What do you mean there is no Creativity Button?

So sometimes I divide the world into two different groups. Now the groups change from time to time. Sometimes the groups are hot dog eaters and non-hot dog eaters (not sure why anyone would not want to have a hot dog for every meal). Sometimes is it people that eat ice cream versus people that don’t (yes, there are some people that are lactose intolerant, like me, but they should just suck it up and enjoy the pleasure before the pain). And sometimes it is creative people versus anti-creative people. Notice that I said anti- instead of non- because many people that can’t create put up road blocks for those that can.
Well, the other night my wife and I went to a meet and greet for a new baby in our community. It was a nice enough affair, all the appropriate food and drink (that means it was not meant for me but for nice ladies that tea), beautiful baby and wonderful parents and family. As one of the events of the get together there was a beautiful nursey rhyme book where you were supposed to write something for the baby and parents to see. I am pretty certain that the baby will not remember this event when they are old enough to read what was written in this beautiful book, but perhaps they will think of the people that did the actual writing.
When it became our turn to write in the book my wife looked at me and said “give me something creative for the book!” As a backdrop let me tell you that in our family we have divided responsibilities. My wife is the fix it person and the bookkeeper. I am the cook and the creative one. If you gave me the instructions to put together a wagon you might end up with a camel. If you gave my wife a blank sheet of paper and told her to write something there might be fungus growing on the paper before you calmly took her away. She colors within the lines and I don’t even see the lines or understand why anyone would want to have lines.
None the less, the timer had begun. She wanted something creative and she wanted it about five minutes ago. As she was telling me to be creative that voice in the back of my head was screaming to me “yeah dummy, just push the creative button and spit something out. Just do a Seinfeld riff on why they call them diapers instead of poop and pea catchers. Or why diapers should have designs on them when the babies cannot focus past their noses.” That voice was starting to scream at me when it struck me. Non-creative types simply don’t understand what creative people do. While Renoir and Monet were certainly creative and talented, their creativity was much different than mine. Every creative person goes about their creative process in a different manner. My creativity is simply taking things to the next progression. Sometimes that causes a problem but most of the time it does not. And our minds tend to wander a bit. Now what were we talking about again, oh yes, creating something for the book.
Well, I looked at the nursey rhymes that were in the book and settled on one that had not been chosen yet, Mary had a Little Lamb. We came up with a nice extension of the poem that was cute and memorable (at least we thought so) and my wife wrote it in the book (my hand writing I learned in Medical School and I am not even a doctor). Everyone was happy.
In the past two years I have often been asked (actually just yesterday, hence the writing of this piece) of how we came up with the idea of Axcelora. Well, for me, it is not creative at all, but merely an extension of a thought process. If you ever speak to a professional sales person, one that is good about their job, they will tell you the most difficult task they have in the sales cycle in getting in front of a decision maker. If that process could be shortened in any way they would be forever grateful. In thinking through my own B2B selling experience I knew that when I was introduced to a potential client by a friend that I was much more likely to get an appointment and my sales success increased as well. So all I had to do was bring a lot of friends together and then we could introduce the world. In my mind not creative at all, just a logical next extension. Well, two years later and it seems to be working. We have about 50 Partners, a dozen or so clients and orders for 250 appointments.
So in the extension of my initial thought that they world is divided in two different parts I think there are people that can make appointments and those that cannot. But withAxcelora people those that can’t make appointments don’t have to be in the same bucket as those that can’t make sales. And those that can make appointments but can’t sell, there is now a way for you to leverage your Rolodex, all brought to you by the friendly folks at Axcelora. For more information about creativity or appointments please check us out at www.axcelora.com.