Creativity is vital to my success as an entrepreneur. I will do anything to facilitate new, unique thoughts to help me step up my game.

In my 100% normal world I hear two voices: the accountant and the entrepreneur.  The accountant keeps me on track and reminds me of risks, real life, and necessities.  The entrepreneur loves to be creative, dream big, and work hard with no immediate reward.  Although these two usually get along, sometimes one voice is louder than the other.

Right now I am in a period of my life where creativity is vital to my satisfaction with what I do.  I have been blessed to have money and good income in a tricky economy and many times I simply need to shut up the accountant in my head and let the entrepreneur run free.

When Ideas Come and When They Don’t

Tricky as that might be, I have recognized times and places where the accountant speaks up and, likewise, when the entrepreneur’s voice is a little bit louder.  Here is a short list:

Accountant is Louder…
-While sending emails and doing busy-work
-While shopping or spending money
-In the mornings

Entrepreneur is Louder…
-While it is dark in the evenings and night
-In the shower
-While I am on the move, especially walking or running

The Formula to New Ideas

So, whenever I need a little bit of inspiration, some good ideas, well, I simply take a jog and then take a long, dark shower.  Because mornings are usually a time I can get into a non-creative rut, I make sure my shower time gets my going by combining two idea-spots into one.

Creativity is too important these days to let it be hampered by something as simple as a little extra light while I wash my crevices.

Take-Aways

If you struggle with new ideas or creativity, spend a few days to a week watching where ideas come.  Try to identify places you receive “inpiration” and places you don’t.  Once you have identified these locations, make sure you schedule time to visit them at least once a day, if not more to let your mind be free and explore new ideas.

As I puruse the internet on my daily rounds, I frequently see the same mistakes being made over and over with landing page design.  Here’s a simple checklist to make sure aren’t missing the target with your landing page:

1)”Welcome to XYZ Widgets”

The oh-so-valuable area your headline occupies should not be filled with this overused, meaningly phrase.  Instead, there must to be a succint statement that tells the visitor (in not so many words) why you are the exact solution to their problems they have been searching for.  What is going to keep them from hitting the “back” button on their browser and moving on to the next search result?

2) “Wait, let me get my glasses…”

A twelve-point font size is about as small as you can get  on a landing page without losing efficacy.  Think about it, the larger the text size, usually, the more important the words you want the visitor to see (which is why headlines are big and fine print is…well…fine).  If you are using an uber-small font size, not only is it difficult to read, it tells the visitor, “This really isn’t that important anyways.”

3) “Chapter 1 – An Introduction”

A landing page is not a novel.  This doesn’t mean you should cut corners on what content is included, but rather when all the content is down, go back through and say it with half as many words.  Usually there is a lot of “text”, but little “content”.  Keep content levels high, and reading times low.

4) “The CTA is around here somewhere…”

Hidden calls to action.  You’ve just finished skimming a page.  You arrive at the bottom and with an aire or confusion, say to yourself, “Now what?”  If you want your visitor to take an action, you’ve got to do it and it must be in a place they can actually see it.  A blue, underlined link halfway down the last paragraph is not a visible call to action.  An 18pt, red, bolded link at the bottom is.  Make sure that not matter where they are, they can always make it to the next step.

5) “Whats a landing page?”

Yes, one of the biggest mistakes would probably be not having one.  You have a website but are not sure why.  Unless you have a page that, like a taxi-driver, picks up your visitor and takes them on a short, pleasant journey to their desination (solving their problem with your product)…your site isn’t good for much at all.  A landing page is the first step on that journey.

Here is the code:

Here is the link to the event (you will need to say that you are “attending” before you can invite your friends):
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172775499430794

Thanks again!