"Stop competing on price and start competing on imagination," Josh Linkner told attendees at the Inc. Leadership conference in Miami on June 8. Linkner, who founded online promotions company ePrize and is CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, is no stranger to out-there tactics: He once dreamed up a fictional competitor (called "Slither") that forever beat his company to new clients and sales goals. The threat of Slither forced it to cook up new ways to evolve its products and increase business.
At the conference, Linkner shared a few ways entrepreneurs can boost their teams' creativity, and use big ideas to beat out big competition:
Get Curious. Ask three questions again and again: "Why?" "What if?" and "Why not?" "It forces you to challenge conventional wisdom, and imagine what can be, rather than what is," Linkner said. He has his team ask "The Five Why's," an exercise where they starts with a question facing their business, answer it, and then questions the reason for that answer. It's akin to a five-year-old's questions about the blue sky, he says. It can lead to finding insights that are hiding in plain sight.
To read the full, original article click on this link: 5 Ways to Win With Creativity | Inc.com
