Creative Business Questions Can Get You Passed A Tight Budget
It doesn’t matter who you are, every entrepreneur has the same obstacle to overcome in the beginning.
If you’re looking to market yourself and your business on a tight budget, you’ve got to learn to be creative and you’ve got to learn to start asking creative questions.
Questions like:
1) How can I
Another creative question starter:
2) Who could assist me with This is a great question. Who could assist me with
What about this one:
3) Who might exchange for ?
What about this one:
4) Could I do this cheaper? or How would I be able to do this faster? or Could I do it with less effort? or Is there a way to do this for free? That question will really get your creative juices going.
Try this one:
5) How could I substitute ‘XYZ’ for ‘ABC’? How could I substitute ‘X’ for ‘Y’? Or whatever you want to do. What could I substitute for ‘XYZ’?
Here’s another one that I love. This really puts you in the shoes of unique and different people.
6) If I was so-and-so, how would I solve this problem?
Here are some examples: How would my mother solve this problem? How would my competitor solve this problem? The great thing about this question is it forces you to think from different perspectives.
I can confidently say that these questions, as well as others, have allowed my creativity to grow and have opened all kinds of opportunities up to me. The success of my career can be credited to my creative thinking.
I’ll show you an example of how I used this method of creative questioning to help me.
I decided to become a professional speaker as soon as I was done University. My focus was speaking to college and high school students about the topic of creativity. I focused on creativity because with it I was able to move from a first year failure in University to graduating being named Most Outstanding Male with straight A’s. I changed a lot between how I did things in first year to my last year, and I credit a lot of it to learning something I had become very passionate about, creative thinking.
Even though I had decided that this is what I wanted to do, I had no idea about becoming a professional speaker, or if I could turn it into a profitable business.
To try and learn the ropes I joined an organization called CAPS, The Canadian Association for Professional Speakers.
I remember going to one of the local chapter meetings and there was one guy there that was doing very well in his speaking career and I asked him, “What do I need to do to get to your level?” And he said, “Well Stu, it’s very simple. I’m going to give you three things to do. When you’ve done all three, then come back to me and I’ll give you some more.” I said, “Okay.”
He said, “Number one, you need to join CAPS. You need to surround yourself with like-minded people, who are working in your industry and can help you grow.” I said, “Okay.”
In order to join CAPS it cost $200, which at that time was a squeeze. Thinking back on it I remember paying for it on payments in order to be able to do it. I did number though, I joined CAPS.
The second thing he said I had to do was, “Get out to the CAPS National Conference.” As much as I wanted to go, it was on the other side of Canada, which meant more costs on top of the relatively expensive conference fee. At this point everything was expensive for me as I had no money. To get there I would have to pay for my flight, accommodations and everything else.
This is where I started asking myself some creative questions. I needed to find a solution. I started thinking about what I had, or could do, that someone else might want and need.
At this point I wasn’t speaking very often because I had just started my speaking business. This allowed me to have time. Time to be able to do other things for someone else.
It was at this moment I asking myself, “How could I use my time to help someone else?” By answering that question I came up with, ‘Help Stu Be Like You,’ a campaign to help me get to the National Conference.
This is how I used that creative idea to my advantage. I went to the largest chapter of CAPS in my province, which consisted of about 75 people and asked for 30 seconds in front of the whole group.
This was something that nobody had ever asked for. While up there I said, “How many of you, at one point, started off as a speaker with no experience?” Of course everybody’s hands went up in the air.
“Awesome,” I said. “Keep your hand up if you have ever attended the CAPS national conference before.” Seventy-five percent of the group kept their hands up.
I continued, “Of those who have been able to attend the conference, how many of you believe it would be beneficial for a new speaker, with no experience to be able to go?” Everyone kept their hands up.
My reply was, “Great. Well I am somebody that obviously needs to go to the CAPS national conference because I have zero experience.”
Then I said, “But here’s the problem. I don’t have any money. But what I do have is time. Here’s the exchange I’m willing to make and hope that you are willing to make as well. I’ve created a campaign called Help Stu Be Like You.” And I handed out these little flyers, black and white. Basically what I did was I printed two 8×6 flyers on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet to save costs, and I just cut it right down the middle and I gave everybody in the audience one.
I continued to explain what my campaign was about, “This is what I am willing to do. I will do everything you as speakers don’t like doing or don’t have the time to do. Whatever it is, licking stamps, calling clients, writing sales letters. If you need me to I will come to your house and cut your lawn. All I’m asking in return for my time is a financial contribution of your choice.”
I could see some of them in the audience were just licking their chops thinking, “Oh my goodness. This is awesome. I’m going to get cheap labor.”
“All of the money I earn through your financial contributions will be used directly towards enabling me to get out to the CAPS national conference. I will do anything you don’t like doing in exchange for a financial contribution.”
As soon as I finished explaining it, a gentleman at the back of the room stood up, and he said, “Stu, I will pay for your entrance fee to the seminar.” Boom. Just like that. Half of my costs basically taken care of.
Another gentleman stood up right after him and said, “Stu, don’t worry about paying to get out there, I will take care of it.” In a matter of five minutes 85% of my expenses needed to go were taken care of.
That’s what being creative is about my friends.
That one creative solution got me out to that conference. It turned out to be a big story because all kinds of people heard about it there and I even had an article published in the national publication.
Always remember to explore your creativity and may ideas come to you when you need them the most.
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