Recently, I was speaking in front of approximately 100 promotional products distributors and posed the following: "Raise your hand if you position yourself as 'creative' to differentiate yourself from your competitors." I would like to reveal that I was surprised when about 85 people raised their hands, but I wasn't. In an effort to be different than their distributor competitors, far too many in our industry reach for the easy claim of creativity.
For those of you leveraging your creativity in an effort to garner the attention of prospects and clients, I have some bad news for you: creativity in your company doesn't exist merely because you say it does.
Think about the illustration above – 85 percent of the audience are using the same exact word to express to their target customers how they are different. If you're part of 85 percent of anything, you're part of the crowd and the exact opposite of different.
Furthermore, like the parameters for being elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, creativity is wildly subjective. An idea that one client might think as fabulously creative another might perceive as horribly old and tired. In other words, you are raising both the perceptions and expectations of your clients by proclaiming your creativity. Merely saying you are creative doesn’t deliver on that promise.
Here's an example that has happened to many in our industry: you work tirelessly to find and develop what you believe is the most creative solution for a client's marketing challenge only to find out during the presentation that she used the same product last year for a different promotion, and it failed. Or, even worse, your competition presented the same merchandise solution the previous day. Suddenly your proclamation of creativity has done the exact opposite of setting you apart – it's only reinforced the perception among many clients that you are merely a product person, not an ideas person.
If you want to leverage your creativity with your clients, you have to do much more than just announce it – you have to show it. The first thing you need to do is ask the right questions:
• What products have you used in the past?
• What has worked and what hasn’t worked?
• Why type of experience do you want your target audience to have when receiving and opening the merchandise?
• What does your competition do that makes you insanely jealous?
After you know the answers, you can use case histories, share relevant stories, and produce spec samples with a complete packaging and/or delivery systems to showcase your creativity. More than just saying you are creative – which is meaningless – you are developing the perception among your clients that you actually are creative.
Remember, it doesn't matter what you think is creative, it matters what your target audience thinks is creative. If you are going to use "creativity" to set yourself apart from your competition, do so carefully and be prepared to prove it. Like art, creativity is a very subjective term with many associated risks associated – unless you can back it up.
Bill has over 15 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. In 2014, he launched brandivate – the first executive outsourcing company solely focused on helping small and medium sized-promotional products enterprises responsibly grow their business. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, vice president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, developing operational policies and procedures, creating and developing winning RFP responses, and presenting winning promotional products solutions to Fortune 500 clients. He can be reached at bill@brandivatemarketing.com.