Getting creative: How to know when you need outside help
Posted On May 23, 2018
What is creativity?
The answer to that question will be different depending upon who you ask. But to Rich Sullivan, CEO of Red Square Agency in Mobile, it’s really quite simple.
“Really, creativity to me is the ability to adapt,” Sullivan says, “the ability to take what’s happened — facts and experiences and trends that you can draw a backwards line on — and be able to look what’s going to happen and predict something or literally influence what the future is.”
Influencing the future is what Sullivan’s clients would like him to do – particularly, influencing their future sales. But how does a business owner know when it’s worth it to bring in an outside creative team like Red Square to redesign the packaging for its products, or redesign its website, or rebrand the entire business?
Sullivan shares his thoughts on this topic in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston.”
Believe it or not, Sullivan says that with a variety of tools and tutorials available on the internet, business owners can teach themselves how to be creative. “I think anybody can be creative,” he says. “I think some people are predisposed to it. … But I think like anything else, it’s a skill that can be learned.”
So why hire an outside agency? The answer lies in how much your time is worth. Do you, as a business owner, have the time to learn the creative tools necessary to do what you want done, whether it be a redesigned website or a new logo? Or would your time be better spent running the business?
Sometimes, he adds, there is value simply in bringing a fresh set of experienced eyes into the business to see what you may be missing.
Sullivan shares how to know if your website needs a reboot, the tools available to measure its effectiveness, why packaging is even more important than your website, why design can make or break your business, and what he means when he says “nothing kills a bad product like good advertising.”