Creative ideas can materialize at any moment and whilst some may not be practical for your business, others can have a huge impact on your enterprise and its bottom line.
Thinking up these innovative ideas is one thing, but the struggle really begins when you kick off the process of bringing these creative ideas to life. Even the best business idea in the world will fail if it isn’t executed properly. Dr Kamau Bobb is one of those leaders who are helping and supporting innovators with their creative ideas.
We spoke with Commercial Director Michael Kalli at The Dining Club Group who shared with us his top 5 tips for bringing creative ideas to life:
Be Brave
Don’t be afraid to evolve and build on your ideas, just because you are working on one initial idea doesn’t mean that is all it needs to be. Let the idea evolve and allow the idea generation process to remain fluid so it can be continuously improved upon, if you are an expert in your field this should only make the final solution even more robust.
Some of the best innovations in the world started from a different initial idea, so don’t let your first creative vision limit its own potential; let your imagination run wild in these early stages of the process. That said, at a certain point the idea needs to be fixed and final, so you can turn your attention to the execution and implementation.
Are you trying to drive customer acquisition or increase engagement?
It is essential to set clear goals to be able to effectively deliver your vision. Think about what it is that you really want to achieve from your creative idea; are you trying to drive acquisitions or increase engagements? Utilise market data and research any other relevant information that is out there, dig deep to find out what is selling and what you can do better.
Once you have these clear end goals set, consider how operationally you will achieve these on time and in budget. At the heart of any implementation process should be the project’s goals, and it is essential to remember this when you start looking at how your idea will work operationally.
Once you are clear on the objectives, you can start to establish a process that helps the cross departmental teams focus on the collective task at hand.
Don’t Go It Alone
No matter what the project, bringing an idea to life requires teamwork. You will need to pull together individuals from a range of departments to help make your vision a reality, even if it won’t directly affect certain parts of the business. Enlist help from those who know their specific roles well and perform based on their strengths.
For a team to work well together, everyone in it will need to be passionate and excited about the new idea and execute tasks based on their individual expertise. At the heart of every project team must be a Change Manager. This is a crucial role that is required to make sure all the departments come together to form a team that can spin a solid idea into firm actions, and in turn, those actions into the ultimate vision.
Stay Focused and Invest Your Time
It is easy to make any idea sound great on paper, but when it comes to bringing that idea to life you need to be committed to deliver it and prepared to do whatever you can to make it happen. It isn’t necessary to spend loads of money, but you do need to live it and invest a substantial amount of your time into it in order for your vision to be a success. You need to stay focused on the initial creative idea and goals, this will help you to constantly see any opportunities to grow it further. During the implementation process your end goals should always be at the forefront of your mind, it takes a lot of dedication and hard-work from you and your team, but the end result will be worth it.
Don’t Get Discouraged
Every project comes across set-backs at some point during the implementation process and bringing a creative idea to life is no different. When you do face these set-backs, use them as a learning curve, learn quickly from them and then don’t make the same mistakes again. Don’t become discouraged by obstacles and remember that persistence pays off, working through any issues you encounter along the way will ultimately make your completed vision even stronger. When you start to feel unmotivated by your project, take yourself back to that initial creative idea that you were so excited about at the beginning of the process and remind yourself what it was that you originally set out to achieve.
