How to Sell Your Creative Idea? Improve Structuring, Expanding & Presenting Your Concepts

1. Introduction. How to Sell Your Creative Idea?: Hello. My name is Sarunas Kirdeikis and welcome to the masterclass for creatives, how to sell your creative idea. [MUSIC] During my 15 years of work in the fields of event management, TV production, creative directing, developing a creative idea from start to finish, always was a huge part of my job. I've worked with projects like Dancing With The Stars, The Voice, Eurovision, created numerous workshops, and I also helped brands like Porsche, Bentley, Euronics, Philips, launch their products in a unique way. All of those times, a big part of success was not only bringing a good idea to the table, but also knowing how to deliver this idea and keep it safe from dying during the development process. I've come all the way from being a person responsible for just a small fraction of the whole creative project to actually creating a whole concept of the complete successful project myself. That's why, in this course, I want to solve one of the biggest challenges when it comes to working with a creative task, how to actually bring your creative idea to life, how to sell your creative idea. Skills you will master in this course. First, organizing, your brainstorming sessions, two, sketching a blueprint of your idea size, ambition, and needed resources, three, drawing a reasonable timeline, four, creating moodboards, five, identifying the listener through D-I-S-C or DISC assessment. 2. 5 techniques to bring your Idea to Life.: [MUSIC] Now here's the question, why do so many great ideas that people have never see the light of day? They remain forever in a drawer waiting for better days or right right sponsor or are completely rejected during the first steps of presentation. In this course, I will share five main reasons why this might happen and why it's important to not only have great ideas, but also learn how to prepare, present, and sell them. I will be combining sales language with the language of creative production, and show you why those two worlds go together so well. I'll use the term cell in a broader meaning defining not only direct exchange for money, but also exchange for great results, new job opportunities, opportunities to produce under your name, social recognition, and establish long-term work relationships. Together, we will prepare a nice, well-rounded framework for your idea, and give you all the necessary tools to get ready to present and sell your idea to your team and your client. During my 15 years of work in event management, TV production, and creative directing, what I've learned through hot and cold is that a good creative is also a good salesperson. Potential reasons why your idea might not see the daylight might be the idea died during a sloppy presentation. Maybe it was done in a slightly unclear manner or maybe the listener had a wrong impression of what you had in mind. Now, maybe your production team or friends that were helping were not on the same page, started drifting away during the process, and the final result came out too far from the original intention. It happens a lot. We will start with tips on how to choose the best version of your creative idea by effectively structuring your brainstorming sessions. Also learning to document the results and keeping those sessions time and result effective. Two, I will show you a great exercise on how you can sketch a flexible blueprint of your creative idea that will help you avoid being stuck with only one option, and will also help you show the scale and overall ambition of your ideas. Instead of one size, we're going to have three different sizes of the same idea. Three, I will show you an effective way how to draw an easy to understand timeline for your idea and it's developing process. It will provide you and your listener, of course, with a better understanding of which direction you're going and the required resources time-wise. Four, we will learn how to communicate the visual part of your idea by creating a mood board. With a slightly different approach, this will help you effectively communicate the exact image you have in your mind of how your idea should look like. Five, we will learn about four different types of people, different listeners, and how to present the same information, same idea differently, based on your listeners type because people absorbing information differently. We will finish the course with a personal task for you, a fully out of your own creative idea. Whether it's a birthday party or exciting to be reality show or a great new product, all of these rules can be applied. 3. Why Brainstorming is So Important?: [MUSIC] To begin with, we all have great ideas. It doesn't matter what your occupation is, we as humans have a natural ability to create, simply by connecting our experiences, imagination, and knowledge in many different ways based on our culture, environment, and resources at hand. Let's say you got asked to come up with a creative solution to a problem, or organize an exciting event, or design an awesome product. Step number 1, start with a structured brainstorming session. Now, even if you already have an initial idea, it is very important to play around and find as many as possible versions of it, also strengths and weaknesses, possible challenges, unique details, and great selling points. With a structured brainstorming session, you will avoid encountering the possible idea killer, which is having too many solutions for a given task, or on the contrary, feeling like you haven't explored the idea enough and could have done better. That's why in this step you will get a firm grip on the particular direction you want to go with your idea. Also, you will discard all distractions and also start adding layers and cool features to your initial idea. Lastly, I will give you a list of five important questions to answer on what problems your ideas solves and what value it brings to make it an even more appealing. So, let's do all of this with a nice structured brainstorming session. [MUSIC] 4. 5 Ways to Keep Your Brainstorming Session Efficient, Fun & Flowing: [MUSIC] Brainstorming is basically a group activity to gather new ideas and explore alternative approaches to reach a best solution. I strongly believe it can be done also on your own, but having more people will result in more unique outcomes. You've probably heard about brainstorming many times. My three favorite rules for this session are, first, react with the yes attitude. No matter what suggestions you hear, even if you don't really feel like it at first, just yes. Two, join the flow of other people's ideas by adding your input towards the same direction and give them time to expand so let other people explore the idea a little bit more. Three, turn the session into a fun process with a relaxed atmosphere [MUSIC] In my experience, these are the five most important things on how to get the most out of your brainstorming sessions. Tip number 1, brainstorming sessions are like a lunch. Leave the table before you're full and be careful not to overeat. That means one session for one idea should stay within the time limit of 30 to 45 minutes. There is no point in sitting there for two hours over boiling with the ideas that might cloud your mind from really good ones and possibly gradually transform into doubt, leaving you confused and eventually feeling empty-handed. Tip number 2, trust the first impulse. There is this mysterious unwritten law in our creative field that the first sentence you write down or a sentence you say out loud, are usually really valuable ones, not perfect, but really valuable. It's most likely because the suggestion comes from a fresh, clear mind and I personally believe that every creative idea accounts so pay close attention to what occurs first. Tip number 3, instead of one long brainstorming session, have two short ones separated with at least with a 24 four gap. Two is always better than one. This way you will give your brain time to work around the first impulses and create additional neural paths in your brain between the topics you and your team discussed, your brain will have more space to combine words, images, and impressions, arranging them in a more unique way, providing you with even better solutions, more impressive visuals, and better words to describe your creative idea. Tip number 4, be mindful about your brainstorming space. Tip number 5, proper documentation. Let's say you have a first brainstorming session around 45 minutes. Begin with introducing the creative task, what is the goal of today, and then what are approximate expectations. Now, it's very important to properly document all the ideas that are being thrown on the table during this session until the next time. You can do this easily by writing a name of each person in the session and next to their names, write the initial suggestion they had, and later followed by a few keywords or bullet points of how that suggestion evolved. Now finally at the end of it, what was the final result, if there was one or if it branched out into someone else's idea? At the end of this session, you should have a large scribbled map of names, ideas, and outcomes. 5. Don't Lose Your Ideas! Documenting a Brainstorming Session.: [MUSIC] Let's say in our first brainstorming session we had Tom, Cate, and Jesse attending. The topic was, how to upscale their yoga studio into a multi-functional space. This task definitely required some creative solutions. Tom suggested making the studio into a part-time photo studio. Cate started with an idea of a small conference room. Jesse thought it would be a great idea to make it into a rentable office space. Now when discussing Tom's idea, everyone agreed it might be easy to transform the space into a photoshoot-friendly spot with added backdrops, investing into light, and building a few of the core sets. Everyone was excited about this idea and Tom suggested checking on how many other photo studios are there in the perimeter in town. Cate's idea for a conference room was greeted with a plan to get foldable chairs, coffee machine, whiteboard, the analog projector with a screen, and few contexts that we're already looking for small space rental. Now Cate promise to check on the rental prices as well. What's going on around just to see if it's a profitable plan. Jesse's idea for an office space seemed radical at first, but while talking through it, it became more and more clear that transforming the studio into something new was a smart choice, since more and more people seem to attend yoga classes online and the initial idea was not finished, but had a good momentum and was left for the second brainstorming session to resolve itself. Now, this was just a very simple example of how the ideas started, how they evolved, and how they ended during the first brainstorming session. For your brainstorming notes, you can use my ready-to-go template named brainstorm from the creative production toolkit. The second brainstorming session can definitely be longer, 60-90 minutes. Reintroducing initial creative idea to everybody, read out loud the documented bullet points from the previous time who said what, and check on who has brought some homework based on their suggested ideas. Now the goal of the second brainstorming session is to mold the cloud of ideas from the previous one into something tangible and find a unanimous direction. There is no time to waste. At this point you should clearly know which way you're going, especially if there's no time for a third meeting. This is a moment to prefinalize the ideas. Start your second brainstorming session with the ideas that team are most excited about, are gravity towards naturally, there is no point in forcing yourself or everybody to go through the whole list. Starting with the exciting ones will make less useful ideas automatically fall off and will save you plenty of time. Don't forget, keep your documenting game on point. Name, where the idea started, bullet points, and keywords of how it evolved, and then the final result. Additionally, in this session it's time to keep an eye on this very important information that will later help you to first create a possible timeline of the whole project. Second, sketch, a blueprint the size of the whole idea. Third, build a visual moodboard. Start looking for those things already here in the brainstorming session. 6. Why it is Important to Have a Flexible Idea?: [MUSIC] Now that you have enough creative material to work with from your brainstorming sessions, it's time to give it a more solid shape and see how big your creative idea might get, and also bring some flexibility to it. At this stage, we're addressing a second idea killer, a second major problem you might encounter. The scale of your creative idea is unclear. Your listener doesn't understand what they're buying. What is the ambition or physical size? Maybe the audience you want to influence or resources it might need. Also, it happens very often that people only have one unmovable size of their idea in mind and once something smaller or bigger suddenly required, they're not prepared and the idea is threatened to be rejected. We don't want that. That's why in this part, we will get ready for a possible situation when you're required to downsize or upscale your idea and we will sketch three different blueprints for three different scales of the same idea. We will do this with an easy exercise as if we're building a house. 7. Scaling Your Idea 3 Times. HOUSE Example Exercise.: [MUSIC] You can use this exercise to help yourself and others to see how big your dream house can get and also, visualize how many resources each size of the house needs to be completed. Take a sheet of paper and draw three squares of different sizes placed inside each other. Just like a rationale. These shapes represents three different scales of your idea. The bigger the house, the more various resources it needs, time, staff, research, materials, money, etc. Then draw a big triangle covering the largest house. Here we can write the name of the project or the idea, also your name, also a deadline date if you already know a given budget. Now, draw a horizontal line under the house, separating your sheet into two parts. In the bottom part, that's called the yard, we will lay down all the construction materials needed for this project, for this idea. Basically we will dissect your idea into small practical parts of what this idea consists of. At this point, there's still no rush to know all the exact numbers and costs of other production details. Certain materials can be written in the question form. Let's take an example. Let's say you are a landscape architect and a small old park in the middle of your town needs a rework. The goal is for it to become a new point of attraction for families, dog lovers, and tourists. It just needs to have a theme. You want to go for a steampunk theme and create a park with a feeling. Of course, we will create a simplified version of this kind of project. At the bottom part of your page, start writing down all the possible needed objects to create such park. Remember if you don't know what is needed exactly, keep it in question form. For example, things that might be needed. Do we change 100 percent of the terrain? Do we dig out the earth, the grass, everything? Do we plant new trees? Do we have an area with seasonal blooming plants? Do we have a hedge maze? That'd be really cool. We need additional street lights. That's not in the question form. You've seen the place, you know for sure you need it. Do we have a cafeteria at children's playground, a dog training area? We want 24 custom stainless steel benches with USB charging stations. You've seen the place, you really want it for sure, there's no question about it. We want three art installations or sculptures of different artists. We want six extremely durable, custom-made hammocks. We fence the whole park, leaving three exit gates. We want a drinkable water fountain. The list might go on and on so let's finish here. Then starting with the small house, begin filling it with the content from your list. Start with, in your opinion, and gut feeling with the most important basics, something the park would not be a park without. That could be looking at our list, changing 50 percent of terrain, planting 30 new trees, additional custom made street lights, themed children's playground, 24 stainless steel benches, six hammocks, and fenced perimeter with three gates. Use the same size font for every word so you would see clearly when you run out of space, and naturally over spill into a linear house, into the bigger square because the small one can contain all the parts of your idea anymore. This is where we get into the bigger scale of your idea. Now, in the middle-sized house, all the things from the list that you think are also as important to have in a park with a theme, but clearly will require more resources. That can be changing 100 percent of the terrain instead of 50 percent. Having four areas with seasonal plants, having a cafeteria, having a fountain with drinkable water. These are necessities, but they're in a bigger scale of the idea. Now finally, in the biggest house, all the things that were left out as non-essential and also add new ones you just came up on the way. In our case, this could be three sculptures, a hedge maze, and a dog training area. Done. [MUSIC] For a cleaner look, use my ready-to-go template named 3x scalability from the creative production toolkit. Your blueprints for three sizes of the same house are ready. Now you can clearly see how big your idea is and how it can be scaled from minimum to maximum without losing the initial goal or having still a beautiful steampunk theme park. Even if you get a lower budget, you will still have a themed park. Scheduling three houses also gives you a freedom to think big without limiting yourself, worrying too soon about the budget or the time given. Also, it's a very common practice that when the client sees a great idea that is a bit over the budget, they might change their mind and provide the project with more resources for the sake of better result. 8. Basics of Drawing a Timeline That Works.: [MUSIC] On the third part of our course, we will create a timeline. A timeline for the development of your creative idea. Now, visually your timeline will look like an S-shaped path leading to your previously sketched house. It will represent the most efficient trajectory of how to reach the house. The final goal, collecting all the necessary materials on pit stops on the way. We will start by drawing a line waving upwards from the bottom to the top that takes three U-turns on each side of the paper. Each turn represents a certain goal, a certain developmental level reached. The horizontal line in between represents a road with pit stops or tasks that need to be completed. One horizontal line should represent at least one-fourth of your overall given time. For example, if you have one month to complete your creative idea then one horizontal line should have a value of at least one week. Now let's fill the space between two turning points with pit stops or the tasks. Mark each task with a dot and give it a short two or three-word description. Create as many pit stops as you need, but make sure you don't cram all the tasks into the first week. That's the main mistake many people do. Let your idea unwrap in levels within the logical time span. Remember to keep the timeline relevant and possible to maintain, or it will simply lose its value. Also, a pro tip, leave 10-20 percent of overall time for emergencies. I greatly encourage you to take three tries until you perfect your timeline. On the first try, start with only three U-turns and four roads. When you begin filling in the roads with tasks, you might discover that your idea actually has more stages of development. On the second try, draw a line that takes more U-turns and then divide bigger goals into smaller ones. Remember, while filling roads with tasks, if you run out of space, it's a clear sign that there's not enough time to complete certain tasks and you need to draw an extra road, combining it with extra U-turns. Finally, on your third try simplify it by taking out the least significant details. Remember to keep your timeline visually simple, we're here to make a rough sketch that looks good and brings more clarity to your presentation. We're not here presenting how you're going to work. This is just a tool to present your creative idea better. 9. Filling the Timeline. Example Exercise.: [MUSIC] All right, let's take an example. Let's say I'm designing a new shoe collection made exclusively from recycled materials and they have freely printed details on them. So in drawing a timeline, the first turn line represents finding a provider that has a wide variety of such materials and also a manufacturer that has experience in working with such materials and also knows how to 3D print. This might go into the first load. Now the second turn could be a presentation of all the shoe designs to a client with all the important details cleared out. The third turn could be a sample collection being already made and then we reach the house which is a finalized shoe collection. In order to reach the first U-turn, fill in two tasks, finding a provider for materials and finding a manufacturer. Now between first, and second turns, I'm marking all the pit stops needed, making the order for the materials, clearing out the production dates with the factory, sketching designs, having a meeting with your team to finalize the models, and calculating production costs. Between second and third turn logically, these pit stops should happen: Cutting received materials, making prototypes for each shoe and size, providing design blueprints to the manufacturer, and monitoring the process. Lastly, the final interval towards the house could be left for preparing your items for a launch event, so if your work ends here, so does the path of your timeline. For a three-level sketch, use my ready-to-go template named timeline in the creative production toolkit. 10. Top Advantages of Having a Timeline.: [MUSIC] Having a timeline in early stages definitely gives you those extra points of looking more professional and more in tune with your idea. Also allows you to demonstrate how much time might be needed to reach certain points of development. Also makes your creative idea seem very real as if it is actually happening soon instead of hanging somewhere in an abstract dimension. Now presenting with a timeline will bring clarity on how your creative idea develops in terms of time and could serve as a convenient anchor point to always come back to while explaining different segments of your idea or demonstrating your thought process on how you're going to get from point A to point B and C. Also early timeline encourages you to question the time resources required at the very beginning and not when the deal is sealed and the train has moved already. Now, every time before you go full out with your creative idea, take some time to make this thought sketch either a detailed one or a very simple one just for yourself, and I assure you it will bring twice as much value for your creative idea. This necessary clarity and confidence boost for yourself. 11. Mood Board. Back Up Your Idea with Visual Information.: [MUSIC] In this part, we will create a nice detailed moodboard. It's a powerful tool that will help you put your creative idea on display, so to speak. Moodboards can be digital, a PDF file, a PowerPoint presentation or a collage on a certain online platform or physical, just like a real canvas. A moodboard is a well assembled collection of various graphic files, photos, color palettes, fonts, and also physical samples, even audio or video files. All of which represent exactly how you imagine the parts and details of your idea should look, sound, and feel like. The purpose of the moodboard is to bring everyone's imagination to the same reference point so that each listener would see things in the same way like you do. Here's an example of how a moodboard supports your creative idea. Let's say, I tell you, imagine a blue chair. The color shade, the size, the shape, the pattern, everything. At the same time, I also have my version of a blue chair in my head, and now let's compare. Here's a picture of my blue chair. Does your chair look the same? Most likely it looked a bit, if not a lot different, and that's why this misunderstanding between you and your client might become a major pitfall for the success of your creative idea. It's difficult to express your vision with only words, and as a result, your listener might have completely different expectations and understanding of what you have in mind. That's why it's important to show what you mean by saying blue, by saying chair, and also what combination of blue chair looks like in your head. 12. Tools, Tips & Tricks for a Quick and Efficient Mood Board Assembly.: [MUSIC] When it comes to creating mood boards, my favorite couple of tools are very simple. A search engine like Google and the app Pinterest. I love using both in parallel because they use different search algorithms. When you search for the same thing, you will get different results. Google finds exactly what you're looking for quicker, but Pinterest gives you a way larger variation on the same idea. Once you find that one good result, it feels like finding a whole gold mine. Also remember to use these graphic files for personal use only. If you decide to later publish them, always credit the author or even better purchase similar photos on websites like Getty Images or Shutterstock. Depending on the size of your project and at what level you're presenting, you can either create just one page with a photo collage or you can create separate pages for different aspects of your idea. When I assembled mood boards for, let's say award shows, I usually go with a separate page for each part of the project. One page, I will have for overall concept, then another page for the stage decor and visuals. Also, I have a list of music artists, also the styling, special effects, and even add a part of visual communication if I was requested or I feel like it's closely connected to the project, and it would be a great of help for the marketing team. 13. Assembling a Mood Board. Example Exercise.: To make things a little bit more clear, let's work with an example. Let's say you have a creative idea to open a new place, a cafeteria that serves great coffee, and also have e-Sports area with gaming PC's and consoles. The whole place is themed as a video games, my first-person shooter games. Why not? I love coffee, I love video games. Let's combine these two things. Let's say you will be presenting the speech for the first time and the visual part of this idea is quite an important aspect to deliver. That's why it would be a great idea to have at least three pages in your mood board. First one could be representing an overall concept and the feeling of the place. Second one showing the interior and the third one the branding. To start your mood board, create three separate slides or pages on a program of your preference. On top of each page, put a name of what it represents. In our case, Page 1, e-Sports Cafeteria Concept. Page 2, Interior, Page 3, Branding. Now it's time to dig into the search engines. First, open Pinterest, and start with a keyboard you are sure you want to have on your mood board. Let's say we want to have sliding metal doors. When you get the first results, take your time finding the sliding metal doors that you like, but don't worry if you can't find exactly what you like yet because after opening that first result, you will discover more and more greater results and only then is the time to be very picky and look for that winning photo. For Page 1, the concept. We're looking for photos that represent as a mood. They can be more artistic, not as dry, and definitely you should bring a certain feel to it. In this case, make sure you look for pictures of interiors with the right light, people having good time while drinking coffee or expressing emotions while playing video games. In this step, the main goal is to bring the right feeling you think that place will have. For the page Number 2, the interior, it would be great to look for photos showing more concrete details. Also very important add a folder for each element you have in mind. If you're promising a big variety of coffees, then look for an artistic photo that represents a nice row of different coffee beverages. If you have an idea for a cool gaming theme to uniform, find a uniform. If you have an idea for custom marks that looked like shotgun shells or table covers with maps from the video games, gaming stations with certain light sliding steel doors, menus written on targets, everything, makes sure you find at least one photo representing those details. Don't forget, we are creating an overall mood instead of making a list of things to order and build right away. Next step would be assembling a nice well put collage from all the photos you've found. A good point to start is by making each element in a certain size and placing them in the right place, central left, right, or in the corners. This will represent the importance of that item and serve you as a map when presenting. For example, in the first concept page, the biggest photos, of course, should be people playing video games and drinking coffee but in the second interior page, the centerpiece could be a photo of a gaming area surrounded by smaller pictures with wall art, furniture, space dividers, coffee machines, and lights. This will help you follow your track of thought by going from one detail to another and giving an appropriate amount of time and attention to each of them, based on their size and placement. When presenting, speak a lot about the main things and say just a few words about the smaller ones. Photos found on the Internet can sometimes be tricky to put together since they come in different sizes and resolutions. That's why creating a more asymmetrical collage can be a good solution. This way you will be working with what you've got instead of trying to achieve a certain layout you might lack materials for, and getting stuck in the end. Make sure that the composition of the final result feels right, and your eye catches the main elements first and then the secondary elements later. Now for the page Number 3, the branding, we were looking for something a little bit different. Details that will allow visitors to recognize our gaming cafeteria on social media and public spaces and make it stand out from other competitors. Crop all those thumbnails from video games, icons from webpages, patterns from coffee shops, or pixelated items, dots and lines. I would then suggest the assembling all of them into one big map of things. Having this map will give your listeners a fine opportunity to point into certain details they resonate with, and you can even make it into a little game and this way you will effortlessly include them into the creative process and also receive offers of unnecessary feedback. 14. Refining Visual Material. Working on Selectiveness & Choice Making.: [MUSIC] At this point you might encounter a major issue of how do you choose from so many options you like. You might realize the importance of personal sense for aesthetics and also selectiveness. Having so much material to choose from, especially similar examples of the same things might seem a bit overwhelming at first, especially when you need to narrow down your selection quite a bit. Now, even though it takes some time to develop those skills, here are three tips that over the years worked for me and helped me reduce time consumption on deciding which things you want to have in your mood board. First, follow your first impulse if you like something or not, that hesitation, make it quick. You look at the picture and you immediately say either I don't like it or I love it. That's it. Only in rare cases say, I don't know what to do with you and just go into separate page for the spare parts for now. Then look for these photos only when you lack material. Tip Number 2, trust your eye and connect your eye where the emotion you're feeling when you look at your work. If a certain detail feels right, it's in the right place, it doesn't clash with other details and you're not forcing yourself to compromise by leaving it there, which happens a lot. Chances are you made a right decision. Tip Number 3, a good mood board is not a perfect mood board, but if finished one, so don't dwell too long, save it, export it, and leave it for revision the next day. It will look better with a fresh approach and things you were not sure about at first will make much more sense I promise you. The mood board topic is pretty wide. There are numerous ways and styles of how to make one and the one you need for the right occasion. There are mood boards for birthday parties, mood boards for TV show. Keep in mind what kind of project you work on and which style and content might suit them best. Also, at what stage you are presenting your idea. If it's your first time talking about unique ways to advertise in public transportation, keep it fun and light. But if you are asked to make a very in detail mood board for how a wedding invitation should look like, be very particular and bring everything from color palettes to paper samples, to fonts, frames, and ornaments. In both cases, the steps to follow are always the same, so let's revise them. First, decide which aspects of your idea you want to show based on the project you worked with and the stage of its development. Two, create separate page for each aspect and name them accordingly. Three, for every page start searching for the exact photo of every element you have in mind with the help of search engines and apps like Google and Pinterest. Four, when you have more than enough material, assemble a clash. Give each item a proportional size and the right spot on the page based on their emphasis and importance. Five, save your work and give it some time before revisiting it. Use your sharp selectiveness skills and trust your sense for aesthetics. [MUSIC] 15. What is D-I-S-C Assessment and Why it's Important to Know Your Listener?: [MUSIC] At this point, you have a well-shaped versatile version of your creative idea. You have sketched three different sizes of it and also you have a pretty neat timeline that shows the scale of it time-wise. Now, you also have a detailed mood board to follow when talking about the visual part, and at this point, you're almost ready to present your idea. Before doing that, there's a final, very important task to complete. To know your listener. When you present your idea, you have the whole picture in your head with all important details and you really want to go through all of them; the motion, the scale, the amazing end results, the impact on positive social feedback, possible challenges and risks, possible solutions and planning details, so many important things. Now, you might want to explain everything in detail, or at least stick to the things you think are the most important. This might be the biggest mistake. The thing, is each of your listeners absorb and process the same information differently. They hear and prioritize things in a unique way based on their personality and behavior type. In this step, we will learn about these steps and practice how to communicate the same information differently to each one of them. There are quite a few personality tests out there and in this course, let's talk about the four types of people based on a DISC assessment. DISC assessment is the type of personality test that many companies use to identify their team members and assign them into one of four profiles based on how they act in different environments and react to challenging situations. You can find free version of this test online if you would like to give it a try, just keep in mind they might not be as comprehensive as paid versions. 16. Four Types of People Based on D-I-S-C Assessment.: The four profiles are D, dominance, I, influence, S, steadiness, and C, compliance. So let's talk about each one of those. [MUSIC] D, dominance related to drive, power, and assertiveness, outgoing and task-oriented. People who belong to this group are competitive, decisive, tend to be more open to risk and adventure, and their results-oriented not there into Smalltalk and don't particularly worry about details. Now, they love solving problems and providing winning results to comfortable and taking multiple projects at the same time, they're innovative at work and forward-thinking. Now, dominant types can be a little bit impatient and might come off as impersonal cold and even arrogant at first. When things become stressful, high Ds might turn from being impatient to very demanding and start communicating in a blunt manner. Now, how to recognize the high D? Let's say if they are first to approach the door, it's not very likely that they will play the doorman for everybody working behind them, they also arrive at the meeting slightly early and might request to start exactly on time without waiting for others. When communicating with a high D, get right to business, and don't worry about Smalltalk, structure your talk well and make sure you get to the point quickly in every segment, keeping it short and clear. Prioritize talking about big things and don't focus on small details, sketch of the three sides house if you are creative idea might really come in handy at this point. Second profile, I, influence. Those who belonged to this group are outgoing and people are real team players, depending heavily on their social network and recognition, so they thrive in group activities, social situations, and are mostly very supportive and initiative. Their strengths are great communication skills, they approach problems with creativity and easily solve conflicts of others and effortlessly elevate the mood of the crowd. High I's compare themselves to others and proud to exaggerate things to impress other people, they might become too optimistic or even abandon their position to avoid conflict, and high I's are impulsive, not very organized, so not really great under strict deadlines and lack attention to detail. You will notice a strong I when they entered the room and start chatting with everybody, they really loved keeping people entertained and tend to bounce around when they speak, so they might easily drift away from the topic that's why it's important to bring them back. When presenting your creative idea to a high I, allow some time to socialize and connect on a personal level. Do not stick with hard business and facts only, and the better relate to human side of things as their opinion and expect a certain amount of fun and energy and return. High I's are action-oriented and quick decision-makers, so get the action items quickly and to the beginning and make sure to write down all the details for them. Now, strong I's reactors things emotionally and might be disorganized when stressed, so it's a good idea to sense the waves in the room, so to speak and adapt accordingly, but since influential types fear isolation, the last thing you want to do is to shun them from the process to find a way to include them in the making. The third profile, S, steadiness. This profile relates to patience, precision and thoughtfulness, reserved and people-oriented. Those who belong to this group tend to be relaxed, patient, and sincere, they prefer a steady, predictable environment. Strong as is a stable team player creating harmonious environments and they don't really like confrontation, and sudden changes make them uncomfortable. Their strength is being calm, easy going, they're really good peacemakers and actually work good under pressure. Now when it comes to vulnerabilities, high S's are tempted to compromise and avoid confrontation in order not to upset people, sometimes even abandoning their ideas. They might be a bit stoic and expressive also has tend to share their opinions. You will notice a high S during the brainstorming sessions since they don't have big egos, they usually don't push their ideas, but listen to all outcomes and gravity towards common goals. Now they are the first ones offering a cup of tea, making sure everyone has a place to sit in the beginning of the meeting. When you're communicating your creative idea to a high S, set all the emotions aside, and set for the Smalltalk, and then ease into the conversation. In order to hear an opinion, you might have to gain their trust first and allow time for exploration and discussion of the topics, explain your thought process, approach things logically and clear out all of the areas. Try not to raise alarms when addressing issues as this might backfire, instead, a calm discussion of events with solutions that worked before might be a good idea. Now, don't promise something you cannot deliver later and don't forget to involve a strong S into the planning process afterwards. They would really love to see the timeline, also the scale of your project, and also all the details, how your creative idea develops. C, compliance relates to caution, structure, and organization, reserved and task-oriented. Now people who belong to this group are, fact-finders, love knowing what the rules are for every situation, and thinking things through before offering or making a decision. Now there's trends are definitely creativity and sinfulness, they are intelligent, faithful, and self-sacrificing, they are great supervisors, reliable for work and gathering information. High C's can be a little bit judgmental, moody, struggled with low self-esteem, and when things become stressful, he's become picky with others. They might be very perfectionistic and defensive when criticized. Now, you will notice the high C catching a typo in the presentation and raise a question in order to maintain order in a given situation, get ready for more specific questions and longer than usual meetings. Now high Cs tend to deconstruct projects into small parts in order to see what they're dealing with, and if that seems like losing a bigger picture for you, don't worry since high Cs follow logic and calculations more than anything. Now, when communicating your creative idea to the high C, be direct and well-organized, don't be too casual or personal, draw an action plan with milestones and ask for their thoughts because they will offer unsolicited opinions. Now if you disagree, back up your position with facts and not emotions, they really don't believe in following the gut feeling and give them time to think and process things before committing to something. That might mean you won't get a confirmed answer on the first meeting, your alias to prepare as a timeline and a deadline options, also scalability and how you're going to get that. [MUSIC] Now, the disc assessment by no means captures every single aspect of one's personality. Since people might also adopt two or more types of behavior, and also might act one way and forth, but the other way in their personal life, so personally, I would suggest using disc as one of the tools that gives a hint of what your listener might be and how to optimize the structure of your presentation. 17. Creating Four Scenarios to Present the Same Idea. Example Exercise.: [MUSIC] Let's do an exercise that will help you sort out the topics and the way you speak about things based on the personality type of your listener. The creative idea you will be presenting is rebranding a magazine. So, let's say this magazine used to focus more on celebrity life and scandals and gossip and now they really want to include everybody else who have great achievements in sports, politics, science, and they really want to make it into a more serious magazine. Make a list of seven topics you want to talk about. Four of those topics definitely can be the ones that we created in previous parts. First, a versatile version of your idea, how you want to change the magazine. Second, is different scales of this re-branding. Do you want to make it really small and just change a logo or the content of the magazine or do you want to make an award show, a launch event, etc. Third, it can be a timeline so in what time you want to make this change? Do you want to make it in one month? Do you want to make a half year marketing campaign? Four definitely is a mood board, a suggestion of what you want to show in the magazine, what want to show in the launch event, what the logo might look like. Then think of three more topics you want to talk about and from this list prioritize about which things you want to talk first when you present to a D, dominant type, which things you want to talk about most when you're going to present to, I, influential type. How you're going to start the conversation and how you're going to end it. Do the same thing for the S and C types. Here's my take on making these four scenarios, a thought process on how four different presentations might be structured. When sorting out the order of topics for a high D, why not start with a strong and swift overview? In our example, a few straight to the point sentences about the big launch event, public relations plan, audience reach, and a guest list of A class celebrities attending. Then moving on to event itself and it's best features. This will pave the way for the next step, showing three sizes of the same idea leaving a high D with options. Let's show how big our ambitions are. On the fourth step, it's time to support our verbal information with impressive visuals. If you have a mood board slide with a collage of pictures to choose from, here is a good time to play a small game of choices I mentioned in the third section of this course. Then make a pause and see if presentation needs more details or can be wrapped up. If there's interest, mention solutions for bigger challenges in the timeline to make high D more in control of their project. For a high I, starting the presentation with a topic of audience reach and expected social feedback might catch their attention best. Let's keep networking as the core subject and discuss the launch event through the lens of people attending and then move to the visual parts to backup your idea with impressive photo examples. With this elevated and excited mood, getting into a slower, more structured program part will be easier. Just don't forget to focus on the names. Challenges seem like the least exciting topics so it can go to the bottom. At this step, hearing first impressions from the high I seems like a more important thing. For a smoother workflow in later stages, don't forget to remind a high I about possible deadlines by including a timeline. For a high S starting with a given time resources and stages of development of the launch event is a good idea. It will seamlessly allow you to get to the next step, how big the project might be, backing it up with a small unexciting mood board containing very particular event details. At this point, if any doubts or questions arise, why not support your creative decisions with information from brainstorming sessions? Show that you chose only the best options and solutions. If at this point a high S has an idea, make sure to acknowledge it and think of creative ways to include it on the spot. Wrapping up with questions and answers will give high S a chance to learn the rules of the game better. Ending with a short revision will provide a feeling of completion. The presentation to a high C could start with a straight to the point information about a detailed scale of the magazine launch event followed with a well-structured timeline explaining necessary levels of preparation. Here's the right time to remind about deadlines and clear out the main tasks that need to be completed from both sides. Don't shy away from exposing challenges, but immediately provide possible solutions to gain a high C's trust. As you can see, mood board here plays a smaller part and appears only towards the end. Wrapping up with asking opinions will give you crucial information of what to expect next. Clear out necessary parts by answering all the questions from a high C. Now we can see better how different your presentation might be based on who you are talking to. In this example, our visual tool, mood board seemed to be taking an important place in every conversation while our timeline jumped around from being the first thing to talk about to staying more as an optional topic. Make sure you play around with your structure and don't forget to keep a flexible attitude according to how your presentation flows. 18. Conclusion & a Task for Your Personal Project. : [MUSIC] There we have it, five milestones, how to sell your creative idea. Make sure you follow these five techniques whenever you prepare an idea. You either want to really lay it down on a physical paper or make a digital presentation. Or you just want to sketch them really quickly to yourself when presenting something smaller. For your homework, for your personal project, let's do the following. Any creative idea that you have, anything from themed birthday party to a new product you want to make or to a new solution at your work, you're going to have to make all of these five things that we just covered in the course. First is short brainstorming session on your own or with your friend for about 30 minutes to discuss all the possible aspects of your creative idea. Be a yes person. Let the idea evolve and also write down and document your brainstorming sessions properly. Second, you're going to look at the idea and draw three different scales or sizes of it. Make sure even the smallest size won't lose the emphasis of the idea, the core of the idea. Think big don't let your brain be narrowed by the time resources where you're not sure if it's going to be expensive or not. Make sure you think big. Third, you're going to make an approximate timeline that is visually appealing. You will make roads and U-turns representing tasks and also the levels of your ideas development. Makes sure the roads of a timeline or not too cramped with too many tasks at once. Four, you're going to have to create a mood board, 1-3 pages maximum. Don't forget to bring the feeling of what your idea should look like. If you have certain details in mind, make sure to find the winning photos for each one of them. Five, you're going to prepare four different scenarios. How are you going to present the same idea based on the listener or the client, you're going to encounter. One scenario if you're going to meet the high D. The one scenario if you're going to meet a high I and also a high S and high C. Make sure you make a list and priorities. What you're going to mention first and what you're going to mention last, and what you're going to leave the outside of the conversation because it's just not important. Make sure to document all that information. Create a nice PDF file export it and share it with others and also with me. Guys, so this was a course on how to sell your creative idea. I hope you found some nice information, some good tips and tricks you might use in your own creative work. I wish you all the best, and I'll see you in the next one.