Why Keeping Creativity Alive is Critical to Your Success

October 5, 2017

Picture this:
Your boss, Walt Disney, sits just a few offices down the hall from your office.
Think you’d feel some pressure?
A constant need to be on your toes?
To seek innovation constantly?
To keep creativity flowing like the Mississippi River?
I can confirm that’s exactly how you’d feel, because one of my mentors was in that situation for many years. But he was definitely up to the task.
Mike Vance worked alongside Walt Disney during the early days of Walt Disney World.
Walt Disney called Mike, “The most creative man in North America.”
Mike later worked directly with Steve Jobs and built a distinguished speaking career of his own. He was even the guy who popularized the phrase “thinking outside the box.”
Although he passed away at the age of 84 in 2013, one of Mike’s most enduring beliefs is a direct reflection of that creative environment in which he thrived for so long.
And it’s as applicable today as it was many years ago when he first posed this question:
How are you keeping creativity alive in your business?

Staleness is the Enemy of Productivity

Mike believed that businesses need constant change and new challenges to succeed.
When work gets stale, productivity declines.
I feel this lesson is especially important for real estate professionals.
When you’re running your own business and isolated on your own little island, it’s really easy to get stuck in your ways.
That’s why I want to use this blog to challenge you to always seek new ways to keep creativity alive.

Defining Creativity

Look at agents like Tammy & Wes Pack who turned their passion for their market into a thriving YouTube series, “This is Fredericksburg, Texas.” Now that’s creative!
BUT… you don’t have to go to those lengths to keep creativity alive in your business. (If you want to, GREAT!)
Keeping creativity alive means continually learning, growing and striving to provide more to your clients.
It means being open to innovations that improve efficiency in your business. (Remember my advice to become a “tech-enabled service company.”)
It also means putting yourself in a learning environment regularly — attending events, seeking knowledge, reading everything you can.

5 Ways to Keep Creativity Alive in Your Business

1. Attend Events Regularly

Put yourself in a learning environment at minimum 2-3 times a year, hopefully more. This gets your juices flowing and will always provide you with tons of new ideas to implement. (If you don’t know where to start, go here.)

2. Read!

When you read anything and everything pertinent to real estate, sales, mindset, business planning, and marketing, you will become so full of ideas, you’ll need to exercise caution to not overwhelm yourself by trying to implement too much all at once. Try just one at a time.
(Don’t have time to read, you say? Then listen to audiobooks or podcasts… No excuses!)

3. Have a Coach

Your coach not only will help you develop new ideas, but even more importantly, will help you implement them effectively.
When you get busy, it’s easy to abandon a new “test idea,” but your coach will hold you accountable to the test and force you to see it through.
The more you see things through, the more productive you’re going to become.

4. Learn from Other Agents

It’s important to keep your eyes open in this business. When you do, you can R&D (ripoff & duplicate) the strategies of those who are doing good things.
How do you find out who’s doing well, you ask?
Ask around your office.
Get yourself in a mastermind group.
Or join a real estate-specific private Facebook group. (I’ve had coaching members tell me our Core+ and Elite+ private Facebook groups are worth the price of coaching by itself.)

5. Adapt from Other Industries

Don’t be afraid to steal ideas from other industries and adapt them to real estate.

Creativity Goes Hand in Hand with Experimentation

Now that we’ve established there’s no shortage of creativity-generating resources out there…
I want you to set a goal of introducing at least one new methodology into your business at least once a quarter.
Here’s the secret, though:
It’s okay if it doesn’t work. To keep creativity alive in your business, you cannot be afraid of failure.
Try new things. Set up metrics and test it. If it doesn’t move the needle, eliminate it. But at least you tried.
If it does work, not only have you introduced a better way of doing business — a new lead generator, a new efficiency in servicing, etc. — but you’ve also injected new life and vitality into your business for you and your team.
The more you stay committed to keeping creativity alive, the better your business will become in the long run.
I want to know what you plan to do with this information. You know I always appreciate your comments, but for this one, I’d love to see more ideas and actions and less “Thanks Tom. Great article!” Commit below to whatever first step you’re going to take to keep creativity alive in your business.