Is your business still fun?
Posted on May 18, 2012 by Deborah Gallant, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.
Don't you want to have fun with your business and make money?
Is There Any Fun Left in Your Business?
Do you remember when you started your business and everything was fresh, new and exciting? The creativity flowed as you brainstormed what you were going to do. You had all kinds of ideas about how you would make money. But maybe the day-to-day grind has taken you away from it.
You didn’t start your business saying…“Let me build something that will be boring and mundane.” At least I hope not. Most ventures start out with an excitement and enthusiasm and lots of creative ideas. Products, services, packaging, pricing, marketing ideas. But somewhere between the initial idea and the execution, it becomes just “WORK.”
I believe creativity beyond the startup phase can mean terrific success for your business. You can be innovative with WHAT you sell, WHO you sell it to, HOW you market it.
When a business does something that breaks the pattern of the expected, it makes clients notice. And buy more. Some ideas I’ve liked:
• I was at a very nice restaurant for lunch and they offered half glasses of wine. Smart. I wouldn’t have a whole glass at lunch, but half…maybe!
• Why did it take Tampax this long to figure out the multi-absorbency pack? Seriously people, this one was obvious.
• Buying my daughter her first lacrosse stick, the store had a “tryout” area where the girls could test the equipment in a sort of mini-gym. I bet 100% of people who test a stick buy it.
• What a great idea the PODS concept is…not just for storage, but for the ability to keep things on site, at their facility or move it to another location.
• Within the first few weeks of arriving in our new home, a local church delivered a recyclable canvas bag with goodies and helpful lists inside to welcome us to the community. Though we didn’t join the church, it was amazing PR!
• When you go to pay a New York City taxi driver, the total shows with the tip amount included. I wouldn’t usually give 18.5% but with it as a “suggested amount,” I bet a lot of people do!
Almost any business can stop and look at what it is doing and see how to do a pattern-interrupt….whether to create new products or offerings, to market in innovative ways, to get back in touch with the creative juices that are all about serving your clients in profitable ways.
