#128 - 5 Ways Creativity Can Transform Your Sales

What if your biggest untapped business asset isn't a new strategy, funnel, or marketing tool — but your own creativity?

In this episode, holistic business coach and marketing strategist Deborah Smith shares why filling your creative well isn't a luxury, it's one of the smartest business moves you can make. After a weekend immersed in music festivals and live performance, Deborah discovered that creative renewal directly fueled her best ideas and most magnetic energy as an entrepreneur.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why creativity is the #1 overlooked sales strategy for purpose-driven entrepreneurs
• 5 practical ways creativity transforms your sales — from generating magnetic energy to designing standout offers
• How to use storytelling in your marketing so people remember you (not just your tips)
• Why trying to copy other people's business models leads to flops — and what to do instead
• How your unique creative voice is your greatest competitive advantage in a crowded online marketplace
• A simple weekly exercise to refill your creative well (it takes just one hour)
• How to repurpose one existing offer into 5 completely different presentations
• Why your lived experience — not trends or talking points — is your most powerful marketing asset

Mentioned in this episode:

• Soul Aligned Systems Mini Course — 4 videos to help you build a business system that supports your creativity ($7)
• Upcoming Summer Camp Podcast Series: How to turn your existing expertise into a valuable digital asset

This episode is for you if:

• You're a creative entrepreneur who feels drained by constant content creation
• Your marketing feels generic or like everyone else's
• You've been waiting to "earn" creative time instead of treating it as part of your process
• You want to sell more without following cookie-cutter strategies

Key Quote:
"Your creativity doesn't distract you from work — it actually fuels it."

Mindset to Market is a Luminous Creative Production. If you'd like to learn more about our business coaching program and group coaching container, please visit us online at DeborahcSmith.com.

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Mindset to Market is produced by Deborah C. Smith and designed to inspire and support big-hearted creatives in finding their own unique path, building a sustainable business, and creating financial, spiritual, mental wellness and abundance.

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Transcript

Have you ever noticed that your best business ideas almost never come when you're sitting at your desk trying really hard to have a good idea? No, they come when you're taking a walk, driving home from work or driving someplace, listening to music, when you're painting, when you're gardening, when you're playing with your kids, when you're cooking dinner. Somewhere in those moments when you stop forcing things and trying to force a solution, something shifts. And so we tend to think of creativity as sort of optional, something that we do once our work is finished. But I truly think that we have that backwards. I believe that the more connected we are to our own creativity, the easier it becomes to solve problems, to tell better stories, to connect with people, and ultimately to sell. So today I want to share five practical ways that creativity can transform your sales and why filling your creative well may be one of the smartest business strategies that you haven't been giving yourself permission to prioritize. So let's get right into it. Hey there. Welcome to the Mindset to Market podcast, your go-to space for practical tools and solutions to the everyday challenges of being a creative and soulful entrepreneur living in a material world. I'm your host, Deborah Smith, a holistic business coach and marketing strategist with 17 years of experience. I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and learn daily marketing practices that balance personal wellness with financial growth and impact. I'm here to offer you support with creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect, messy action so you can experience daily breakthroughs as you grow. If you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur building an online business, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Okay, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad to have you here as always, and shout out to the people who have left me reviews and ratings for the podcast recently. I thank you so much. Um, so today we're talking about something that's been sitting on my heart all weekend long, which is creativity. Not creativity as in making prettier graphics or learning a new Canva trick, but I'm talking about creativity as a source of fuel So as entrepreneurs, we spend so much of our time creating content, solving problems, serving clients, making big decisions that feel heavy to us, and then putting ourselves out into the world and taking risks. But where does all of that energy actually come from? And that's what I want to explore today. And so this past weekend, I spent almost every waking hour immersed in creativity. Uh, I went to a local music festival where I got to hear bands that I'd never heard of before and watched several friends actually perform, and it was just so rejuvenating for me. You know, there's something magical about watching artists do what they love. I heard lyrics that made me think differently. I saw musicians improvising and spontaneously creating on stage, and I noticed how every single performer had their own style, their own unique energy, and their own way of expressing themselves. And so then the next day, I actually got to step on stage and perform myself. Um, my, my band played a local brewery in the town that I live in, and so for a couple of hours, I just wasn't thinking about anything that had to do with, you know, the stress of my business. You know, no funnels, no email marketing, no podcast downloads, no sales. I was thinking about being in tune, harmonizing, right? Lyrics, delivering meaning. I was listening to other people, what they were presenting, and responding to the musicians around me and also the audience, and just being fully present. And then something really interesting happened, which is what prompted this episode, which is that this morning, Monday morning, I sat down at my desk, um, and instead of feeling drained or like, "Woe is me, it's Monday. What am I gonna create this week that's gonna make things keep going and moving, you know, move the needle?" And instead of that, ideas were just, like, flowing out of me, and I realized that my creative well was literally overflowing. It had been filled back up through doing something that was truly about just being present and, you know, listening and responding and col- you know, just collaborating. And this reminded me that creativity isn't something that I just do when I get done with work, right? It's actually something that allows me to do my best work, and I believe that that is true for all of us. And so today, I really wanna share five ways in which I think you can apply this to your business. And this is not about artistry. It's not about having a skill like being a great painter or being a musician or being a songwriter or, you know- creativity in the sense of like y- a unique skill that you then practice. I'm talking about like we all have this. We have imagination and a creative force that lives within us. So point number one or way number one in which creativity can improve your sales is exactly what I just shared, which is that creativity gives you new energy, and that energy is magnetic to people. So when we spend all of our time consuming Right? Scrolling online, learning, listening to podcasts, even though I'm glad you're listening to this right now, um, I'm hoping that this becomes sort of a springboard for you to think creatively as opposed to just consuming, right? When we're comparing ourself to others, when we're just constantly consuming content, our brains get tired. It's, it's too much. We need to have there be an engine that is one of exchange. So as much as we intake information and, and ideas, we then are outputting and producing to sort of balance that out. And so when we spend time creating something simply because we enjoy it, we come back with fresh energy. And here's the link. People buy energy. They buy a feeling. I've talked about this in terms of marketing messaging quite a bit, but I just wanna kind of put this in the context of, like, your, your ability to freshly create something literally at any given moment, you know, assuming you have the, the space inside your brain to do so. So people buy energy. They buy a feeling. They don't buy fake excitement, right? They're magnetized to real, genuine enthusiasm. And so think about the last time that you talked about something that you genuinely loved. Didn't it feel just so easy to gush about the thing that you love? Like, think about a situation in your life that you just absolutely loved, a movie that you saw, or, you know, spending some time walking in a particular part of the woods, or just doing something that you really loved. It's really easy to talk about it, and you can easily, you know, compel somebody to go do the same thing by telling your story about it because you're energized about it. You're magnetizing them to it. So that's the energy that your audience will genuinely connect with and feel also energized. So here's the exercise. Here's the practical application. I want you to try this. And yes, you can. Don't... If your brain starts to tell you, "Oh, I can't do that. I don't have time," I am here to, to, to stop that thought in its tracks before you even have it. I want you to schedule one hour this week for just creative play. So this could be anything. It could be painting. It could be just, like, doodling on a piece of paper and coloring it in with colored pencils. No skill required. It could be just listening to, um, an album that you love and letting yourself move around to the music. That's creative play. That's fluidity. You could cook something, try some new ingredients. Go hang out in a garden. If you don't have one of your own, visit a public garden, and just- Put your hands in the dirt and, and try moving things around, right? Maybe write a poem, go to an art museum. Do something that has absolutely nothing to do with your business, and then notice how you feel when you return back to work. And I promise you, you're gonna feel a f- something has shifted, and there's a flow to the work you're doing. Something about the, the creativity and the play is gonna spark something for you. I don't know what it's gonna be, you don't know what it's gonna be, but I promise you it will happen. Okay, point number two is that creativity is an excellent way to help you solve problems. Think about this. Every successful business exists because someone solved an old problem in a new way. I'm gonna say that again. All successful businesses have one thing in common. They exist because they help solve an, an old problem, a problem that's been around for a really long time, in a new creative way. So it's not about being artistic. Once again, it's not about being, having a skill in a certain, you know, artistic field. It's about seeing possibility. And so instead of asking, "Why isn't anyone buying?" I want you to ask yourself, "What if I approached this sale completely differently?" And instead of having another webinar, maybe you switch to doing an audio series. Or instead of running a challenge, maybe you decide to go behind the scenes and just have an open house and show what's going on inside your program. Maybe instead of building another digital PDF, you switch it up and you decide to record a private podcast so that your audience has a fresh perspective on how you would work with them. Because creative thinking creates opportunities for new open pathways for people to find you. So as a practical application for this point, I want you to take one offer that you already have, an existing offer, something that you've already created and sold. Look at it and then write down five completely different ways that you could present that same offer. Now, don't judge the ideas. Don't judge anything about it. Just brainstorm. Everything ... You're in a yes session, I call it. We wanna do lots of yes sessions before you ever get to that selective process where you start saying, "Okay, not that one, not that one," and start getting into the nos, right? We want to just pure creativity here. Write down five ways that you can present this offer in a different way than you've done before. And the goal is not to do this perfectly. It's just possibility. Open up a pathway for creative play. And I promise you, you will start to have sparks of ideas that could slightly shift the way you've been selling your offer, and that alone might refresh your enthusiasm and your energy around selling it. So point number three is that creativity makes your messaging more memorable. Wow, that's a ton of Ms. Let me say it again. Creativity makes your messaging memorable. So facts are very easy to forget, but stories are gonna stick around in people's mind. They're gonna remember the creative details of your story. So this episode is a perfect example. You probably won't remember all the details of my five points for how creativity can help you with the sales, but you probably will remember that I spent the weekend at a music festival and playing music, right? Because that story sort of brought some things to life, and stories do that. They help people see themselves inside your messaging. They create emotional fields, they build trust, and they make your marketing sound like you instead of sounding like everyone else. And it's a huge problem that we're all up against inside, you know, marketing our businesses right now with, with AI the way that it is. It is so, so, so easy to wind up sounding exactly like everybody else. And I'm not knocking the use of AI in helping you strategically, you know, save time and organize your business, but I do think you need to take some time to bank some of your own stories so that when you're talking about your business, you sound different because you're telling your lived experience. So as a, as an exercise, I want you to try this. Instead of writing your next social media post around a tip or a bulleted point that is like a detail of what you teach or share or do, start by telling a story. So just ask yourself this exact question that I asked myself before I created this episode. What happened in my life this week that taught me something that my audience also needs to hear? And again, this episode is a great example. I was like, "Ah, I was at this music festival, and it was so inspiring, and I feel such a deep flow of creativity. Oh, my audience needs to be reminded that their creative genius, their own imagination, a free tool that is inside your brain at all given- at all moments, is the most powerful business asset." So that's what that turned into this episode, right? So what is... what happened in my life this week that taught me something that my audience needs to hear? And it's just gonna give you so many... a- an explosion of ideas of ways that you could, you know, present your business. So I want you to really try doing this. Write a story. Start, start your content s- posts with a story about your life. It's gonna change the way that people listen to you, I promise you this. Okay, point number four, moving on. Creativity helps you to design better offers. And I think most listeners know that a huge part of my service is offer creation. So if you're newly listening to this podcast, welcome. Um, a big part of how I serve my clients is really getting into the creative and ideation about how their offer can be unique and stand out in the mark- in a very crowded marketplace, and just in the online space in general. So we do tons of differentiation, and a lot of that comes from telling stories But sometimes we think that creating something new means building an entirely new business. The way that I think about it is that it just means packaging your expertise differently. So one workshop that you run could become a guide. It could become a mini course. It could become a private podcast, a workbook, an email series, a challenge. Just one good idea can become an entire ecosystem, and that's actually what we're gonna be exploring, uh, over the next several weeks and over this summer together on this podcast because your next digital asset doesn't have to start from scratch. It should grow from something that you've already created or someplace inside your business when you've already gotten a win or had some traction. All right, so for the exercise and the sort of practical application of this tip, I want you to do this very simple exercise. Open a, uh, your Google Drive. Look for one piece of content that you're actually really proud of. Maybe you just go back and read a blog post that you wrote or an email that you wrote or it's-- could be, like, an Instagram reel that you created that you love, and then ask yourself, "How else could this be experienced?" So for example, if it was an Instagram reel where you're... I'll give you an example from one of my clients who's having a lot of success. She's been creating these mini, um, ten-second sound bath episodes for her Instagram, and they're, they're going viral. They're getting shared. They're, they're being played over and over and over again 'cause people are loving these mini, you know, tune-ups basically with, like, her singing bowls. How else could that be experienced? Could she do a, a five-week, you know, mini tune-up series through email? Could she add it as a challenge inside her membership? Like, there's different ways that she could take the success of that reel and turn it into other ways that people consume content. She could even write a blog series with the video at the end of each blog, because, like, lots of people read blogs that might not be on Instagram. So there's just different ways to package that very same successful piece of content. So for, for point number four, that creativity helps you design better offers, it's as simple as that. I want you to think creatively about how you present content that's been successful or an offer that's already being sold. Like, how else could you package it? All right, moving on to point number five, and this is, I think, the core message of this whole episode, is that creativity, your creativity is your competitive advantage. So like it or not, the marketplace is crowded. Like it or not, you know, there are other people already doing what you do. And here's what I know to be true after many, many years, after almost two decades of selling things on the internet, is that the internet does not need another copy of someone else's business, period. The internet does not need another coach saying exactly what every other coach says. We are actually exhausted by that. The internet does not need another template. What it needs is your wildly unique perspective on how this whole thing can work. We need your story, your voice, and your way of explaining how to do something. And your originality, your unique creative genius, is what's gonna make people remember you instead of somebody else. So I lean into this heavily inside my business. I know my creative advantage is ... Or my, sorry, my creativity is my competitive advantage. I know this because I've been doing this for a long time, and I have tried copying other people and I failed. I, I've, I've talked about this at great length on this podcast. I would say almost every time I have had a flop in my business, like if I tried to launch something in a certain way and it didn't work out, I was basically copying somebody else's template, and it just didn't work out for me because I couldn't deliver Like I was trying to perform. I was trying to perform, and I didn't quite feel it in my body. It was not an embodied true expression of how I, I understand things. And originality is what is gonna make people remember my work. So this is not about being louder. It's about being just authentic, right? So here's the, the practical application. Here's the exercise. The next time you're about to create a piece of content, before you ask, "Okay, what should I post today?" I think you should reposition it and say, "What do I genuinely believe at my core, you know, as it relates to my work, as it relates to my clients, that I don't hear enough people talking about?" Like, not, not a lot of people are putting it this way. This is something that I believe, and I'm gonna position my message in this unique, you know, c- stem- stemming from my own belief system. And then just start there. Talk about what you know and what you believe And don't worry about whether or not it's already popular or trending or what the gurus say you should talk about. Like, do this from your own authentic core idea. I'm sure you have things that you believe about your work that not a lot of people talk about, that isn't necessarily, like, the popular talking point. That's really cool. I wanna hear your point of view. I wanna hear your story and where you're coming from. Like, what makes you different, what makes you stand out to me is that your, I don't know, great-grandmother, you know, first did ... You know, made this recipe, you know, three generations ago. It was handed down to her from her grandmother, and then it's passed down through generations, and then you learned it when you were five, and then you've been making this recipe for your whole life, and then you just realized, you know, this was, like, the ancestral gift. And I don't know, the- just tell me a story about your recipe, about your process. Like, what made you decide to do the thing you do? What do you believe about your work that is different? That's gonna really hook your listeners. And listen, there is enough pie for everyone to have a slice, and what, what, what kind of helps you find your space, your, your footprint in the, in the online space is that exact practice of just, like, taking up a little bit of space with your story. So I just give you permission to, to, to believe in your own story, tell your own story, and don't be afraid to be different. That's what we want. That's what we're craving. We're craving unique, authentic stories. Okay, so in conclusion, um, I'm just gonna say the five points again and then give you a little wrap-up on this. So the five ways in which creativity is gonna help your sales is, number one, it's gonna give you new, refreshed energy. Just by being creative, you're gonna feel energized, and that energy in and of itself is magnetic. Number two, it's gonna help you solve problems, right? Thinking about things in a different way, seeing new possibilities helps you quickly solve problems that you run into. Point number three is that creativity makes your messaging more memorable because people remember stories, not facts and details. Point number four is that creativity helps you to design better and more interesting offers, and that's my wheelhouse, and I promise you this is true. I've helped dozens of women this year alone create a brand new offer that is wild uni- unique, and then take it to market and sell out their inaugural containers in like a matter of weeks. I mean, they're doing it because it's different, not because they figured out, you know, how to completely copy somebody else's pattern. Not because I, I said to them, "Oh, do it my way." No, I said, "Let's find your way." It's a different approach. Uh, okay, and point number five is that your creativity is your creative and competitive advantage. Telling me your unique point of view, your voice, your story is gonna make you stand out for me and- make me more interested in you. And your whole audience is gonna find that more interesting than just seeing that you figured out how to, you know, repeat the same talking points or follow the same trends that are already happening. So it's really just about tapping into that, that imagination, giving yourself space for creative play. And I think if I could leave you with one simple takeaway or one key reminder from this whole episode, it's that I don't want you to wait until your business succeeds to make space for your creativity. I want you to make room for that creativity right now as a part of your business, right? As a part of your business process so that your business can succeed. And think of it as a business asset, not a reward for working hard, but as a part of the process. Because your creativity doesn't distract you from work, it actually fuels it. It gives you this, this genuine energy that's flowing through you, and it's just really fun as well. Okay, so I hope you're finding this helpful, and if something in this episode is resonating with you and maybe you're realizing that your business should reflect more of who you really are instead of following another cookie cutter strategy, and you would like to play around with that, I would love to invite you to check out my Soul Aligned Systems mini course. This is really, truly a mini course. It's just four videos, um, that follow sort of a sequence, um, that ... And the goal is not to just build a better system, which of course is always a goal, but the goal is to build a system that supports your creativity instead of replacing it. So when your business feels aligned with the way you think naturally, the way you create, the way that you serve, selling becomes so much easier. All of your assets start to line up, and it just becomes so much more easy to sell because things feel in alignment with that very unique creative flow that's yours and yours alone. So I'll drop the link in today's show notes, and check it out. It's $7 and it's ... the value is probably many hundreds of dollars. And like I said, it's a mini course, so it's easy to consume it quickly. Um, please check it out. Okay, and over the next several weeks, I'm gonna start kicking off a special summer camp series here on this podcast. This is all about creating a valuable digital asset that you can use inside your business from the expertise that you already have. So if you've been sitting on an idea, if you've been wondering how to package up what you already know into something that can serve more people, then you're gonna love this series that's coming this summer. It's based on multiple successful summer camp private coaching containers that I have hosted in the past, and this year I'm doing it differently. I'm making it open to the public through this podcast for free. So please stay tuned and check in for those episodes. And until next time, keep creating, keep trusting your voice. I'll see you next week, uh, in the next episode, and until then, may you be vibrant