Creative Business Questions Can Get You Passed A Tight Budget

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Sometimes it is difficult to start, no one starts at the top. Almost all of us have to overcome one major obstacle 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.

Questions like:

1) How could I…

Another creative question starter:

2) Who could assist me with This is a great question. Who could assist me with

What about this one:

3) Who do I know that would exchange for ?

Here’s another one:

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

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?

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.

These questions amongst others have opened up all kinds of opportunities for me, and they’ve been the oxygen - the lifeblood - of my career and the success that I’m experiencing.

Here is an example of how I used this creative questioning to overcome an obstacle early on in my career.

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.

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.”

So I shelled out the $200 to join the CAPS organization. It was a squeeze for me. In fact, I specifically remember asking if I could put it on payments, which I did. I joined the CAPS organization.

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.

It was at this point that I knew I had to start asking myself some creative questions. I knew I didn’t have much, but I began looking at what I did have, or could do that perhaps someone else might be interested in.

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.

No one had asked for this before. I asked a question that got everyone’s hands in the air. It was, “How many of your, at one point, started off as a speaker with no experience?”

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 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.

I said, “Great. Because I am somebody with zero speaking experience that you just said needs to get out to that CAPS national conference.”

But then I gave them my situation. I said, “I have a problem though. I don’t have any money. The one thing I do have though is time. That is why I have created a campaign called, ‘Help Stu Be Like You.’ Basically I am willing to make an exchange and I’m hoping you will too.” I passed out 8×6 black and white flyers I had printed off at home on 8-1/2×11 sheets to save costs. I made sure everyone in the audience got one.

I began to explain my campaign. “This is what I am willing to do. Anything that you as speakers don’t like doing, don’t have time to do, or just need an extra pair of hands to do, I will do it. Sales calls, creating sales letters, licking stamps, anything. I will even come to your house and cut your lawn or wipe your baby’s bottom if that’s what you want me to do. All I’m asking in return is 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.”

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’s what being creative is about my friends.

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!

Until next time!