Page 188 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

21 Tips for Selling Creative Ideas 179

have to be good. But, heck, if you’re using 100 MPH Thinking, you’ve
got more ideas than you know what to present anyway. Offer them a
choice. Many people are afraid of taking that leap. Because a lot of
people don’t believe they can have lots of good ideas. Well, I believe
you can, and I’ve been around enough high-quality creative people
who believe they can—and do. Besides that, an interesting thing hap-
pens when you present choice. A 180° experience, so to speak.
You see, most people in trying to sell an idea are really just trying to
get someone else to buy the single idea they want them to take. Well,
going back to the Tao of selling (i.e., force meets force and surrender
meets surrender), when you try to force people, they forcibly say no,
quite typically. When you offer them a choice, quite frequently after
absorbing the many choices, the sellee will ask, “Well, what do you rec-
ommend?” And then you can make your recommendation. Easy.
You may go in with a favorite, but I will tell you that if you have an
open mind, and this has happened to me on many occasions, after judg-
ing the reaction of your audience to your numerous ideas, your favorite
might change. If you go in with a hard-and-fast recommendation, then
change your stance when you hear a reaction, you could look like a fool
or you could look like you’re open-minded, depending on how you
play it. But when you offer a choice, quite often people will ask what
you recommend. And as a professional, isn’t that what you want?
The great irony is that if you recommend only one idea, they look for
a choice. I work with ad agencies that say, “We present only one con-
cept per ad.” And I’ll ask how often they present only one. “Well, we
present one five times in a row until we get it right.” Well, then you’re
not presenting just one. You’re having a very, very lengthy choice ses-
sion (and very expensive, I might add). And how often do they come
back and take choice number 2 after seeing numbers 3 and 4? It does
happen, and it’s a waste of time, effort, and money.
I like offering choice early on in the creative process. I don’t like
offering a choice of finished ideas. That’s a lot of wasted effort. I like
offering people a choice of ideas that are in earlier stages of develop-
ment. But make sure they’re all at similar stages of development,

Timeline of a great idea (continued)

Timeline of a lousy idea (continued)
"I should have gone to Tom
Monahan's Creative Camp."