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Sometimes it is difficult to start, no one starts at the top. Almost all of us have to overcome one major obstacle in the beginning.

The obstacle for many people is getting their business marketed on a tight budget. Being creative can help you get through on a tight budget and by answering some of these creative questions you can learn how to do it.

Questions such as:

1) How can I

Start with another creative question like:

2) Who could assist me with This is a great question. Who could assist me with

How about:

3) Who would exchange for ?

Here’s another one:

4) How can I do this faster, with less effort, cheaper? Could I do this for free?

Try this one:

5) Could I substitute ‘X’ for ‘Y’? What could I substitute to get ‘ABC’ instead of ‘XYZ’? Just think of whatever you wanted to do, how could you substitute for ‘XYZ’?

This next one is a great one because it puts you in the shoes of other people, someone who is thinks completely different than you.

6) How would solve this problem?

Here is an example: How would my wife solve this problem? How would my mentor, child, neighbor solve this problem? By asking yourself this question you really have to look at things from a different perspective.

I’ve answered these business questions myself and it has allowed doors to open in every direction, propelling my career to new heights and success to be and continued to be achieved.

Here is an example of how I used this creative questioning to overcome an obstacle early on in my career.

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.

Being a professional speaker and building a profitable speaking business was two things I didn’t know anything about though.

I went to and joined an organization called CAPS, which is The Canadian Association for Professional Speakers.

At one of my first meetings I attended I approached a gentleman there who was doing very well with his speaking career about what I needed to do to get to his level. He replied by saying. “It’s very simple, Stu. I’ll give you three things to do, once you have those finished, come back and I’ll give you some more.”

“The first thing you need to do is surround yourself with people who are in the same industry as yourself. Join CAPS, it will help your business 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.

He continued saying, “The second thing you have to do is get to the CAPS National Conference” At this point I thought to myself, ‘How am I going to do that? The conference that year was being held on the other side of Canada. With the seminar being pretty expensive itself, plus traveling costs, it was really expensive. I had no money, so everything at that point was expensive for me

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.

One thing I that I had at that point was time itself. Because I had just started my speaking business I wasn’t speaking very often, so I knew I had some time I could offer.

I started to then rack my brain about how I could use that time to benefit someone else. By asking myself that question I came up with a campaign called, ‘Helt Stu Be Like You.’

This is how I used my creative thinking. The largest chapter of CAPS in my province consisted of about 75 people. I went to one of their meetings and asked if I could have 30 seconds in front of them.

No one had asked for this before. I asked a question that got everyone’s hands in the air. It was, “How many of your, at one point, started off as a speaker with no experience?”

The next question I asked was, “Out of all of you who have your hand up, how many of you have been to the CAPS national conference?” About 75% of the room 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.

I said, “Great. Because I am somebody with zero speaking experience that you just said needs to get out to that CAPS national conference.”

I continued by saying, “But, here is where I run into difficulty. I don’t have any money, just time. Here is the exchange I am willing to make and I hope you are to. ‘Help Stu Be Like You’ is a campaign that I have created.” At this point I handed out a small flyer to everyone in the audience. It basically was a 8×6 black and white flyer that I had printed at home on 8-1/2 x 11 sheets and cut down the middle to save on costs.

I said, “Here’s what I’m willing to do. I’m willing to do all the dirty work that you speakers don’t like doing or don’t have time to do. I will make sales calls for you. I will write sales letters for you. I will lick stamps for you. I will cut your grass. I’ll even wipe your baby’s bottom, if that’s what you want me to do, for a financial contribution of your choice.”

Surveying the audience at this point, I could tell some people’s minds were racing with all the odd jobs they could get me to do for cheap.

I said, “I am willing to do whatever you don’t like doing in exchange for a financial contribution of your choice, all of which will go towards getting me out to the CAPS national conference.”

As I was finishing up a gentleman in the back of the room stood up. I thought he had a question but instead he said, “Stu, I will take care of your seminar entrance fee.” Half of my costs, just like that, were 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.

By asking myself that creative question, I was able to come up with a solution that got me out to the conference and my entrance fee paid for. By the time I got there it had turned into a big story, the national CAPS publication had written a story about me and I had all kinds of people coming up to me asking me questions.

Ideas will come to you when you explore the possibilities of creativity!

Keep your eye out for more!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.