Creative Questions To Help Move Your Business Past a Tight Budget

Nobody starts on top. You have to find ways to overcome the one obstacle that every entrepreneur has in the beginning.


If you're looking to market yourself and your business on a tight budget, you've got to learn to be creative and you've got to learn to start asking creative questions.


Questions such as:


1) How can I


A different question to get started with:


2) If I needed help with (blank) this person could help me. This is a fantastic question to remember.


What about this one:


3) Who might exchange for ?


What about this one:


4) How can I do this faster, with less effort, cheaper? Could I do this for free?


Try this one:


5) Could I substitute 'X' for 'Y'? What could I substitute to get 'ABC' instead of 'XYZ'? Just think of whatever you wanted to do, how could you substitute for 'XYZ'?


If you answer this question you will really be putting yourself in the mind frame of some of your unique and different customers:


6) How would solve this problem?


Here are some examples: How would my mother solve this problem? How would my competitor solve this problem? The great thing about this question is it forces you to think from different perspectives.


I've answered these business questions myself and it has allowed doors to open in every direction, propelling my career to new heights and success to be and continued to be achieved.


I'll show you an example of how I used this method of creative questioning to help me.


As soon as I graduated University I decided that I wanted to become a professional speaker instead of working within a corporation. My focus was college and high school students, which I still do talks for on occasion, to teach them the importance of creativity. Creativity had helped me rise from being a University failure in my first year to graduating with straight A's, and being names Most outstanding Male. The transformation that occurred between my first and fourth year I owe to learning the skill of creative thinking.


Even though I had decided that this is what I wanted to do, I had no idea about becoming a professional speaker, or if I could turn it into a profitable business.


To try and learn the ropes I joined an organization called CAPS, The Canadian Association for Professional Speakers.


At one of my first meetings I attended I approached a gentleman there who was doing very well with his speaking career about what I needed to do to get to his level. He replied by saying. "It's very simple, Stu. I'll give you three things to do, once you have those finished, come back and I'll give you some more."


"Number one," he began, "You should join CAPS. By surrounding yourself with like minded people in your industry it will help your business grow."


To join CAPS the registration was $200, which was a big chunk of my budget. I remember even asking them if I could pay in smaller payments, which I did. Despite the squeeze, I joined the CAPS organization.


Then he said, "Number two, you have to get out to the CAPS National Conference." And I thought, 'Man, how in the heck am I going to get out there?' It was on the complete opposite side of Canada. The seminar itself was relatively expensive. Anything for me, at that point, was expensive. I had no money. I had to pay for my flight and all that nonsense.


I needed to find a creative solution. Here's what I did. I asked myself some creative questions. What I started to do was look at what I had that, perhaps, somebody might need and want.


One thing I that I had at that point was time itself. Because I had just started my speaking business I wasn't speaking very often, so I knew I had some time I could offer.


Then I started to say, "Okay, how could I use my time to benefit somebody else?" From that question I came up with a campaign, and I called it Help Stu Be Like You.


This is how I used my creative thinking. The largest chapter of CAPS in my province consisted of about 75 people. I went to one of their meetings and asked if I could have 30 seconds in front of them.


This was something that nobody had ever asked for. While up there I said, "How many of you, at one point, started off as a speaker with no experience?" Of course everybody's hands went up in the air.


The next question I asked was, "Out of all of you who have your hand up, how many of you have been to the CAPS national conference?" About 75% of the room kept their hands up.


I continued, "With experiencing the national conference, how many of you with your hands up belief that it would be beneficial for somebody with zero experience to go to?" Everyone who had been kept their hands up.


My reply was, "Great. Well I am somebody that obviously needs to go to the CAPS national conference because I have zero experience."


I continued by saying, "But, here is where I run into difficulty. I don't have any money, just time. Here is the exchange I am willing to make and I hope you are to. 'Help Stu Be Like You' is a campaign that I have created." At this point I handed out a small flyer to everyone in the audience. It basically was a 8x6 black and white flyer that I had printed at home on 8-1/2 x 11 sheets and cut down the middle to save on costs.


I continued to explain what my campaign was about, "This is what I am willing to do. I will do everything you as speakers don't like doing or don't have the time to do. Whatever it is, licking stamps, calling clients, writing sales letters. If you need me to I will come to your house and cut your lawn. All I'm asking in return for my time is a financial contribution of your choice."


Looking out at everyone I could see some people's wheels were just turning thinking, "Oh wow. This is amazing. I can get all those little jobs I hate doing for cheap!"


I said, "I am willing to do whatever you don't like doing in exchange for a financial contribution of your choice, all of which will go towards getting me out to the CAPS national conference."


As I was finishing up a gentleman in the back of the room stood up. I thought he had a question but instead he said, "Stu, I will take care of your seminar entrance fee." Half of my costs, just like that, were basically taken care of.


Another gentleman stood up right after him and said, "Stu, don't worry about paying to get out there, I will take care of it." In a matter of five minutes 85% of my expenses needed to go were taken care of.


That is what being creative can enable you to do.


By asking myself that one creative question, I was able to come up with a creative solution that solved my problem of not being able to get to the national conference. By the time the conference happened all kinds of people had heard about my story and even had a story published about me in the national publication.


Always remember to explore your creativity and may ideas come to you when you need them the most.


Until next time!

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