Tag: creativity in business

creativity in small business

Tips to build your business creativity

To us, creativity is combining ideas or concepts to discover unique or new connections. It means merging previously discrete ideas, concepts or forms of thought, and coming up with something new. Creativity is an important thing for entrepreneurs to develop – it can help you to see everyday things in new and useful ways. It’s the basis of innovation! Creativity can help you come up with new products and services, new industries, new ways of doing business, and new business opportunities.

Here are some ways you can encourage creativity and inspire great things for your small business.

Think in opposites

Sometimes, thinking about opposites can help you come up with a great business idea. When you’re able to hold two conflicting thoughts or outcomes in your head at once, you can often come up with creative ways to bridge the gap between the two – even if there doesn’t seem to be a connection. For example, clothing company Everlane could be said to think in opposites: What if clothing could be both ethically-made and affordable? To connect the two opposites, they adopted a strict e-commerce business model, reducing retail markups and cutting out the overhead necessary to run a brick-and-mortar store.

Have “think time” every day

For at least a few minute per day, unplug. Put your phone in the other room. Read, garden, go for a walk, go for a run, or sit and let your mind wander. Get into a routine of letting your brain loose every day — just not while you’re driving, please!

Be a kid again

When was the last time you played with Lego? Did a jigsaw puzzle? Looked for shapes in clouds? Built a sandcastle? Kids are masters at creativity because of how they play, losing themselves in imagination and coming up with amazing stories and ideas. They also can’t be dissuaded by “That’s not how it’s done” or “That won’t work” – they try anyway.

Write down all your business-related ideas

Don’t worry about how good, bad or strange your ideas might be. The key here is to set your mind free to develop a stockpile of ideas that might one day develop into something new or useful. Perfectionists, practice makes perfect here!

Practice!

Spending time each day in quiet contemplation may seem challenging or even counterproductive at first, but the more you practice, the easier it’ll be to draw upon your creativity when you need it. Try to “free associate” as much as possible.

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Can creativity be learned?

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At GoForth, we believe that creativity and entrepreneurship are linked. Creativity isn’t just limited to artistic expression. Take, for example, the story of the invention of Velcro. We define creativity as the ability to view the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated things, and to find solutions.

Creativity can be expressed as combining ideas or concepts to discover unique or new connections. It means merging previously discrete ideas, concepts or forms of thought, and coming up with something new.

So, can creativity be learned? Maybe the question should be “Can creativity be re-learned?” Many studies of creativity in children and adults show that children are more creative than adults, and as we grow up and away from the time of make-believe, we tend to think that creativity is something only a few people naturally have.

However, anyone can learn to be more creative

Creativity is a spectrum, and creative people aren’t creative in everything. Instead, they focus on a certain area of activity, a particular domain of knowledge. Psychologists now believe creativity is domain-specific — knowledge directly related to a thing you’re currently learning about.

No one can be creative without first internalizing this domain-specific knowledge, which is why a certain level of education is now believed to be essential to creativity. It’s easier to be creative in a certain area when you have a good foundation of knowledge in that domain. That’s why we believe a good, well-rounded small business education is essential for success.

Want to kick-start your creativity? Find some tips here.

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What’s the most important entrepreneurship skill?

small-business-planning

Our small business training was created after surveying 200 uber-successful Canadian entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs were asked what business skills they believed made the difference between success and failure for them.

Today, we’re sharing some of the most vital skills entrepreneurs need to know, and which ones GoForth entrepreneurs were surprised they didn’t know.

Branding

This is the importance of developing a small business brand, including brand experience, identity, image, pillars, equity and delivery. Brand pillars are the most important values and characteristics of your small business that you want to communicate in your branding. The brand experience is strategically developed to provoke thoughts, interact with, and persuade people to take action. Make sure your client’s brand experience is consistently positive!

Read more about brand experience.

How to build a financial plan

Most entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time understanding the numbers in their business — but the lead entrepreneur really should know the numbers inside and out. If you’re easily stumped by simple questions about profit, costs, or break-even, then others will lose confidence in your ability as an entrepreneur. Investigating financial feasibility before you start your business and while your business is running will help you tweak your business model canvas, which will raise your confidence that you’ll run a profitable company.

Customer experience

Customer experience (CX) is the sum of all experiences a client has with your business, either during one transaction or over the lifetime of your relationship. Research shows that customers do business with companies they like, so the more positive experiences a customer has with your business, the more they’ll continue to do business with you. To define your customer experience, it’s important that you know what your customers want and need.

Read more about CX.

How to manage a small business

Successful leaders are teachers, learners and visionaries. Your employees will look up to you for motivation, guidance and also as a model for their own performance. In order to lead effectively, you should consider your business and its staff to be like a team. Everything that’s done should focus on strengthening and improving your team. According to Bond Street Newsletter, these five skills are the essential toolkit for effective leadership in a small business: 1) Empathy; 2) Decisiveness; 3) Collaboration; 4) Planning; and 5) Support.

Government compliance

Staying on top of government compliance can greatly improve a business’ odds of success. There are income tax requirements, GST/HST requirements, rules for working with self-employed contractors, and documents and policies required if you become an employer. It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Government compliance can lead to benefits for you as an entrepreneur. For example, there are many tax deductions that self-employed entrepreneurs can make, as well as employees and commissioned sales employees.

The importance of creativity in business

Creativity is the ability to view the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated things and to find solutions. This conceptual combination is seen often in the history of some of today’s most unique product innovations. For example, in 1941 George de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, returned home from a trip with his dog, and noticed burrs sticking to the dog’s fur. Like a good engineer, Mestral examined the burrs under a microscope. There, he noted their hundreds of “hooks” that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair. And with that, the idea for Velcro was created!

What about you? Are there small business skills you wished you knew before starting your entrepreneurship journey? To learn these, plus dozens of other vital small business skills, check out our online small business training!

 

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Small business blog posts we liked this week

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Whether fall is taking a chilly turn where you are, or you’re still enjoying outdoor time, take a few minutes to cozy up with these small business blog posts we liked this week:

Did you read any interesting business blog posts or articles you’d like to share? Let us know!

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