The other day a bridal company entrepreneur was talking about her worst nightmare. She had ordered over 300 hydrangeas for a “white ” colour wedding from a grower in KwaZulu-Natal because she did not want to import the flowers. She placed the order six months before with the grower. This was good planning.
But six months later when the hydrangeas were delivered they had a blueish colour most likely from the acidity in the soil. She was faced with a problem. What could she do? How was she going to save the day? She said she prayed and prayed until she came up with a solution. She called the grower to find out if he had any hydrangeas left that were white. He was to send the remaining hydrangeas urgently. Then she discovered that there was a white mist spray that could be sprayed over the blueish hydrangeas to turn them white. It was nerve wracking but she managed to come through with using her creative imagination.
Creative living is part of our everyday experience. It’s part of our personal lives when we are faced with problems or what we think are insurmountable challenges as well as in our business lives. What then is creative imagination and are committed help you in your small business? Basically, you can think of it as problem solving using all your mental resources in a creative and imaginative way. It’s also about improvisation, meaning that you need to sometimes come up with on-the-spot solutions rather than do extensive research and calls to other people to find the answer.
How can you become better at using your creative imagination? It really starts with having an open mind and being able to relax and approach whatever problem you face with an attitude that you will come up with a solution. It’s also about continually coming up with options or alternatives rather than always relying on one set way of doing things. If you do this – take the straight-line approach always – then you stand to have limited options when you are faced with a crunch.
Yet, it also comes with the self-confidence that you will be able to find a solution and the perseverance that keeps you looking for solutions way past the obvious ones. Living creatively doesn’t mean always having the right answers at your disposal. It means having faith in your own create of capacities that you will be able to come up with a solution when the called on to do so. As you release your creative powers, you will find that they probably will be more accessible and at your command when you need them most.
The same sort of creative imagination is required when coming up with new ideas for products and services or a new small venture. This isn’t to say that an idea has to be brand new or “unique” but something that is different and better than what’s already available on the market. You can place yourself in a stronger position to come up with promising new business ideas if you stimulate your mind regularly so that it can trigger or spark off new ideas. It’s like anything else, if you don’t learn skills and use them then that they become rusty and will not be effective for you. Stimulating your creative imagination requires simple, basic techniques that are freely available and are easy to use.
Someone starting out or in the throes of coming up with a new product or service will need to rely heavily on their creativity both for coming up with new ideas and responding to challenges that sometimes seen insolvable. If you would like a resource to assist you, then my book “Breakthrough Ideas” is a tool box filled with idea-generation techniques and ways to go about turning your most promising idea into a potential source of income.
