It’s here, a brand spanking New Year, full of opportunity, success and mistakes, surprisingly like every new time in our lives. What makes a single time of year a chance to peer into both our personal and organizational crystal ball? It is the feeling of hope that lies before an unblemished calendar of possibilities. So, here are a few new “happenings” on the drawing board for Creative Ventures.

	My first eBook on the Laws of Creative Ventures will be available. This highlights the core operating principles for all of our programs, education modules, and strategic platforms. It will be really cool and fun!
	A new delivery method for our program follow ups called – BRAIN JOLTS. Every participant in a Creative Ventures program gets a three part follow up delivered via the internet that highlights the foundation principles of the program. These BRAIN JOLTS will have a rich media delivery platform to facilitate a fresh visual connection to the follow up.
	The Creative Ventures podcast will make a triumphant return with cutting edge content on leadership, thinking, communicating and asnything else I think will jazz the way you see things!
	The Repeatable Successful Acts platform is expanding in its scale and scope. New industries will be added, broadening the impact that these simple, but powerful behaviors will have on the way you do business!

These are just a couple of the way cool things that will set the pace for what is sure to be an unpredictable, yet spectacular 2009!

Let’s stick with a theme. What would be three strong steps you could take to be ready to deliver the highest potential to yourself, your clients, and your organization? I begin every client conversation with this process and have shared it with you in the past, so this is a reminder of the importance of knowing who you are. Start with the basics that will be CRITICAL to building your success formula. Sit down and do some work on IDENTITY. This exercise is all about your “story”, the way you present your place in the economic world. Here is the simple (you guessed it) three part journey of your story:

1. WHAT DO YOU DO? Sounds easy, doesn’t it. But try defining what you do, what your organization does in a way that engages, that touches something in someone, that generates interest, tell me a story of what you and your organization do, so I can give a damn about doing business with you.
2. WHAT VALUE DO YOU BRING TO YOUR TEAM, YOUR CLIENT, AND YOUR SHAREHOLDERS? Value is a difficult thing to define, but your company’s entire existence is anchored by this simple relationship between you, your product or service and your customers. Value is about meeting needs, about the urgency of that desire. Value is tangible and goes beyond the simple supply and demand formula. People will often pay more for a similar product or service simply because they find a different value than price. Define this relationship in a meaningful manner and you will engage your clients at a much higher level.
3. HOW ARE YOU DIFFERENTIATED IN A CROWDED AND COMMODITIZED MARKET? This is the kicker to the story process. Everyone can do what I do, everyone sells what I sell, and everyone has access to my services, so why on Heaven and Earth would someone choose me and my company? WHY? Your story needs to tell me WHY. You need to define separation. Think about it – in a vanilla world you need to know what makes you rocky road.

Who you are and what you do need to become a living thing in the minds of both existing and potential customers? You need to be REAL, with a simple but powerful story that rolls off your lips, a story with the core information connected with emotion. This should be your starting point for 2009. Take the time, I promise, it will be worth it.

Perspective: Think you’re doing badly? You could be the producers of the animated feature film, Delgo. Never heard of it, don’t feel bad, after spending $40 million on production plan that bucked the traditional Hollywood machine, Marc Adler and his team had to release it themselves with little or no marketing budget. Couple this with a mixed up, mishmashed story and you get a bad opening weekend. When averaging the numbers, about two people per theater saw it on its opening weekend. Yep, you read that right, two people. I loved the idea of an independent shot at the Hollywood animation giants, but they lacked the foundation of success. It’s never about how cool the animation is, but instead it’s about where you start. The story is the foundational principle of movie success. Be a maverick, but have a GREAT STORY to make an impact.

Home Away from Home: Hotels are facing the same challenges as every business, how can they garner your loyalty, and what can they do to give you a little more, enough to make them the choice. Why do you choose Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt (we know why you choose the Ritz or the 4 Seasons) or any other hotel? Here are a few new things hitting the hospitality industry in 2009 as methods of separation and differentiation:

• New HD TV’s, some with surround sound and iPod docking stations.
• Catch up on your prime time favorites that you miss when traveling. For $2 an episode you can catch that House episode you missed.
• For $20 you can play your favorite video game and guess what, it comes with munchies.

Heck, you might not want to go home.

A Hackers Economy: As we become more and more reliant on the World Wide Web to move stuff along our exposure to internet bad guys increases. US businesses spend about $67 billion a year to secure our networks and prevent data theft. The average loss for a cybercrime has jumped to almost $350,000. These thieves drain $117,500,000,000 from the economy every year. Wow, this makes the old locking file cabinet look a lot better! The value of your web security is never more visible than now!

CONTACT: Interested in these ideas?

You can contact Steve at steve@creativeventures.com or give him a call at 972-490-7717.