Creating New Marketing Ideas: How Do You Think Creatively About Your Business And Your Customers?

!±8± Creating New Marketing Ideas: How Do You Think Creatively About Your Business And Your Customers?

In the last week I have met two coaching clients who both have 3 years old businesses yet their approaches to business are like chalk and cheese.

John enjoys a comfortable job, his company has a regular clientele and he makes steady money - not brilliant but enough.

Poles apart, Paula has created her market, overcoming many barriers and her current income is marginal. In my assessment, her company is on course to make a $million because I see her innovating in three distinct stages.

Be creative in redefining your market and your products

When I work with Paula to help her grow her market, her creativity starts with "quantity before quality". She lets her ideas pour out unselectively as we explore the different profiles of customer that she might sell to, dig into new ways of using and benefiting from her current products and brainstorm the services and complementary products that she could add on to her current sales.

Although the ideas are prolific, Paula is effective in capturing them on paper without rejection. Then as we re-work the list, she plays with each idea: creating an inversion (or two), mixing and matching several ideas, and cross-fertilising diverse ideas to multiply the new ones. Our time goes quickly and working with her so creatively invigorates me!

Use opportunities to think differently

Paula is building her business success by working differently. Whereas her competitors let assumptions hold them back, she has a sharp eye for conventions and habitual ways of thinking and she chooses whether she wants to follow with yesterday's way of doing things.

I queue for printers and photocopiers like everyone else so I was interested that Paula does not: she uses such opportunities to share her ideas with whoever else is there too, trying ideas out on them and asking for their comments.
She enjoys meeting new people, especially potential customers, and imagines "standing in their shoes": she keeps a diary of people she has met and how they have helped her to see her products differently.
Paula also has a panel of 'anti-customers' to review products from alternative perspectives: some of them are hostile (and would never buy from her), some are long term customers of her competitors and she includes just one loyal customer. She values all of their comments.
Get your team to help

When Paula has developed and researched a cluster of new ideas, she gets her team to help evaluate them. She relies on her team member to tune the ideas, and blend them together, until they are feasible.

Then she nominates a project manager to build a change programme and create a workable strategy for putting the finished idea into practice. By the time the project is up and running, her team have done a lot of work on those ideas, the ownership of the outcome is shared and everyone is motivated to make the final idea happen.

I guess in summary, Paula is making her success by embracing and driving change, in her company, in her market and in her customer's lives.

Creating New Marketing Ideas: How Do You Think Creatively About Your Business And Your Customers?

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DTS and Copier Security

!±8± DTS and Copier Security

Hard drives now are standard on your copiers and may contain a copy of every print or scan job ever sent to it? Beginning in 2002, nearly every copier used in business contains one, or more, hard drives that are capable of storing all kinds of data. Most digital copiers in service today store an image of every copy, scan and print job, email server settings, secure password and have been known to be used for file sharing

DTS and Copier Security

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How to Relax - Create a Masterpiece on Your Very Own Sheet of Paper

!±8± How to Relax - Create a Masterpiece on Your Very Own Sheet of Paper

Feeling Stressed out? Make a sheet of paper and unwind a little, then create a masterpiece in charcoal on your sheet of paper, and discover a world of relaxation in the art of creativity.

"What, me, make paper? And draw? You must be crazy," you say.

No problem, it's a piece of cake. Anyone can do it, using stuff that you can find around the house. Here's how:

The Paper

Make a rectangular frame, the mould, thirty four centimetres long and twenty five centimetres wide by joining four bits of two-by-two centimetre wood together using glue and nails. Make a "deckle" of the same size in the same way. Cover the mould with net curtaining by stretching it across the frame and tacking it on.

Shred four sheets of used computer paper, or photocopier paper, into thin strips, and place into a large saucepan. Add sufficient water to submerse the strips. Boil for an hour or so, skimming the scum off the surface at regular intervals to remove the worst of the ink spots. Drain the water off in a colander, and squeeze out the pulp.

Take a handful of pulp and put it into your liquidiser. Fill the liquidiser with water. Liquidise at full speed for 20 seconds. Pour the pulp into a 2 litre jug, and make up to 2 litres with water.

Place the deckle on top of the mould (wire side up) and hold the mould, but not the deckle, under water in a tub or sink with one hand. Pour the pulp into the mould, shaking the mould from side to side a little to spread the pulp evenly.

Lift the mould out of the water and allow the excess water to drain off, before removing the deckle. Turn the mould upside down, depositing the formed pulp onto a piece of wet felt. Using a sponge, soak up all excess water by pressing it onto the back of the mould. Lift the mould slowly to expose your sheet of wet paper. Notice the attractive "deckled" edge of the paper.

Allow the paper to dry on the felt overnight. Iron the sheet flat and remove the last bits of water the next day and, voila, you have a sheet of hand made, recycled paper.

Unwinding a little yet? Good. Once you have mastered the process it is easy to experiment by adding scraps of coloured paper, onion skins, food colouring, and petals of flowers. Now, on to the masterpiece.

The Drawing

Find a stick of charcoal, about twelve millimetres in diameter, from your bag of BBQ lumpy charcoal, and break off a three centimetre piece.

With your sheet of paper in front of you, turn the charcoal stick edge on so that the length of the stick is facing the paper. Without consciously thinking of any shapes or forms, draw the edge of the charcoal randomly over the paper in straight lines, in circles, diagonally across, applying heavy pressure, light pressure, any way you feel like, but leaving some blank spaces.

Put the charcoal down and stare at the paper with half closed eyes. Turn the paper round until you find a recognisable shape. It may be the beginnings of a landscape or a portrait, or even an abstract form.

Take up the charcoal again and accentuate the shapes that you have found. Use a soft eraser to create highlights or lighter areas. Use the sharp tip of the charcoal stick to make sharply defined lines, smudging other areas with a finger to create softer areas. Keep working at it and, before long, you will have created a recognisable work of art.

When you are satisfied with the result, spray some hairspray over the drawing to fix it, so that the charcoal doesn't smudge.

Frame your picture, hang it on the wall and boast about it to your friends and family, because you have created something unique, a special piece of yourself.

In the process, did you notice how the world went by without you noticing whilst you were busy creating? How you focused on the task at hand to the exclusion of everything else? How your concerns evaporated? How you simply relaxed?

Great, isn't it?

How to Relax - Create a Masterpiece on Your Very Own Sheet of Paper

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