We’ve all heard about the benefits of bringing creativity to your sales life. But how does one get the creative juices flowing? What if you are not very creative by nature? Not to worry. If you are not creative by nature, you can get creative by nurture. Here are 4 tips for fostering creativity in your sales life:
- Collaborate with others. No single mind will be as productive at generating creative ideas as a group of minds. That’s why brain-storming in a group is such a powerful exercise, it allows one good idea to build on another, and another. As an added bonus, working in groups fosters teamwork and team building.
- Try a change of scenery. If we want to change our thinking and our perspective, then we need to change our environment‚ get out from behind our desks. That can be as simple as going for a walk or taking lunch in the park. On a more elaborate scale, many forward-thinking organizations are incorporating alternative work spaces into the corporate landscape, cafes, gardens, game rooms, all with the goal of increasing creativity and employee satisfaction. On the most elaborate scale are off-site innovation acceleration facilities where concept development is set to a scenic backdrop and interspersed with everything from nerf gun wars to ski diving and jet skiing.
- Read and listen to learn. Seek out and sign up for insightful, high-quality blogs and podcasts by thought leaders in your industry or profession. In a time when we are all inundated with emails and messages, it may not sound like an appealing idea; but the newfound insights will be motivational and empowering.
- Attend a conference. As we progress in our careers, opportunities for insight and ideas get more infrequent. Industry or profession-based conferences provide an opportunity for education, fellowship with peers and mentors, and observation of other companies and professionals. In many ways, conferences offer all of the accelerants of creativity together in one place: a group setting, a change of scenery and an abundance of new information and insights.
A life in sales requires creativity. With these tools at our disposal, none of us can claim genetics as an excuse not to leverage creativity every day for greater sales effectiveness.
