Get Out of the Way

Reinventing your company can be a challenging, difficult and humbling process, requiring you to take a honest look at where you are, where you need to be, and a real willingness to let go of old ideas and worn out, same-old, same-old methods that are limiting your growth. Simply said knowing your limitations, inspiration, and bold original thinking is the path to real customer engagement, growth.

So how have things changed? Think customer experience! Digital marketing has changed the game and experiential marketing skills and deep vision are the players that will allow you to take full advantage of the pos­si­bil­i­ties of today’s marketing technologies to the fullest.

Here are some pointers to get you started driving creative growth:

Get Out of the Way – My many years of experience has shown me that there are new marketing technologies you’ve put off using because they are unfa­mil­iar and are out of your comfort zone (I see a lot of this). Time to get moving, do something you have never done before and if you don’t have the expertise; let go, get out of the way, and let someone who is familiar with the technology run with the project.

Inspiration is Now Everywhere – Creativity simply flows better when you hang­ out with cre­ative peo­ple it’s impossible to not be inspired. By creating an environment that encourages creativity your business will ben­e­fit from a new found energy, inspi­ra­tion and under­stand­ing and a whole new set of skills and resources that makes it fun for you to create something with your own twist and perspective on it.

Boldly Go… – Be a visionary, take the risk, delib­er­ately lead­ the rein­ven­tion of your mar­ket­ing efforts. Take the time to ponder difficult questions and venture outside your comfort zone.Ask yourself, what bold steps, large or small, can I take to inspire the creativity that marries our business needs with experiential driven marketing technology that will drive new business.

Connected Creativity – Here is a hint; you don’t need to have the answer right away. Your brain doesn’t like unanswered questions; your subconscious will work on it and look for solutions. It means that your brain cannot do what it has always done come up with the same old answers and has to come up with ways to interact with a new, unfamiliar or unknown ideas. And don’t discount any ideas that come along no matter how off the wall they are. Share them with your team. Just because you may not know how to execute on the ideas does not mean your team won’t!

Sit Down, Shut Up and Listen – Get honest and candid feed­back from your staff (as a matter of fact all the staff across the company can contribute), your cus­tomers (and not just the executives but anyone that interacts with your business), mar­ket­ing peers, and other trusted sources to guide your rein­ven­tion process. Don’t interrupt. Have an open mind and don’t discount or reject the tough and hon­est comments and feedback of peo­ple who have an investment in what you do. This is a team effort so get rid of the ego!

The Hardest Thing – It’s all about being hon­est about what is not work­ing and be hon­est about what is work­ing; some­times what works does not fit our orig­i­nal marketing plan, and it can be really hard to get rid of ideas or old ways of working that we have become attached to. What CMO or marketing manager likes to say that they were wrong? Doing things the old way, staying in our comfort zone, and fear leads to a struggle to break away from the old rules that hold us back from learn­ing new skills and adopting new marketing practices and tools even though we know they will benefit the business.

Take the risk and offer your customers something new.