The Importance of Creativity for Your Business
Being creative is more than just thinking outside the box.
Creativity without a roadmap, especially in business, can lead to ideas that can’t be executed or don’t fit with your business goals.
In this article, we’ll break down the mystery of creativity, how you can become more creative, and when you should use ideas or throw them in the trash bin.
How the Creative Process Works
We hear about creativity all the time. However, when it comes to actually describing the process, it’s hard for most of us to make sense out of it.
Whether we like it or not, most of our ideas are born in our subconscious. When we shower, drive, or do any activity that has nothing to do with the creative process, an idea is coming to surface.
That means that in the background of your subconscious, there are new ideas. But only a small number of the ideas you have come to the surface.
However, there are a few things you can do to increase your creativity and ultimately help your business.
Creativity and Business
For most, thinking creatively about their business involves coming up with unconventional ideas. But in reality, the importance of creativity in your business lies in your understanding of your field.
What does this mean?
This means you can’t come up with creative ways to improve your sales if you don’t have a deep understanding of what your customers actually want from a product/service like yours.
Creativity is merely gluing pieces of knowledge in unique combinations.
When Creativity Makes a Difference
We’ve created a short list on the importance of creativity in your business to help you understand how it changed the game for some businesses.
1. Branding
A lot of businesses are now realizing the importance of creativity when it comes to creating a brand that’s truly memorable, but they don’t know how to get started.
Some try too hard to sound humorous while talking about loans. Others abandon the idea of making their brands relatable to their audience.
The problem lies in the fact that many companies just imitate each other. They don’t come up with creative ideas that will suit the tone expected by their customers.
This usually leads to low conversion rates and a drop in credibility.
When your target customers are over 50 years of age and you design your branding strategy for people in their early twenties, you will fail to get your message across.
The solution?
Analyze your situation and try to come up with a creative twist to your business.
This means finding something that will make you stand out, but not like a sore thumb.
2. Advertising
Advertising can pull brands from obscurity and propel them in the eyes of the public.
One of the best examples of creativity in action is advertising.
Sometimes it’s quite hard to cut through the noise and create something that really touches people. This is why creativity is so praised among advertisers.
Advertising is simple to understand when it comes to the psychology behind the ads. However, when you have to take the same concept over and over again and make it look new and entertaining, that’s when the hard work comes in.
3. Creativity in the workplace
The worst thing you can do is to create a workplace where creativity and results are discouraged.
If you hire a manager who makes everyone feel inferior and overworked, you stand little chance of growth.
Creativity is often confined in workplaces where innovative ideas are treated as something that only superiors possess.
A lot of managers ignore the importance of creativity in the workplace. They just look at peoples’s job experience and trust only experienced workers, while the entry-level employees don’t stand a chance.
How can you change that?
Encourage creativity. For example, at the end of each month, offer a bonus for a worker who comes up with an idea that might help your business generate more income.
Make sure this “contest” includes both senior and junior employees.
You’ll be surprised by the results.
How to Encourage Creative Thinking
We made a brief list of tactics that you and your workers can use to encourage productivity and creativity in your company.
While not all tactics will suit your business model, we’re sure that you can find at least two or three ideas to implement right away.
1. Surprise your employees
One of the things that boosts creativity is a simple change of scenery.
Going to work every day and walking trough the same door that leads to the same office can often lead to a sense of routine. But this can take a toll on the creative processes.
How can you fix this problem?
Surprise your workers by taking them to a nice restaurant. Or bring the entire team to a park and relax on a nice summer day.
This makes your workers more comfortable with you and encourages them to be creative later.
If your staff work primarily on laptops, park trips could even become a second office.
2. Create now and polish later
Criticism is the death of creativity.
The first draft is always going to be a terrible one. But by throwing the pieces of papers in the trash bin one after another, you’ll never actually get started.
Instead of erasing lines from your business plan, write everything that pops into your mind. Don’t lose your ideas. You can always improve it later.
Let your ideas flow and what is irrelevant and unnecessary can be removed later.
Censorship kills creativity and doesn’t allow you to step out of your comfort zone.
3. Keep track of all your ideas in a journal
Keeping a creative journal is not just a good idea only for fiction writers.
Ideas can spring up anytime and anywhere. But we often forget them 5 minutes later.
The solution?
Keep a creative journal. It could be a pocket-size notebook or mobile app that you carry everywhere you go.
At the end of the day, you can look at it and weed out the bad from good.
4. Don’t obsess over it
The best ideas come unexpectedly.
Stressing out and losing your sleep while trying to transform a campaign or come up with an idea rarely works.
Instead, make sure you’re hydrated and give yourself the time to relax and enjoy your personal life too.
Don’t believe me?
Archimedes had a great realization while he was taking a bath.
5. Forget about your comfort zone
One of the best things you can do to speed up the creative process is to try something completely new and challenging.
New experiences bring new perspectives.
For example, you might not feel comfortable taking your business to unexplored fields, such as the online environment.
But since so many people are now looking for products and services from the comfort of their homes, it might be a good idea to step out of your comfort zone and develop an online presence.
Creativity Killers
If you can’t see yourself coming up with something new, no matter how much you try to analyze every angle, your lifestyle might be to blame.
Creativity and productivity levels rise when we’re happier.
Despite common belief, stress gives us the extra kick only temporarily, and when it’s too much we get angry and irritated.
If you feel like your creativity levels are dropping your lifestyle, diet, and personal life could have something to do with it.
The best thing you can do in this situation is to try to figure it out what you can solve and what you can’t.
Conclusion
Creativity is not something that only idealists praise. Practical entrepreneurs should try to cultivate it too.
It never hurts to search for a strategy that could make your brand stand out or for your advertising efforts to get more attention and coverage in the media.
If you want to find out more about the importance of creativity and other tactics that will make your business grow, make sure to subscribe to our blog.
