How Different Is Your Creative Career?

When you start your business and begin offering services, chances are you are offering a lot of the same things your competition is. There is much common ground, similar options, services and features. The hardest thing to do is also the most important, which is be different. Being different gives you leverage. It sets you apart from the competition. You begin to offer something that can’t be had anywhere else. It does take some time with a pencil and sketchpad to really map out what you can offer that cannot be found elsewhere, but it’s one of the most important brainstorming sessions you’ll ever have.

A great classic business book is “Differentiate or Die” by Jack Trout, which explores the topic in great detail. You don’t even have to read it, the concept is right there in the title.

Bear in mind you have more competetion than you realize. There are companies that are on your radar but there are far more you have yet to discover. Most strategic moves you do can be replicated by others. Lower prices? Others can do that. Higher? Yep. Add more services? Others can double theirs.

What is a move you can make, something you can do that cannot be copied by your competition?

It’s not an easy task. But with enough thought, there will be things you can offer that no one else can. Look at it from a potential client’s view. With so many options, who would they choose? Successful businesses branch out to be different and then multiply the moves. Pretty soon they become a local, national or international leader and then competition is more focused on catching up and mimicking the changes.

Try making a list of items that you could offer that your competition has not even thought of yet. Just sketch them out and think of as many as possible. Then start to think how you could weave this into your empire.

What sets your company apart? How can you outmaneuver the competition by being compellingly different?

Cloudy Day Of Ideas – Capture and File

Part of the problem with us creative people is it’s very hard to turn off the flow of ideas. Many of us come up with new ideas seemingly hourly. It’s not a bad thing, in fact it’s quite good to continue the flow of ideas coming to keep things energized. The problem creeps in when there are so many ideas that it crowds out important missions. Or when an idea comes up that sounds fresh and exciting and you end up shifting away from your core creative career strategies to jump on to this new brainstorm. This past week we discussed creating golden goals on the podcast (iTunes link), where you narrow down your tasks to the most basic 3 or 4. But do we need to filter and narrow down our flow of ideas? I don’t think so. I think it’s good to have a way to capture them to refer back. But if the flow of ideas keeps you off track, then there needs to be a system in place.

First look at ideas as clouds. Imagine a bright sunny day with a couple of clouds. Ahh..soothing and pleasant! Nothing wrong with a few clouds here and there. But the more ideas you have, the more clouds come in, and what was once a sunny day is starting to become mostly cloudy. Then overcast. Then it could become really overwhelming. You’ve got so many clouds it becomes dark, you can’t even see the sun.

When you get an idea during your work week, you need to capture it and put it away. Refer to it at a later time. This part is important. The system could be a notebook and pencil, it could be on your phone or laptop, a digital device. When a thought occurs, jot it down and file it…away.

The reason you file it away is because you don’t want to assign it sudden importance. The same reason when the phone rings and you are working on a project, it’s better to not drop everything and switch to the phone. Not assigning sudden things as important, just because they are sudden, is one of the cornerstones of productivity. It’s the difference between a higher productive creative artist getting things done and a frazzled worker trying to catch up while immediately jumping on every distraction that appears. You’ve seen the stressed and frazzled workers and well…it’s not pretty.

Ideas should not be assigned any importance yet. They are merely ideas. They don’t immediately go on to your task list. They are not put into action while you drop what you are doing. They are captured and filed. You will explore them at a later time.

What happens if you assign immediate importance is you put them on the same level as your mission critical tasks for the day. The more ideas you have, the cloudier it gets and the harder it is to focus on doing what really matters. So don’t just add ideas to your growing daily to-do list. Capture and file. Then refer back at a later time. The idea will seem urgent, will seem important since it arrives so suddenly, but trust me, it almost always belongs in your idea file. And if you don’t have an idea file, start one. Otherwise you’ll have many ideas rattling around in your head on a continuous cycle. This is often more distracting than anything else you can do. Just jot them down.

Each week should be tightly focused on big goals and projects with an exciting and separate idea file you build that does not distract you. Avoid a huge jumbled, sprawling and ever growing to-do list that lacks priorities. These types of lists often wrongly give priority to the newest brainstorm.

Are you focused on your main tasks and goals for the day with a solid idea capture and file system?

Breaking Up With Your Job

Jobs are a lot like relationships, sometimes unfortunately they run their course and you need to move on. Or they are not quite what you expected. Sometimes you will grow out of them. As you advance in your career chances are you will go through many phases of your work life. If you have not started your own business yet and are working for an employer, you may need to examine how the job is working for you. Many people dream of starting their own empire, but they just don’t have the time because they work so many hours per week. They are not entirely happy with their job, but the pay is good and so are the benefits. Benefits are a pivotal part usually, some have spent decades in a job that they are not crazy about just to have benefits.

People usually move on from their job as a last resort, when it is absolutely necessary and they just can’t take it anymore. Unfortunately this is often proceeded by years of discomfort, being at a job they are not crazy about while yearning to do something different. I was a creative director for years in broadcast television and new media, and taking the chance to start my own company was a huge decision I did not take lightly. Like many of you I had a yearning to do my own thing, break out on my own, focus daily on my own empire rather than someone else’s. I also realized that directions and income are typically fixed in a standard job. Working for companies I had only so many ways I could move to advance in new and different directions. Same with income, it was more fixed with limits. Running my own company I can now explore new avenues of services fairly easily. And income is unlimited, it really depends how hard I want to work.

The key is to really start to look at where you are now and where you want to be. We’ll discuss this more in the future here, how to actually make the move, but the first step is to embrace some of the discomfort you may have under the surface. The reality that it may be time for you to move on.

Really start to envision what you would rather be doing, then take steps in that direction.

What is the next step for you? When is the next step for you?

http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com

Implementing Good Career Ideas – Passive vs. Active

This is another concept that sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s one to be constantly reminded of. I do a podcast called Media Artist Secrets (iTunes link) and people will proudly tell me that they have listened to all 75 episodes, some even have re-listened to them all. I tell them that is great and ask what techniques they have implemented. Some say none, but it does get them inspired. The same goes for business books or self development audiobooks. I know some that go through tons of books for inspiration but rarely implement the ideas in them. Considering that even one book may contain hundreds of ideas, it seems a little off to not even try a few.

It can be a rush to live vicariously through the success of the author, most of us read this way, but why not take that wisdom and apply it to yourself?

I did not start out implementing. Early in my career I would read and listen to books and get jazzed up, but the enthusiasm was always short lived, it was a burst that faded soon after. It wasn’t until I started taking notes, writing down techniques, trying ideas, seeing what worked and what didn’t, that the info I was absorbing really started to have a dramatic impact on my career. Executing some new techniques and ideas made me want to try even more.

The first step is questioning how you are currently doing things, and this is something that often does not come naturally. We like to think we are sailing along fine, but there is often room for improvement. And not every technique will work for everyone. So it sometimes can take experimenting with a number of different methods to find the best fit.

Chances are you may be reading a number of blogs such as this one, various books and other sources of info. If you are implementing ideas weekly, that’s great, if not, start with a few. Nothing life-changing, just small steps in different directions. I find it helps to jot notes of things you would like to try, it’s handy to refer back when ready to put new ideas in motion.

Creating new and improved habits takes focus, experimentation and repetition. It does not matter what techniques you are trying, it only matters that you are expanding into new more productive and creative areas.

Have you tried putting new info you absorb immediately into use? How can you make it easier to try new ideas?