Don’t be creative, be innovative
As small business owners, one of our greatest strengths is our creativity. Coming up with new ideas… ALL THE TIME. However, one of our biggest weaknesses is our creativity. Proposing new ideas… ALL THE TIME. For most of us, we have too many ideas, too often. Ah, the paradox. We usually like the new idea, the new concept, the new, Aha! The problem with this creativity and these great ideas is that we tend to be great from the beginning, but lose power in the follow-up. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be creative. I’m not saying that creativity is a bad thing. I AM saying that creativity can be a time-stealer, a distractor, a justifier, and a crutch.
Most of us small business entrepreneurs love the freedom we have to come up with new ideas and then implement them as quickly or slowly as we like. We love the fact that if we get bored with this new idea or feel like it’s not working out the way we hoped, we can drop it and move on. After all, we have no one to answer to. “I can do what I want, when I want, and no one can tell me otherwise.” we think of ourselves. This is true. Very sure. In fact, TOO TRUE. This freedom that we have ends up becoming our Ninja of Profitability. This Ninja disguises himself as strength and confidence, happiness and joy. However, behind his mask is the real killer. The Ninja that will kill our profits. He starts stealing our winnings and we don’t notice. We may not notice it for weeks, months, or years. Most of the time we don’t notice him because he is too close to us or we simply refuse to see him.
This Ninja steals by keeping us focused on new projects that haven’t really been well thought out. Investing time, energy, work hours, relationships and money, with little or no return. This is when the Dark Ninja becomes the Red Ninja. We are metaphorically bleeding. Now we go from profitability to loss. (Black ink to red ink)
So how do we save ourselves from this Ninja? Enter the samurai of innovation. This innovative samurai (dressed in white, by the way) cuts through creativity and reveals innovative thinking. Innovative ideas. Innovative profitability. Innovation is the good twin of creativity. Innovation is creativity with focused and applied business value. He knows how to see, analyze, evaluate, measure and decide if that creative thought is capable of becoming Business Innovation or if it remains Creative Waste.
As creativity is both a strength and a weakness for us as small business entrepreneurs, we must learn and develop the skill of how to take our creative thoughts and see if they can be turned into an innovative bottom line.
A creative thought can be a wonderful idea but it has no direct bearing on a solution. It’s not that it’s worthless, because it may be of great value, but it may be worthless, NOW. When it’s not direct value, we open the door for our Profitability Ninja to come in. The question is, how do we define value? In its simplest form we must answer the question: Does this creative idea directly relate to a current problem we have and will it help us solve the problem the way we would like to?
Example: Let’s say you own a retail store. You measure your success by the number of transactions you make daily and by the dollar volume of each transaction. You are currently very happy with the number of transactions, but would like to increase your average dollar per transaction. Most customers who buy from you spend an average of $55.00 per transaction. You would really like to get that transaction up to $65.00 per transaction. This means we need to look at upsells, cross-sells, and product packaging. When you start to think about this, you come up with an idea for a cool new way to do a direct mail piece to a new target market. You know that if this new direct mail piece works, it will attract a new customer base to your store. This new customer base is exciting because it hasn’t been targeting new target markets for quite some time and by expanding to………. WAIT A MINUTE! What does this have to do with increasing your average dollar per transaction? Answer: Nothing!
What just happened here? Yes, he was the Ninja of Profitability. He snuck in and made you think of a new path. He made you come up with a great new idea, and while he was getting excited about that idea, he made you forget that your real problem is average $/transaction, not number of transactions. See what I mean? This new idea may not be a bad idea, in fact, it may be a good idea… however, it is not helping to solve the current problem. If you don’t keep your focus on direct solutions to your problem, your profits will run into the red.
Innovation in our businesses is extremely important. New ideas help us run our businesses more efficiently, market more effectively, sell more successfully, satisfy customers at a higher level, and lead to better overall results; if we have a method to put them in their place and the discipline to follow them. Innovation gives us a competitive advantage in many cases. We just have to make sure we’re not being let down. We need to understand how to tell the difference between Innovation and its evil twin, Creativity.
Quick steps to recognize if your big new idea is creativity or “innovation”. 1) Know what your current problem is and what you want as an end result to solve that problem. 2) Confirm that your new idea will help solve that problem, DIRECTLY. Do not justify that it is a distant cause and effect relationship. (“If I bring in a new target market, they will buy more and I will increase my average transaction dollar.” This is a good example of justifying a non-direct creative idea. As in the example above.) 3) It can be executed in a simple way. The best solutions are usually not complex. Many times, the most complex problems have simple solutions. As an SBE, it’s rare that you have a complex problem. It can be an inconvenience, bad timing, pain, or something unexpected, but it’s rarely so complex that it requires a complex solution. The most effective innovations are simple solutions.
My last piece of advice on this topic: Don’t stop being creative! Always be creative, just know how to use your creativity in the most effective and profitable way. Let your creativity spark your innovations so you can continue to build a highly profitable and sustainable business.
