Your Pot of Gold & Business Tools for Creative Entrepreneurs
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Grant Stain | Business Tools for Creative Entrepreneurs
Is creativity a curse or an asset? That's the question that fastest-selling franchise creator and CEO of BLAM! has asked himself and asked us at Creators Club.
Grant delivers a practical talk, giving you the tools to stay focused on and accountable to your creative projects. Other insights include apps to stay motivated, ways of using social media to help learning and strategies to help you prioritise important and creative work. Watch the above video and find out how being a maniac can make you a successful entrepreneur.
“Is creativity a curse or an asset? The more creative you are the more ways you can think about going about any one thing”
💡 Key Highlights
0:27 Make notes and implement tools straight away. “Action is what it’s all about.”
3:15 All decisions are creative unless the decisions are forced upon you.
3:30 Is creativity a curse or an asset? The more creative you are the more ways you can think about going about any one thing. This is something that Grant has struggled with being creative. Especially when it comes to business.
4:45 From a career in marketing/design and as a graphic designer, to running multiple businesses.
6:00 Changing his trajectory, stopped being a designer and start a business/agency. At 7 he wanted to be an astronaut or graphic designer
8:30 Skill-building
9:10 Always thinking about the next thing. His branding and business background allows him to set-up a business in a week. There’s no barrier to him in that regard but it spread him too thin.
10:40 He’s had all sorts of businesses like a pub/micro brewery, apps and cars
11:45 The Big Local app, fastest-selling franchise in 2012 UK. Went international in Germany. Big learning curve. The design part of was what drew him to it. It was really hard though. -
13:40 Founded and set-up a supercar business. Went international.
15:00 Finding a business manager.
17:00 Marketing websites for small businesses. Which gives small businesses websites that can really work for them. Wanted to help those that get confused by the volume of information. He wanted to create effective, cost-effective digital strategies that help businesses let them focus solely on what they’re good at.
“Ask yourself, what’s the fastest way to the money?’”
23:30 Focus on what you’re are good at.
25:00 To-do lists: Choose 6 things (the Ivy Lee MethodDon’t pick more than 6. - Put the 6 things in order of importance
- Consider ‘what’s the fastest way to the money.’
- If you get all of them done then add more. If you don’t get them all done then move them to the next day. -29:00 Time management matrix (Stephen Covey, Urgent/Not Urgent and Important/Not Important)
Focus on the not urgent but important, as they never get done.
33:00 Must diarise things to stay productive.
33:30 If you’re not thinking like a maniac about how your time managed then you’ll fail in business, it’s hard being in business.
34:30 You’ve got to get obsessed with work to succeed.
35:00 6 Tools to use to help you be more effective, efficient, productive and strategize better.
- Goals > App: Vision Board – save it as a screensaver
- To Do List > App: Reminders/Tasks - make reminders for doing stratgy work; diarise it.
- Calendar > App: Your calendar - List your actions, track your targets, keeps you accountable.
- Learning > App: Podcasts/audible - can listen and learn whilst doing other things.
- Learning > Social Media – Facebook – separate account for learning
- Affirmations > App – Think Up - uses a ‘cookbook’ to help track his stuff. -41:00 Accountability is key. It’s hard to be accountable to yourself. You’re more likely to do a task if someone else is watching you.
41:50 Digital Detox - “How do you break away?” Allows himself to listen to fiction 30 mins a-day when travelling. This gives his brain a rest and he’s fresh for work. Then does a Sunday digital detox day. 9am-6pm no tech. He loves it. -
44:20 “You have to consume in order to create”. “Some are consumers, some are creators”
44:50 “Half-built bridges” things you start but never finish them e.g. 74 Marketing strategies, pick one.
46:45 BLAM Marketing Audit.
“Half-built bridges are projects
you start but don’t finish. Pick a bridge, pick one and finish it.”
💡 Key Lessons
Learn to manage your creativity. For creative-minded entrepreneurs, creativity can be a gift or a curse, especially when it comes to having many ideas and half-finished projects.
Build the business management skills. Moving from designer to being business owner, you’ll have to find the right team around you to grow the business.
Being organised and getting things done is imperative. Use your technology to keep you accountability and disconnect from it to refresh your brain.
💭 Coaching Questions
What’s the one project you need to focus on completing?
How can you use technology to enhance (not hinder) your productivity?
Which targets and goals are keeping you accountable?