Creative people know that you have to "work" at being creative. This means you have to do it on a daily basis and come up with as many new ideas as possible. That means you need to warmup your brain and stretch the creative limits.

It's no different for entrepreneurs. Every day is a new creative challenge. How can we balance our budget? Get more customers? Create new marketing strategies?

Facing a blank slate is daunting, but you have to start somewhere. Warming up your creative brain is similar to a runner stretching. Stretch your brain with new knowledge, new music, new input. Do something different every single day. Whether it's driving down a new road, watching a new TV show or listening to a different point of view, try to stretch your brain as much as possible.

Get in the habit of coming up with as many new ideas for your business as you can. Create mind maps and start filling them in. Set a goal that you will come up with 10 new ways to get more customers. If you want to focus on a task, setting goals will help you do it. Don't edit yourself. Shoot for a goal of 10 new ideas and throw out the ones that don't fit.

Keep an idea file for your business. This should be for new products, new services, new markets and new ways of doing business. Put all of your research and notes into the files as you come up with them. You may not need it now, but keep it handy for the future. You never know when trends are going to change and you want to be ready to change with it. Be ready with new ideas.

Figure out what kind of atmosphere gets you in your creative "zone". Do you need to listen to a certain type of music or have a cup of coffee? Writing a page of nonsense sentences can get you going as a writer. Start the day doing this exercise. Do something. Anything. But just get started.

A good trick to warming up before sales calls is to call a friend first. It's just a way to warm up, so to speak, before launching into calling a stranger.

There's no reason you have to create all by yourself. Brainstorm with someone else to get your creative juices flowing. If you talk it out you might come up with a completely different outcome. And input from someone else may give you ideas you wouldn't have come up with yourself.

The bottom line is just to get in the habit of doing it every day. The more ideas you come up with, the better your chances of having one of them be brilliant.

Copyright (c) 2010 Julie Austin