Now is the time to get creative in business as we target recovery and success.

For more than two years we have all dealt with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has decimated economies and broken businesses.

As the world begins to open up again, with the most severe restrictions being dropped in many countries, we turn our thoughts to economic recovery.

Act Now

You are likely faced with a dilemma. The pandemic resulted in many companies exhausting their financial reserves. The creates the challenges of getting people back to work, purchasing stock, letting customers know you are open for business, and attracting new customers.

Many governments are offering grants and loans to assist, but not all business necessarily qualify, and that support may not be enough. Banks, generally, are still using the pre-Covid lending criteria. That means they remain cautious.

After so many hard months, you cannot just sit back and let your company slide away. You must act.

Get Creative in Business

The temptation is to be cautious; take baby steps to avoid overstretching resources. However, this limits growth and means you could be missing out on the opportunities of the post-Covid economy.

That’s the traditional solution, but can I suggest another? Get creative in business to succeed.

This doesn’t mean there are no constraints and limits on what you do, just that you step outside the established ‘system’ to push forward and understand which limitations you should observe.

Jootsing (Jumping Out of the System)

Jootsing is real and you need to learn more about it. There are three elements:

• Gaining a deep understanding of the system itself and the rules
• Taking a step outside the system
• Utilising your findings for creating something new and innovative

According to Daniel Dennett in his book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Jootsing is a creativity technique that enables one to understand the system and subvert it for the better.

It allows you to uncover the tradition that you should subvert from. Hence, it can be difficult for novices to succeed in coming up with something that is creative.

Creativity During the Pandemic

Throughout the pandemic there were many, many examples of creativity; Go Outdoors switched to Go Indoors, distilleries like Conker Spirit began the production of hand sanitisers, the Piccadilly Ballroom went online with guest professionals in virtual concerts.

There are many more examples which should help you realise that change is necessary to succeed.

For instance, during the pandemic restaurants had to offer a takeaway service to survive. Offering local delivery has now become the norm.

Other businesses could have survived, and even succeeded, if they had discovered how to get creative.

The point of these examples is to think about which limitations you should keep and which ones you should change.

Who Do You Want to Please?

Benchmarking against competitors is a standard practice in business and can be beneficial to measure the success of what you are doing. However, thinking creatively, perhaps it is time to reconsider this.

The moves you make as a result of competitor comparison tend to be small and fleeting. Right now, major change might be the best option.

For example, in the restaurant trade during the pandemic there was a new focus. Instead of benchmarking against what competitors did, businesses started benchmarking against what customers wanted. That’s what gave rise to imaginative solutions like take-away services, home deliveries, outside dining areas, ordering from the table via QR code, and so on.

There is no reason for you to stay stuck in a trading environment that isn’t delivering growth when you can simply escape it.

The easy option is to cut prices. All customers must want that, you think.

In fact, most customers want quality, reliable goods and services and are willing to pay a little more to get them.

Cutting prices to compete is a race to the bottom. Instead, identify points of difference about your business, when compared with competitors, that will attract, engage, and retain customers.

Customers Want More

An outcome is defined as a tangible benefit. Since a good experience is not enough, you must dive deeper.

Businesses that engineer early outcomes for customers attract and retain more customers.

Look at the restaurant trade once again, for example. People do not like to wait, which is why getting them seated, brought a drink and able to give their order promptly is important. Delays equate to poor service and lack of care to a customer, so they would be unlikely to return or recommend your business.

Just like a good waiter, your job is to meet, or exceed, customer expectations so they feel like they have made the right decision by coming to you. Make them feel that way and they will return, and tell others.

The creative approach here is not worrying about comparing yourself to competitors, but measuring yourself against customer expectations and satisfaction.

Look Past Your Own Needs

Stripping back limitations which exist is necessary because statements like “no one has ever complained” or “we have always done things this way” are a recipe for failure.

Instead, you need to re-engineer what a viable business should look like. In addition to this, you must also consider the fact that customer values may have changed in the last two turbulent years.

How Can You Joots?

Yes, Joots is a word. It refers to planning your workflows to scale your business.

Think about workflows that do not consider suppliers or customers. Can you drop the workflows, amend them, or incorporate new workflows into them?

What is it that your customers truly care about? What is something that you would care about if you were your customer? Use your own experiences to your advantage.

There are bound to be activities that you can do differently to put the customer first and, therefore, generate income and growth.

It Can Be Hard

Breaking free of constraints is anything but easy. It is not something that comes as second nature to most people.

However, as they look to recovery, businesses need to do something different. Business models have changed, customer expectations and behaviour have changed, whole economies have changed. You cannot rely on the ‘old ways’ to see your company through or, more importantly, to grow.

It really is time to get creative in business.