
Or this one:
4) How can I do this faster, with less effort, cheaper? Could I do this for free?
Here's another one:
5) What can I substitute for 'X'? Could I substitute 'XYZ' for 'ABC'? Just think about whatever you could, or want to change.
This next one is a great one because it puts you in the shoes of other people, someone who is thinks completely different than you.
6) How would solve this problem?
A good example: How would my mentor solve this problem? How would my four year-old daughter solve this problem? It's a great question because it forces you to think from a different perspective.
I've answered these business questions myself and it has allowed doors to open in every direction, propelling my career to new heights and success to be and continued to be achieved.
Here is an example of how I used this creative questioning to overcome an obstacle early on in my career.
As soon as I graduated University I decided that I wanted to become a professional speaker instead of working within a corporation. My focus was college and high school students, which I still do talks for on occasion, to teach them the importance of creativity. Creativity had helped me rise from being a University failure in my first year to graduating with straight A's, and being names Most outstanding Male. The transformation that occurred between my first and fourth year I owe to learning the skill of creative thinking.
Being a professional speaker and building a profitable speaking business was two things I didn't know anything about though.
I went to and joined an organization called CAPS, which is The Canadian Association for Professional Speakers.
At one of my first meetings I attended I approached a gentleman there who was doing very well with his speaking career about what I needed to do to get to his level. He replied by saying. "It's very simple, Stu. I'll give you three things to do, once you have those finished, come back and I'll give you some more."
He said, "Number one, you need to join CAPS. You need to surround yourself with like-minded people, who are working in your industry and can help you grow." I said, "Okay."
To join CAPS the registration was $200, which was a big chunk of my budget. I remember even asking them if I could pay in smaller payments, which I did. Despite the squeeze, I joined the CAPS organization.
He continued saying, "The second thing you have to do is get to the CAPS National Conference" At this point I thought to myself, 'How am I going to do that? The conference that year was being held on the other side of Canada. With the seminar being pretty expensive itself, plus traveling costs, it was really expensive. I had no money, so everything at that point was expensive for me
I needed to find a creative solution. Here's what I did. I asked myself some creative questions. What I started to do was look at what I had that, perhaps, somebody might need and want.
At this point I wasn't speaking very often because I had just started my speaking business. This allowed me to have time. Time to be able to do other things for someone else.
It was at this moment I asking myself, "How could I use my time to help someone else?" By answering that question I came up with, 'Help Stu Be Like You,' a campaign to help me get to the National Conference.
This is how I used that creative idea to my advantage. I went to the largest chapter of CAPS in my province, which consisted of about 75 people and asked for 30 seconds in front of the whole group.
This was something new to them, no one had asked for that before. I got up in front of everyone and asked them, "When you started off as a speaker, how many of you had no experience?" With no surprise, everybody's hands went up in the air.
I said, "Great. How many of you have attended the CAPS national conference before?" And about 75% of the room had their hands up in the air.
I continued, "Of those who have been able to attend the conference, how many of you believe it would be beneficial for a new speaker, with no experience to be able to go?" Everyone kept their hands up.
My reply was, "Great. Well I am somebody that obviously needs to go to the CAPS national conference because I have zero experience."
Then I said, "But here's the problem. I don't have any money. But what I do have is time. Here's the exchange I'm willing to make and hope that you are willing to make as well. I've created a campaign called Help Stu Be Like You." And I handed out these little flyers, black and white. Basically what I did was I printed two 8x6 flyers on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet to save costs, and I just cut it right down the middle and I gave everybody in the audience one.
I continued to explain what my campaign was about, "This is what I am willing to do. I will do everything you as speakers don't like doing or don't have the time to do. Whatever it is, licking stamps, calling clients, writing sales letters. If you need me to I will come to your house and cut your lawn. All I'm asking in return for my time is a financial contribution of your choice."
Looking out at everyone I could see some people's wheels were just turning thinking, "Oh wow. This is amazing. I can get all those little jobs I hate doing for cheap!"
"All of the money I earn through your financial contributions will be used directly towards enabling me to get out to the CAPS national conference. I will do anything you don't like doing in exchange for a financial contribution."
I finished explaining my campaign and immediately a gentleman at the back of the room stood up. He said, "Stu, I will pay for your entrance fee to the seminar." Just like that, half of my costs were taken care of!
Immediately following that, another gentleman stood up and he said, "Stu, and I will pay for the cost to get you out there." Boom, boom. Eighty-five percent of all of my expenses were taken care of just like that.
That's what being creative is about my friends.
That one creative solution got me out to that conference. It turned out to be a big story because all kinds of people heard about it there and I even had an article published in the national publication.
By exploring your creativity ideas will come to you when you need them the most!
Stay posted for more!
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