If creativity sounds like something for people with more time on their hands, think again! As an entrepreneur, you need to leverage the power of creativity to unlock potential in your business. Given the rate of technology changes and market fluctuations, you will need to be flexible in your thinking and adapt to change quickly. 

Doing things the way you’ve always done them in your business may not work at some point, and in order to see other options, you will need to drop into creative thinking and problem-solving. 

Here are 5 ways tapping creativity can boost your business:

Brainstorming

I love a good whiteboard session. There is nothing better than getting a group of smart people into a room to throw ideas out and see what happens. 

This works best when there is a feeling of safety and an agreement that there will be a lot of meh ideas before you get to the gold. 

This kind of offsite strategy meeting might be the one thing I miss about working in a corporate setting. 

Product or service development

Ideas for the next product or service can come out of the blue. You think of something in the shower, or someone on the team says something, and all of a sudden you have an idea for what could be the next big thing. 

Make sure to give yourself time and space to imagine and dream. Creativity likes white space. 

Customer success

A good customer experience can make or break your business. While small businesses often have to do more with fewer resources, what can you do to over deliver to your customers so they remain customers, and hopefully refer your business to others? 

Always be thinking about ways you could make your support or delivery a little bit better. Small changes can have a big impact. 

Process improvement

If you are running the business, you may not directly know where the sticking points are in your business processes. You should ask people who sell for your company, support your customers, process the orders, or manage the finances if there are parts of the processes they touch that frustrate them. 

Also ask them to suggest ways that you might fix the problem. You may be surprised at the helpful suggestions and insights you receive. 

Funding options 

Most businesses will need investment and will have cash flow issues at certain points. Cash flow problems can crop up even when a business is booming, depending on the timing of investments made and payments received. 

Bank loans are not the only option. Reach out to people to learn more about angel investors, research any grants or government programs that could be right for your business, pre-sell a product in the pipeline to help cover development costs, consider if crowdfunding could work for you – get creative! 

As you can see, creativity isn’t just for designers or creative businesses. Any business can benefit from leveraging creativity to identify ways to improve most business functions and boost profitability. 

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash