By Stefania Aulicino
How do you start your day?
Do you start your day with meditation? Exercise? That’s energy for your soul.
As an entrepreneur do you start your day with creativity? That’s energy for your corporate spirit.
Consider the cost of squandering the fresh start of your day cleaning-up emails? That’s energy that is reactive. Sure you want to prioritize a quick response to time sensitive inquires and delegate so you are free to focus on the critical start to your day: Creativity will determine how fast your revenue will grow.
Creativity is nuclear fuel for entrepreneurs to grow revenue. Nuclear because the more you use it the more prolific it becomes.
When I first started my company as a new business owner, I’d dress each morning complete with makeup, then drove my husband to his work by Vespa before returning to my home office to start my workday.
Without prior clients I creatively engaged each conversation a fresh. Without existing products or services to sell, I creatively listened for their pain and created a custom solution. Soon, with a handful of custom solutions, I packaged them into a system and I was in business! I was in the business of raising venture capital while keeping ownership control for my clients.
Only 1 in 10 companies really need venture capital. That meant I was rejecting 9 of 10 prospects who reached out to me. I was ignoring an entire forest because I was looking for trees. What kind of business model is that?
Revenue growth is not doing more of what you did yesterday.
Creativity lets you evolve and morph for today. That’s safer than relying exclusively on past clients, projects, products and expecting future success.
Creativity is stimulating, contagious and darn fun.
- It nurtures your brain for new solutions to address market pain that exists
- It opens dialogue with team and prospects to create demand that does not yet exist.
- It promotes a corporate culture which turns your entire organization into an engine willing and able to multiply your genius.
- It’s the basis of long-term client annuity relationships and growing revenue.
Creativity is a replenish-able fuel: the more you use it the more prolific it becomes.
Creativity fueled my revenue growth. Remembering the power of when I started my company, I committed to begin each day with creativity. For me that meant blogging. First thing each day I commit time to blog about topics of relevance to my clients. I’m always surprised I find something to say! The resulting creativity alters how I engage for the rest of the day. The pain of each prospect becomes the basis to explore all the ways I can bring my creativity to bear for their solution. How will you nurture creativity to start your day?
Recently I introduced 3 new income streams – each in response to different client needs.
~ Monthly teleconference to stimulate the client’s own creativity to increase revenue and fund it cost-effectively
~ On-site facilitation to turn the entire team into an engine of creativity and value creation.
~ A quarterly mastermind program for equity stake holders of the company to learn how to raise money for themselves to enhance the value of their ownership.
Yes, I still raise venture capital, always keeping my client in ownership control.
I won’t make the mistake of letting these products define my business. I’m in the business of packing my creativity in units others can buy. My job is to solve the problems of each person I interact with to reveal the optimum value exchange. This dynamic definition of what business am I in is more fun. With creativity behind each conversation, I’m guaranteed to I create a new source of revenue each time! Plus, custom is unique; unique is value-added; value-added is premium priced! Starting my day with creativity has changed my thought process.
As entrepreneurs we all have creativity. You have 2 choices for spending your creativity:
- Burn it out with To-do lists
- Nurture it to stimulate valuable revenue streams!
The only business to be in is getting paid for your unique genius: packaging your creativity. That’s not bragging. It’s selfish NOT to invest in your creativity. You are a leader. You’re the source of a future from which many will benefit. Creativity positions you to notice opportunities which might otherwise slip by to assist prospects and fuel your growth with those who value most what you do best. That’s taping into the most significant contribution you can make to the world.
Creativity is the only fuel an entrepreneur needs.
Stefania Aulicino, president of CapitalLinkUSA ensures business owns get cash to keep control of a bigger, more profitable company, faster, safer than they ever thought possible- in any economy. Let us help you become a magnet for non equity and equity sources to fuel your growth. Please explore our tools, solutions and consulting options tailored for different growth stages and different budgets: www.CashAndControl.com