Creative Questions To Help Move Your Business Past a Tight Budget
It doesn’t matter who you are, every entrepreneur has the same obstacle to overcome in the beginning.
To get past the obstacle of having a tight budget to begin with you really have to learn how to market yourself creatively by asking yourself some simple creative questions.
Ask yourself:
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.
How about:
3) Who might exchange for ?
Or this one:
4) Could I do this cheaper? or How would I be able to do this faster? or Could I do it with less effort? or Is there a way to do this for free? That question will really get your creative juices going.
Here’s another 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’?
Here’s another one that I love. This really puts you in the shoes of unique and different people.
6) How would solve this problem?
A good example: How would my mentor solve this problem? How would my four year-old daughter solve this problem? It’s a great question because it forces you to think from a different perspective.
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.
Right out of University I decided to become a professional speaker, speaking to high school and college students - which I still do on occasion - speaking on the topic of creativity because that topic helped me go from a University failure all the way to the top of my class, straight A’s, and named Most Outstanding Male of my graduating class. There was a big difference between what happened first year and my last year, and I attribute it all to learning the skill on the art of creative thinking, and I was very passionate about it.
The problem was I didn’t know the first thing about being a professional speaker or building a profitable speaking business.
I went to and joined an organization called CAPS, which is The Canadian Association for Professional Speakers.
It was at one of the local meetings were I asked a gentleman, who was doing very well with his speaking career, “What did I have to do to get to where he was?” He replied by saying, “I’ll give you three things to get started on. Once you finish those come back and I’ll give you some more.” He said it would be simple, so I said, “Okay.”
He said, “Number one, you need to join CAPS. You need to surround yourself with like-minded people, who are working in your industry and can help you grow.” I said, “Okay.”
In order to join CAPS it cost $200, which at that time was a squeeze. Thinking back on it I remember paying for it on payments in order to be able to do it. I did number though, I joined CAPS.
The second thing he said I had to do was, “Get out to the CAPS National Conference.” As much as I wanted to go, it was on the other side of Canada, which meant more costs on top of the relatively expensive conference fee. At this point everything was expensive for me as I had no money. To get there I would have to pay for my flight, accommodations and everything else.
This is where I started asking myself some creative questions. I needed to find a solution. I started thinking about what I had, or could do, that someone else might want and need.
What I had at the time was time itself. I wasn’t speaking very often because I had just started my speaking business, so I had some time on my hands.
It was at this moment I asking myself, “How could I use my time to help someone else?” By answering that question I came up with, ‘Help Stu Be Like You,’ a campaign to help me get to the National Conference.
But here was the concept and here’s what happened. I approached the biggest chapter of the CAPS organization in my province and I asked for 30 seconds in front of the whole group. There were about 75 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.
“Awesome,” I said. “Keep your hand up if you have ever attended the CAPS national conference before.” Seventy-five percent of the group kept their hands up.
I said, “Of those who still have their hands in the air, how many of you feel that it would be beneficial for somebody with zero experience to get out to that CAPS national conference?” They all had their hands in the air.
“Great, I am someone who needs to get out to the CAPS national conference because I have zero speaking experience!”
Then I said, “But here’s the problem. I don’t have any money. But what I do have is time. Here’s the exchange I’m willing to make and hope that you are willing to make as well. I’ve created a campaign called Help Stu Be Like You.” And I handed out these little flyers, black and white. Basically what I did was I printed two 8×6 flyers on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet to save costs, and I just cut it right down the middle and I gave everybody in the audience one.
I said, “Here’s what I’m willing to do. I’m willing to do all the dirty work that you speakers don’t like doing or don’t have time to do. I will make sales calls for you. I will write sales letters for you. I will lick stamps for you. I will cut your grass. I’ll even wipe your baby’s bottom, if that’s what you want me to do, for a financial contribution of your choice.”
I could see some of them in the audience were just licking their chops thinking, “Oh my goodness. This is awesome. I’m going to get cheap labor.”
“All of the money I earn through your financial contributions will be used directly towards enabling me to get out to the CAPS national conference. I will do anything you don’t like doing in exchange for a financial contribution.”
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.
Immediately following that, another gentleman stood up and he said, “Stu, and I will pay for the cost to get you out there.” Boom, boom. Eighty-five percent of all of my expenses were taken care of just like that.
That is what being creative can enable you to do.
That one creative solution got me out to that conference. It turned out to be a big story because all kinds of people heard about it there and I even had an article published in the national publication.
Ideas will come to you when you explore the possibilities of creativity!
Stay posted for more!
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