How To Create Your Own Creativity
By
Bill Brooks
Word Count: 939
The ability to be creative with solutions, prospecting or working with
customers has always been a key skill for any salesperson to possess.
Being creative will allow you to revitalize your sales career tenfold
because you will instantly find yourself becoming more able to provide
your prospect with new and innovative ways to solve their problems or
improve their situation. Creativity does not come easily to many
salespeople. Barriers to creativity arise every day, and your ability to
identify and conquer these ever-present obstacles will help you to
increase your sales success.
Routine can be one of the most common barriers to your
personal creativity.
Following the same routine every day will certainly not stimulate you,
leading to a serious lack of creativity and innovation in both your
career and personal life. Some routine is definitely necessary, even
inevitable and desirable, but too much of it will certainly not help your
creative juices flow. Try varying the ways and times that you do things
in your every day schedule, and doing so is sure to help stimulate your
creativity.
Fatigue is another highly common barrier to creativity in
salespeople.
Giving your all every day while you pursue prospects is highly
respectable. However, you need to take some serious downtime if you
want to avoid burnout. Burnout is not conducive to stimulating your
creativity, and you need to keep this in mind. Take time to play.
During this playtime you will find that your creative juices will flow.
You are likely to find an elusive answer to your prospect's problem
when you're not at work, and not even thinking about it.
Negative thoughts can also present barriers to your creative
thinking ability.
Thinking pessimistically is obviously destructive to anything, and
your creative ability is no different. The optimist sees an opportunity in
every problem, but the pessimist sees a problem in every opportunity.
You probably know this. But knowing something and doing it are two
different things. By approaching any sales problem with an open and
positive mind, you are sure to stimulate your creativity exponentially.
It will allow you to try new and inventive ways to fulfill your prospects'
needs and wants.
Fear is a concept that fits into the category of negative
thinking.
If you fear trying anything new in your sales activity, then you will
most certainly fail to tap into your creative sources. Conquering your
fear of using new ways to approach, help, or service your prospects
will help you conquer a serious and common barrier to creativity. It's
up to you how you choose to face your fear, and if you face it with
courage, then your ability to use your creativity will surely increase.
Any crisis presents an interesting twist on your creative ability.
If you view a crisis as a phenomenal opportunity to tap into your
creative abilities, then you are on the right track. Salespeople who fear
crisis situations and fail to see them as chances to prevent the same
problems from arising in the future are the same salespeople who are
hurting their own creativity. Creativity solving any crisis situation can
also provide you with the possibility that new and creative ways of
doing things may emerge from the current crisis.
Unfortunately, making excuses is a common practice among
lots of rather average or poor salespeople.
Blaming your own failures on outside factors is just too easy. You must
avoid doing this if you intend to maximize your sales performance and
stimulate your creativity. Blaming your own shortcomings on factors
such as a bad territory or your competition will do nothing for you,
your sales performance or your income. Take responsibility for your
mistakes and your lost sales, and use what you've learned from
these failures to creatively approach future prospects' problems, wants
and needs.
Another excellent way to stimulate your own creativity is to
read and study the creativity of others.
Biographies, success stories, articles and examples can help to inspire
you to reach the higher levels of creativity that other innovators have
reached themselves. Reading this type of material can help to push
you to higher levels of creativity that others have reached.
Creativity is sometimes difficult to maintain and keep.
Your childhood imagination sometimes leaves you as an adult. Barriers
that will hinder your creativity can include such factors as too much
routine, fatigue, pessimism, fear, the way you handle crisis situations,
and making excuses. Each of these barriers can be overcome if you
become able to identify which of them is negatively affecting your
creativity. Simply use your head when you feel stumped by a problem
and then implement the solutions that are discussed above. You
should not feel limited, though. Develop and use your own personal
methods that will allow you to cultivate your creativity.
The key is simply to realize what exactly it is that is harming your
creativity, and then conquer it. This will help you improve your sales
performance, as well as your own self-image, and this is priceless in
creating your own creativity and your own successful future!
Bill Brooks, CSP, CPAE, CMC, CPCM former CEO of a $300,000,000
corporation and two-time sales award winner from an international
sales force of 8,000, Bill has real-world expertise. Bill has spoken or
consulted in over 300 different industries while being engaged by at
least 150 clients an astonishing six times each. Copyright© 2002, Bill
Brooks. All rights reserved. For information about how to bring Bill to
your next meeting or convention, contact the Frog Pond Group at 800704-FROG (3764) or email susie@frogpondgroup.com;
http://www.frogpondgroup.com.