Open up the creative problem-solving floodgates. For real

By Jake Sorich

Anyone who works in the corporate world knows that the words creativity and “outside-the-box” are the catch-all phrases for management types seeking to either motivate their employees to find fresh ways to solve problems.

The problem with creativity in my experiences, however, is that it tends to be messier than those same people who are asking it from their employees, cares to admit.

A creative solution might be one that goes against the dreaded “way we have always done things” or “against our company policies” or “too radical way of doing business.”

In that way, creativity is an intriguing characteristic. You’re encouraged, sometimes demanded, to use it in your workplace. However, it’s shunned unless you work within certain confines that are sometimes arbitrarily set by those in charge.

Say for example you’re selling cell phones, and the phones are an outdated model compared to the newest ones on the market.

You’re asked to sell these phones and market them as if they are the newest brands available.

I might suggest that it would help sales if you took a significant chunk of our inventory and traded them in for fewer, more expensive newer models, depending on how this brand was selling in the past month or so.

I might also suggest giving away a portion of the phones, which would increase consumer interest, because everyone loves getting something for free.

Give away .5 percent of the phones upon purchasing a case for them, or some other sorts of accessories. Those would likely end up being guaranteed sales because it’s much cheaper still to pay $15 for a case and get a free phone rather than pay retail price for a phone and a case.

Another creative solution might be putting 80 percent of the inventory in storage and claiming that this popular model was selling so fast that people might not have the chance to get it anymore once they are gone.

While that might not be ethical, it’s still an option that could hypothetically still be on the table.

You might also allow customers to trade in their old phones and get a heavily discounted price on this particular model, as long as they re-upped their contract.

All of these examples have one thing in common — a company is accepting a little less money up front in order to help increase sales in the future.

And yet, in our greed-driven culture we are living in today, this tactic is almost never applied anymore in businesses across the board.

I would not say that it’s a guaranteed moneymaker. There’s a chance that the interest is not there, or that it’s not the right type of product, or the market is so infiltrated that it’s already being offered at a price that you’ll never be able to match and still make a profit.

Getting back to the main point, however, it’s this type of creative solution that, depending on the people in charge, is a lot of times tossed aside. It’s creative, but not “cost effective” or “profit driven.”

And that’s where I believe a giant mistake is made over and over again.

If you’re working for a company, you can be creative, but only if it increases sales right now, no matter the consequences.

Even if sales might dip at first but you’re promised an uptick later down the road, that kind of long-term thinking seems to be long gone. There are exceptions, but in my personal experiences I have yet to encounter one.

The tactic of withholding something to increase something’s value is one that especially seems lost on a lot of companies today.

We live in an age where everything is available at any time, any day in any capacity.

Think of the time you went to a movie and saw a trailer for a new movie and it didn’t show all of the best jokes, special effects, dramatic scenes or otherwise noteworthy moments, displayed in that trailer?

It’s a mistake because it fails to utilize the sense of exclusivity.

Now, imagine if you’re watching television, and you see an ad for laundry detergent.

If you’ve seen one laundry detergent, you’ve likely seen them all, seeing as they all do almost the same thing.

But, now, imagine if the ad said something such as “New Coovie’s Laundry Detergent keeps your clothes clean for a month or longer. Now available for a limited time, with only 150 bottles available at your local Walgreens.”

Without knowing anything else about Coovie’s Laundry Detergent, you’re left wondering why there’s such a limited supply, and if maybe you should check it out, lest you feel as if you’re being left out of getting something that could clean your clothes better.

Is that exclusivity manufactured? You bet. But, the thing is, it does not seem as if that matters all that much.

If you look back at when the Nintendo Wii first hit the video game market, if you were paying attention, or were trying to get one, you’d know that it seemed like there were never enough in stock.

And really, if you think that was a mistake, you’re only kidding yourself.

Yes, the Nintendo Wii was a hot product that sold millions upon millions in the U.S. alone, but that alone does not make a product hard to find. It’s a factor, but not the only one in play.

Nintendo obviously knew once word spread about the Wii, by making it exclusive enough, it would only drive demand up higher. And it did.

It’s a creative way of approaching a business problem, and one that I’d argue is not utilized enough.

There are countless others. All that will not get looked at seriously by many poeple because, as I said above, does not increase profits the very moment that the decision is implimented.

You can say that I’m just a writer and I have no idea about how businesses really work, or that it IS being utilized to its fullest, I just don’t see it because I’m not a business expert.

To that I’d say, look back at your last 10 purchases. The last 10 things you wanted or needed. Was there any problem finding them? Probably not. If you want to get a new LCD bigscreen TV, there’s an abundance of them available. If you want to get a new Ford F-150 pickup, there are hundreds parked on a variety of lots waiting to be driven off.

But, think for a minute what might be different if there wasn’t.

That would create demand that might not otherwise exist. People know what they want but they don’t have access to it, yet.

It’s quite simple, and yet in my mind it’s not utilized nearly enough.