Approaching product development, services, and situations by way of odd associations can spark that creative idea marketers love to develop.

I had an interesting email come in the other day in regards to an article I wrote a while back called 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative. The person mentioned how they loved the techniques I suggested and like me, they love the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

The question brought to me was, “These are all great techniques, but how do you suggest going about creatively finding a Purple Cow for your business?”

“Wow – what a great question,” I thought as I swiveled my chair around and walked over to the bookshelf housing Seth’s insightful book.

There of course is no one method or plan for developing a remarkable product, service, or business that stands out from the rest. For every idea out there, there’s an infinite number of ways to approach its development.

Those of you who know a little about me know I like thinking laterally. Thinking laterally usually entails approaching ideas from odd angles and different perspectives. Here’s one lateral way of approaching an idea that can kick that creative genius’ butt inside you and get those remarkable juices pump’n.

Think Opposites

Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War said, “To foresee a victory which the ordinary man can foresee is not the acme of skill.”

In the context of this article’s topic, that quote tells me don’t be ordinary. It tells me I need to challenge myself and create a way to win that’s unforeseeable by my competition.

One way to develop a new product or new direction of an existing product is to think in contradictions.

Unusual connections of information and placing two dissimilar objects together can create a memorable product which people often times can’t help but remember (and hopefully talk about). These unusual tactics often times get attention and spark creativity.

View your idea in different perspectives and force yourself to see relationships between dissimilar things that normally defy all logic. After awhile, you’ll begin to see ideas where none existed before.

For example, pizza and beer go together; so does peanut butter and jelly. But how does beer and jelly go together? Imagine advertising the campaign: “Get drunk on peanut butter and jelly!”

This is nothing new. You can often times find odd relationships in works of art.

Now that’s the question. Can you create a work of art in your product or service?

Get connected and keep up with my ramblings by subscribing to our blog.

Related posts:

1. Unconventional Thinking: Unlearning Your Education
2. How Thinking Like A Real Estate Investor Can Help Business Owners Think Creatively and Profit
3. A Lesson Learned by Watching "Kitchen Nightmares"

Bruce Lee once mentioned how the way martial arts were designed, you had to keep training or you lost your skill over a short time. As long as one trains, they can maintain their skill, but as soon as they quit, they immediately start to decline in their abilities.

And after two years of quitting, they are only a mere shadow of themselves.

For me, to stay on my A-game I need to constantly be pushing myself to learn new concepts and practicing those that I have already learned. This doesn’t mean I set aside time for practice like I use to do when I was a student of Kung-Fu, but it means my mind rarely rests.

The following are some techniques and good practices I use to maximize my potential. Many of them I don’t think about and thus my wife has pointed out to me that I do.

For most of them the key is, for me anyway, to learn and practice. After a while, you will find these good habits many times will become second nature and you don’t even need to think about doing them.

The First Thing You Need To Do

As an entrepreneur (or just someone trying to maximize their human potential) you need to know your feet are planted firmly on the ground – simply having them on the ground is not enough.

Have you ever thought about who the real you is? Why do you believe in what you believe? Is it because you were taught to believe that way?

Simply believing what others tell you to be true does not bring understanding.

So my first step to maximizing your potential is to question your belief system and bring yourself to a better understanding of who you are and why you believe in what you believe in.

This will be your starting-point from which you can maximize your potential and reach for the stars.

Drive

You need to figure out what your drive is. Here are some questions you should answer:

• What are you moving toward?
• What is your goal?
• Where do you want to be when you retire?
• What’s the reason for starting your business or doing your own thing?

Knowing the answers to questions like these and understanding what your driving force is will help build your road map to success. Understanding your drive will also allow you to laser focus in on where and what you need to concentrate your efforts in.

Set Up A To-Do List & Give Tasks Timeframes

Every night before you go to bed, make out a list of things you want to accomplish the next day. The mind is freshest shortly after you wake up, therefore, schedule the most difficult tasks first.

Also, give each task a timeframe. Chances are if you own a business it is unlikely you can spend an entire day on just one thing. And if you don’t own a business but would like to one day, you will already have this necessary practice in play.

Do not go over that designated amount of time set aside for each task. If it’s nearly finished, ok, I’ll give you a little leeway. But you still need to be able to have time each day for your life and not just your business. If you continually go over the amount of time that you have set aside you need to reevaluate your time management.

Believe In Yourself

If you don’t believe you can do it, why should anyone else believe in you? Have a winning attitude. Don’t approach someone with an offer or business idea with defeat already in your eyes – they’ll see right through you.

Like I mentioned in my post 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative, if you doubt yourself or say you cannot do something, write that down and then immediately write down two or three reasons why you can do it.

What you will find by doing this is you are training your mind to think in a certain way. After awhile you will no longer need to write these things down because you will have trained your mind to automatically rebut negative thoughts with positive ones.

Believing in yourself is an absolute MUST for maximizing your potential.

Surround Yourself With The Right People

Learning is essential in just about anything you wish to accomplish. To learn and grow faster, find people with similar interests to your own who are successful. If they are successful, they probably have a winning attitude and have many experiences you can learn from.

Become a sponge and let their success and experience help you avoid the many pitfalls that lie ahead. In business and as an entrepreneur, you can be sure there will be no shortage of speed bumps. By being around and learning from others who have been there, done that, you can achieve your goals even faster and hopefully avoid some of those speed bumps others have already driven over.

Good Health

Maintaining good health keeps your mind, body, and spirit energized and gives you fuel to feed your drive. There are many diets out there and plenty of “good health” advice. A few of the basics to keep in mind are the following:

• Get a good night’s sleep
• Drink plenty of water
• Eat protein and find a good diet plan you can stick to
• Exercise at least 3 times a week

So there you go, a few tips on helping you to maximize your potential. I do pretty well with these, though I have to admit from time-to-time I fall a little short on the good health part.

What do you do that helps you maximize your potential?

Related posts:

1. The Art of Persuasion (Part 3 of 3): 7 Tips To Sharpening Your Persuasive Skills
2. Good Business Decisions Should Become Second Nature
3. 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative

I first began learning persuasive skills when I was 15.

I worked in a guitar store and sold, you guessed it, guitars. Rarely did someone walk in and say, “I’ll take it.” I typically had to do a little convincing to get them to buy. No wait, not just convince them to buy, the owner wanted me to sell them the most expensive guitar they could afford.

At the time, he was the entrepreneur, not me.

Since then, I’ve learned the value of being a persuasive person and how it relates to business. Whether it be content sales or face-to-face sales, there is an art to persuasion and there are key components to the trade.

My 5 keys to being a persuasive person consists of being observant, knowledgeable, listening, timing, and making use of storytelling.

In hindsight, I clinched the sale and sold guitars more often when I used a combination, if not all, of these keys. Think about it for a moment. Can you see how?

Persuasion sometimes sounds like a bad word. Something you shouldn’t do. Something dark and mischievous.

No – that’s wrong.

Persuasion is not bad. That’s manipulation. If being a good persuasive person and learning the art well was bad, then pretty much every debater (presidents included) are bad.

Let’s look at some synonyms of those two words:

Make sense?

If you’re a business owner and especially if you are in face-to-face sales, spend a little time learning how to be a persuasive person. Depending on what you do you don’t have to be a pro. But for some professions it is a requirement, such as a real estate investor.

My 7 Tips To Sharpen Those Persuasive Skills

1. Like anything else in this world: practice, practice, practice! Practice on friends without them knowing what you’re doing.
   • Convince them why a tie looks better on them than a button up without a tie.
   • Convince a coworker your way is the best way.
   • Start up a conversation with someone you know has a different point of view than you and try to convince them you are right.
   • Convince your spouse they should do all the house work. Ok, maybe there
     are limits to persuasion!
2. Be an authority. In everyday life, remember how you are projecting yourself at all times. The more creditable you are, the better influence you can have over someone (and the higher status gives you a bit of an edge).
   • Solve people’s problems when the opportunity arises.
   • Increase your credibility when you can. Without coming across as a pompous ass, let people know what you have done; what you have accomplished; how you know what you know.
   • Build trust.
   • Maki, over at doshdosh, gives us some insights on how to become an authority in your niche.
3. If you’re trying to persuade someone, don’t undermine your authority.
   Some say you should express any doubts you have about your position because it makes you look reasonable and open-minded.I disagree with that logic.

   Now your argument will seem shaky and the other person may gain the advantage.
   For example, do you ever watch a presidential debate where one of the candidates expresses doubts in what they are saying? I think not! How would that look?

4. Never insult the person you are trying to persuade. This will only cause them to raise an ironclad wall for protection and nothing you say will get through. They’ll just think you are a jerk.
5. Whenever possible, try to keep it simple. A confused mind always says no. This is also a negotiating skill I use in real estate. There are creative (and legal) ways to make profits in real estate but if you try putting a deal together that’s too complicated for the seller to understand, they will automatically say no.
6. Provide analogies if you see your point isn’t getting across or accepted.
7. Try not to repeat the same thing over and over again. If you feel this person hasn’t seen your point of view yet, say it in a different way and don’t just repeat it. Repeating something again and again is a waste of time. If it didn’t click the first time, it won’t click the 8th time unless it is told in a different way. In a way they can relate to.Ah, relate. That’s what you want them to be able to do!

As final note on persuasion, remember to be honest and ethical with what you are doing. Persuasion is fine, manipulation is not. People who manipulate other people are viewed by others as a jerk. And if you are
labeled as a jerk, your business will likely suffer. Word travels well these days. What do you want that word to be?

Now, if you’re looking for web hosting and need to get online, dig around through our website. I write all the content and am continuing to tweak it here and there.

Any suggestions or thoughts on this persuasive series post?

Related posts:

1. The Art of Persuasion (Part 2 of 3): Knowledge, Timing, Listening
2. The Art of Persuasion (Part 1 of 3): Storytelling & Observation
3. Tips For Maximizing Your Potential

The Art of Persuasion can be learned and simply needs a little practice. But practice doesn’t make perfect. We need to continually learn and practice what we learn to grow.

If mere repetition of something was all it took to get better, you’d think we’d get better at being only as good as we currently are.

I like real estate investing. It’s fun for me. My favorite part is where I get to be creative and find ways to make profit where most people wouldn’t think it possible. Most novice and uneducated investors only concern themselves with 2 things: buying low and selling high. While that is a great strategy, it’s not very creative and typically limits your playing field.

Unlike persuasion’s *evil* brother, manipulation, being a persuasive person can get you things you want while also helping others get what they want.

In real estate, I use persuasion when talking with a seller to not only get what I want, but give the seller what they truly are wanting and not what they are saying they are wanting. Many times I can see ways a deal could be put together in a more creative way which prospers both of us. It’s my job then to persuade the seller to see things my way.

Example: Using Persuasion To Get What You Want

Let’s say I want to buy a house that’s listed at $300,000 but my bank will only lend me $250,000.

I talk with the seller and after listening for awhile, I might see he’s wanting to invest $50,000 from the proceeds of his house in a mutual fund that pays him 5%. It’ll be his first investment. Visually, I see he’s in his late 20′s and gather he likes traveling by all the vacation pictures on the wall. He also appears to be adventurous in those pictures.

So here’s what I gathered in this extremely simple example. The seller is adventurous and wants his money to go to work for him but probably doesn’t know too much about investments.

Being that I know investing, I might suggest a different investment strategy where he invests in mortgages, not mutual funds.

At first he says no, and they usually do. But I show him how holding a second mortgage on this house for $50,000 will yield him 9% interest return on his equity and the kicker will be he gets this money paid to him monthly – which could then be used to pay bills or invest in something else.

I talk to him in his language (selling his house and investing his money) showing him the benefits of my logic.

He accepts and it’s a win-win situation. He got what he wanted, the sale of his house and a good investment. I got what I wanted, a $300,000 house when a bank would only lend me $250,000.

Notice I used 4 out of the 5 keys to the art of persuasion: observing, listening, being knowledgeable, and timing. Timing because my timing was right for presenting this strategy to the seller.

The Final 3 Keys to Persuasion

If you are a business person / entrepreneur, having good persuasive skills in your back pocket is an invaluable tool for achieving success and wealth. Let’s continue on from where we left off from part 1 of our persuasion series.

Our first 2 keys to the art of persuasion were using effective storytelling and observation to persuade people. The final 3 keys are:

• Being Knowledgeable
• Listening
• Timing

Being Knowledgeable

Variety

Learn as much as you can about a variety of subjects. Often times you will need to reference other situations to show how what you’re talking about works well in other ways. This shows the person you’re trying to persuade that your logic is sound and proven so.

Know History

Remember and reference the past. Been there done that, this is what happened. Show the person you are trying to persuade how things have ended up before and how your way will avoid repeating the past.

Classical Conditioning

Use Classical Conditioning when trying to persuade someone to see your point of view.

Ivan Pavlov studied how animals and people relate things together. When we don’t understand something but it is related to something we do understand, we see it in a new light and now relate the two – thus understanding.

This often times can promote an emotional response. You can use this to your advantage. Relate things you want someone to believe with something they like and on the flip side, relate things you don’t want them to believe with things they don’t like.

For example, let’s say you want someone to believe investing in real estate is better and safer than investing in the stock market.

You might say, “Investing in the stock market is like driving in a car at night with no headlights and your steering went out; you are driving blind and can’t really predict where your profit will end up. However, real estate investing is more like reviewing the menu at your favorite restaurant; you have plenty of options and can clearly see how your food will be prepared and delivered. In other words, you can see how and where your profit will be coming to you.”

Ok, maybe there’s a better example out there but I’ve made my point. Associate what you want them to believe with good things and associate what you don’t want them to believe with the bad.

Listening

Read Between the Lines

Listening is tricky.

Simply listening to what someone is telling you is not enough. You have to read between the lines. Listen for what they are not saying and what they are really meaning.

Are they saying they want to buy a SUV because they have kids or are they really meaning they want to buy a SUV because safety is key for their family? By listening and reading between the lines you will be able to talk to them in a language they will understand.

Can you see how this might benefit you if you were a car salesmen?

Don’t Forget What Your Heard

If pen and paper are handy, jot down ideas that come to your mind while talking, otherwise you might forget them. Politicians do this all the time.

Timing

If the person you are trying to persuade is in a bad mood to begin with, postpone the conversation until they are in a better mood.

If while talking you see the other person getting heated over the subject, try to diffuse the anger quickly. Make a joke, reference something funny, do whatever you can to quiet their anger. If you can’t, break off the conversation until the person has cooled down.

An angry mind is in attack mode, not listen and understand mode.

Poking Holes In Their Argument

Listen for words like: uh, umm, well . . . , I guess so, I’m not sure.

While talking with the person, listen for areas they aren’t sure of. This is the perfect time to talk about that area. They are already a little shaky there and if you stir up more of unsure feelings they will have an unsure stance.

Reassure Them They Are Smart When In Agreement

Turn it around and do the opposite of poking holes in their argument.

People like to think they are right. When you hear them arguing their point in a direction you want them to go in or you agree with, agree with them and make them feel good, BUT, be careful not to do this too much, otherwise they will feel they are right.

Give them just enough to know you understand their point of view, many people need that before they can adapt to yours. This also helps them see you as a reasonable and logical person. To them, their point of view is logical and reasonable and by agreeing with them on a few points they will begin to see you are a logical and reasonable person.

Stay Cool or Save Your Fight For Another Time

Stay calm and collected when trying to persuade someone. Getting heated and firing off attacks will only make them put up a wall that you will never break through. At that point, it doesn’t matter how sound your argument is, everything you say will probably bounce right off them.

The Round Up

So there you have it; my 5 keys to The Art of Persuasion – storytelling, observing, being knowledgeable, listening, and timing.

The art of persuasion is something we can all learn, and with a little practice, we can use it to get what we want and hopefully allow others to get what they want. As a business owner / entrepreneur, it is a powerful tool you can use to achieve success and wealth.

In part 3 of this series we will focus on a few great tips I have to remember while trying to persuade someone to see the light of your way of thinking.

Can you think of any other techniques we can use to persuade people to see and accept our point of view (without using manipulation)?

Related posts:

1. The Art of Persuasion (Part 3 of 3): 7 Tips To Sharpening Your Persuasive Skills
2. The Art of Persuasion (Part 1 of 3): Storytelling & Observation
3. How To Buy A House Like A Real Estate Investor: Part 9 – Becoming A Problem Solver For Sellers And Showing Them You're Here To Help

In college I had to give a persuasive speech to 20 classmates for a communications course. My topic? I had to convince people there was life on other planets.

This can be a particularly hard thing to do being that there is no tangible evidence in support of it.

This was a great topic for me because I love astronomy and to me, life on other planets seems logical.

To prepare, my teacher told me I should brush up on the topic by reading what experts had to say about it and study the persuasive chapter in my over-priced shredding text book.

The Internet was somewhat new back then (1995ish) and with a 28.8k baud modem, finding lots of information on the sparsely populated Net and waiting a minute or so for a Web page to download was not an option.

I then decided to try a different approach. I already knew tons about the topic but what I realized was I didn’t really know anything about my audience other than their approximate age, how many, and they were in college. I thought to myself, I wonder how many people already believe there’s life on other planets? Are they religious, agnostic, or atheist?.

For the next two weeks before my speech I spent a little time observing and talking with my classmates. What I found was all but one person believed life on other planets existed. Thus I simply made sure I supplied those that already believed with simple facts that backed up the argument (plus I needed a good grade) and I tailored my reasoning and analogies around what I’d learned about this one person.

Did I convince him you ask? He told me afterwards that he strictly didn’t believe before but now he questioned it.

Good enough, I thought.

The 5 Keys To Persuasion

I have a Minor in Mathematics, thus I tend to equate things together. I equate the art of persuasion to the breakdown of 5 basic ingredients:

• storytelling
• being observant
• being knowledgeable
• timing
• listening

I have decided to break the above topics up into 2 posts with a 3rd focusing on some great tips I have to hone in on your persuasive skills. Simply to put all this information into one post would make for a looooooong read.

Storytelling

One of the most powerful persuasive tools you can ever use is persuasive storytelling. Stories work because they go in under the conscious radar and impact people deeply. Stories play on people’s emotion. People respond better to emotion than they do logic.

Try reading Copyblogger’s Why Brains Crave Beneficial Copy. If you think about it, a sales person must be a persuasive talker/advertiser. Great sales people sale benefits and not only features.

Benefits play on the emotions of a people. That my friend is the door you want to open – and effective, meaningful storytelling is the key.

Being Observant

Observing how people hold themselves, talk, dress, where they come from, etc. all can give you an edge when debating a topic. By studying them you can speak to them in their own language.

Speech

Bill, a successful real estate investor and entrepreneur, taught me how to watch and listen for sensory words people use. We all have 5 senses, right? See, touch, hear, taste, and feel.

He mentions we all rely on our five senses to absorb information and learn. And this is where you should target part of your persuasion efforts.

For example, many people rely heavily on sight for inputting and storing information. You can spot these people by listening to they way they talk. They use sight words – I see, look, I envision . . .

Others use hearing to input information. You’ll spot them because they say words like, I hear what you’re saying, it’s all music to me, I heard that . . .

Take a little time to talk with and learn about the person (or people) you want to persuade, like I did for my persuasion speech in college. If you’re being observant, chances are you will catch on to which sensory item they rely on for storing information. Once you got that figured out, talk to them in that language so they can easily input and understand your argument.

Can you think of some words the smell, taste, and touch people use?

Body Language

Observe people’s body language while they talk. When they come to areas they are unsure of, they may shift their body weight, their eyes might wonder trying to think of something to say, they might bite their lip, etc. All these things may point out they are unsure of this area and this is where you can begin to poke holes in their logic and make them second guess themselves.

On the flip side, be conscious of your body language. Don’t do all those things listed above, otherwise you might give them the edge.

Things To Think About When Observing People

• What is important to them? What’s not?
• Are they Democrat, Republican, Independent, or other?
• What country do they come from?
• What is their faith?
• Do they like action movies or romance?
• How do they dress? Richly (expensive jewelry) or like a beach bum?

The list above is just some thoughts to think about and definitely can be added to.

The main point I’m trying to get across here is to not stereotype the person you’re talking to. Everyone’s different. And you’ll need to tailor your argument around the unique person they are.

Case Example: Psychic Magicians

Magicians who claim they are psychic and can talk to the dead are the ultimate persuasion artists and a lot can be learned from their methods.

Have you ever watched one of those magician shows (like David Copperfield) where a host will walk through the audience and seemingly at random pick someone out of the crowd to get a psychic reading?

The magician asks the person if they have ever met or talked before and the guest always says no, which is typically true. The psychic proceeds then to tell this person a bunch of personal things most strangers might not know.

For example, they might mention such things as: where they come from, who they ate dinner with last week, strenuously pull out of the air a name of a person really close to them who has died, and so on.

The guest, who has never met the magician before, is amazed and is now convinced (i.e. persuaded) that the magician is a real psychic. At this point, the magician can pretend he’s talking to the dead and everyone will believe him.

Is it so? Is the magician really talking to dead spirits?

While I cannot say for sure that every magician is just pulling a fast one on you, I do know there is a trick involved in convincing you to believe. What’s the trick?

You guessed it. Observation!

Oh wait, didn’t I say observation was one of those key ingredients to the art of persuasion?

Want to know how they do it?

Before a performance, the illusionist gets a copy of names and addresses of all people attending. A week or so before the performance the magician has a crew(s) that go out and observe a few audience members and learn about them – their habits, history, the color car they drive and license plate number, etc. Then during the performance, the host and psychic work together. The host picks out John Doe sitting in seat 10 row 12 and the psychic gives him a reading.

Now John Doe is persuaded that the magician is really psychic and can be lead to believe the magician can talk to the dead.

Observation. It can be used in so many different ways.

If you are a business owner you would do good to hone in on your observational skills. Learn about your target market. Get into their heads. What’s important to them? Observe their problems and try designing a product that solves this problem and benefits them.

Related posts:

1. The Art of Persuasion (Part 2 of 3): Knowledge, Timing, Listening
2. The Art of Persuasion (Part 3 of 3): 7 Tips To Sharpening Your Persuasive Skills
3. General Partnerships: A Not-So-Great Business Structure

A short time ago I received an email from a young entrepreneur asking me how he was suppose to compete in a marketplace where the competition was high and more established companies had big advertising bucks. I mentioned a few ideas to him but the one that concerned him the most was creativity. Give him numbers and he’ll work them, but tell him to come up with some creative idea, forget it.

He said he doesn’t have a creative bone in his body.

People who tell themselves that have already lost unless they decide to do something about it.

The development of a creative thought process is no different than learning martial arts. At first, someone shows you how to stand, execute proper body movement, and teaches you a Kata (a.k.a form – a set of movements that help develop your technique).

Once these techniques are learned you must practice them to become a good fighter. When fighting, it is taught that the best place for your mind to be is no where at all, called Mushin (means “no mind”). The point of Mushin is to blank out your mind so that you are in a state of “openness.” In other words, it allows you to simply react and not worry about what might happen when fighting.

The same can be said when learning to be creative. You first learn what techniques help develop a creative thought process and then you have to practice them while keeping your mind open to endless possibilities no matter how ridiculous they may seem.

But how do you train your mind to become a well-oiled creative thinking machine?

Like the first sentence of this post says, you have to first believe you are a creative person. Following that you need to exercise your mind in various ways.

Let’s take a look at some creative mind-pumping ideas and activities that will help widen your mind’s creative eye.

I. Listen

Don’t Jump the Gun
It is important listen to everything and not judge or come to your own conclusion prematurely. This is vital if you are to create a product that wins in the eyes of your customers and employer. Remember, listening does not equal simply hearing.

Examining
Try listening to a different radio station (or TV channel). See if you can figure who the intended audience is. Who would be the dedicated listeners and who might be the occasional? What influential people might be listening to this station? What is it’s market?

II. Brainstorm

Brainstorming can be an effective way to generate creative ideas; however, before brainstorming about your subject at hand, try warming up the creative juices.

Warming Up
Grab a pencil and blank piece of paper and just start writing. If nothing comes to mind, write that, then write whatever comes to your mind next no matter what it is. Then expand.

In another example, grab yourself a pencil and paper and create something new and describe it, no matter how absurd it may seem. Try creating a new life form. Where does it come from? What is its goal? Or try creating a person. Who is she? Expand on the idea.

These are good exercises to get you in the mindset of thinking outside the box.

III. Counter the Negatives with Positives

This is probably one of the more important ones to do. Whenever you want to do something but your mind tells you that you can’t, write that thought down and then next to it write down 2 or 3 reasons why you can. Do this quickly and often. Soon you will notice that you have trained your mind to automatically react with a positive thought whenever you think of a negative one.

IV. Be Ready

If you’re searching for creative ideas, keep a pen and pad handy at all times, you never know when a thought might pop into your head – or maybe someone else’s thought spawns a new thought of your own that you can build off of.

For example, one of my favorite shows is Kitchen Nightmares. I was watching an episode one night and Gordon Ramsay was offering up business advice to the store owner. During the show, I kept getting up and jotting down a few ideas that he had mentioned that I wanted to expand on for my blog. The result was an article you can read here.

V. Learn

Obviously, the more you know about everything, the more you can come up with creative ideas by linking things together. You wouldn’t know how Physics and landscaping might go together unless you knew at least a little bit about both.

Therefore, the more you know, the more you can create.

Ideas to help you expand your horizons

• read blogs
• take classes
• read books
• try something you’ve never done before
• teach something to someone
• participate in a group or online community
• talk to people you might not otherwise talk to

Can you add to the list?

VI. Evaluate

Often times I find when I’m stuck in a rut and can’t come up with a creative idea, I evaluate things.

Magazines
If you’re stuck, try flipping through a magazine and evaluate the ads. Which ones catch your attention and why? Who is the target audience? What might you do differently if you were to write the ad? On the ones that catch your attention, how can you modify what they did to what you’re doing?

Your Competition
Get online or flip through the yellow pages and evaluate your competition. See if something they are doing spawns an idea for you. Is there something there you can build on that they could have but didn’t?

Self-Evaluation
Grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the center. Label the left side “My Weaknesses” and the right side “My Strengths.” List all your weaknesses and then under the strengths side, combat those weaknesses with your strengths that might compensate.

You now have a blueprint of what you need to work on and what you have to build off of.

Ask Questions
When stuck on the problem of trying to be creative, ask a series of questions to gain a new perspective of your product or idea.

• What can I substitute?
• What can I add to it to make it a little better?
• What is not needed?
• What is the opposite of this?
• Where did this come from?
• How has something like this been used?
• What else can it be used for?

Can you add any?

VII. Exercise Your Creative Thought Process

Try some of these activities from time-to-time.

• Every day pick any topic and write it down; then create a flow chart and see where the flow takes you.
• Think of a product. How could it have been invented in a different way but produce the same result?
• After reading half a book, close it and write or think about how you would end the story.
• Read non-fiction books and solve the problem before it’s answered.
• Do crossword puzzles, it gets you thinking about all kinds of stuff.

After a while, by doing these exercises you’ll find that your mind approaches ideas in new creative ways.

VIII. Travel

One of the best ways to generate creative ideas is to go to new places or simply just get out and go for a walk. Don’t have the money to travel? No problem. Go where you need to go but get there in a different way.

New experiences and going to new destinations is a great way to gain new perceptions that can generate creativity.

So there you go, 8+ ways to to mold you into a creative thinking machine.

Do you consider yourself creative?

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About 3 months ago I noticed a big For Sale sign go up in the yard of the building shown above (before it was painted pink). It was once a residential property but was rezoned for commercial. It sits on a relatively busy intersection with lots of shopping across the street (grocery stores, UPS, fast food, etc.).

As a real estate guy I spent some time thinking about what I would do with this property if I were to buy it. What kind of business would I create and how would it stand out? It looked nearly identical to the residential property sitting next to it and down the street. Simply putting a sign in the front yard wasn’t good enough to draw attention. People pass this “house” going 45 miles per hour and there are a lot more interesting stuff to look at on the other side of the street.

About 2 weeks ago one of those “We go to court for you” traffic ticket companies bought it and the For Sale sign came down shortly after. Not long after it was painted as you see in the picture above they also painted a huge mural of a police officer on the wall.

• Does it stand out? – yes
• Do people hate the color? – yes
• Does it annoy the neighbors? – probably
• Do people remember it? – Absolutely!

I started to describe the building to a friend the other day. All I mentioned was the location of this horrible colored house and guess what? They knew what property I was talking about before I even mentioned the color!

Lesson: Don’t be afraid to annoy some people or attract criticism. Many times, it is the company or “guru” that annoys people that attracts the most business.

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When we are children our imagination and creativity has not been tampered with by education. We put A and Z together in ways schooling teaches us not to. When starting and marketing a business, try to think unconventionally because thinking like everyone else leads to doing what everyone else does. And doing what everyone else does is risky.

We are all born creative creatures with an imagination of limitless possibilities. Somewhere along the line education has focused our attention to think a certain way. To illustrate this change, look at how children respond to questions before they start school. They typically give positive responses:

• cool
• I like that
• Great
• I’m sick

Once grown up they are saying:

• not bad
• not a bad idea
• no problem
• I’m not feeling well

Don’t get me wrong, I think education is probably the most important part to becoming successful; just keep in mind it’s only a tool . . . one of many. And by education I don’t only mean schooling, education comes from parents, friends, books, etc. The problem with schooling is that it teaches us all the same thing; therefore, we all come out thinking in the same way. Makes sense, right? Try not to let this happen to you.

To illustrate unconventional thinking and how it can be useful, let’s look at planning.

Life is linear, therefore, we as humans have a tendency to think linearly (to get from point A to Z you start at A and work down the alphabet until you reach point Z). Let’s say you’re planning your business.

Your exit strategy is as follows – in 10 years you want 5 million dollars in your bank account to retire on and own your dream house free and clear.

Most people would plan their strategy in the way we typically think – linearly. We know what business we want to start, do what we need to do to get it started, and begin trying to conjure up business in hopes we reach that 10 year goal of owning that dream house and having 5 million dollars in the bank to retire on.

The problem with this strategy is you are flying blind. You know where you want to end up, you know where you have begun, but the middle is a big “?”. What you must do is fill in that middle void. How can you do that though? Here’s how.

You have to work your plan backwards.

This approach is nothing new but is seldom used or widely taught. I attended college for 6 years, took over 200 credits (i.e. I took nearly every class you can think of) and never once did a professor mention to me that I should work my plan backwards. By approaching your plan or goal in this way, you will arrive at every single step you must do in order to reach your goal, every day, every year.

In the above example, one could approach this goal by starting at the 10 year mark. You have 5 million in the bank and that house you wanted.

Now work it backwards.

You will begin to see that a map is being laid out for you.

You will see that at the 5 year point where you must be to be on track with your plan. Keep working it backwards until you reach today and this week. What must you do to reach that one year mark? The 5 year mark? etc.

Conventional thinking and education would tell us to work forward – start and organize your business and then begin making money. But business is not that straight forward. There are many obstacles and setbacks you will stumble upon and having a map will help you get back on course.

What unconventional method have you used that worked?

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