In this episode you’ll hear:

• My C.R.E.A.T.O.R.S. method for creating a game-changing product, service and message.
• Some of my best tools for stoking the sparks of creativity and breathing innovation into your business.
• Why I believe you’re creative (even if you don’t think you’re creative).
• The biggest pitfalls entrepreneurs face when creating a game-changing product, service and message.

Growth strategist Christie Turley has sparked innovation in a wide variety of multimillion-dollar companies around the world. From supporting international campaigns to catering to conscious enterprises, her clients all seek the same thing: a breakthrough. And Christie delivers. Her superpower is crafting the brand positioning that leads to massive results, like one client who grew from zero to $15 million in under a year. She started her digital marketing career over two decades ago and launched her company, Limelight Alchemy, when she was 24 at the birth of the internet. Since then, she’s helped transform thousands of businesses and sold $3 billion dollars in products and services (that’s Billion with a “B”).

A sought-after expert speaker, Christie Turley has shared the stage with Reid Tracy, CEO of Hay House, bestselling author Mastin Kipp and marketing legend Dan Kennedy. She been asked to sit on the boards of multimillion-dollar companies as well as speak at business conferences, private mastermind events and digital conferences across the globe. She is the author of The Intuition Led Business and the host of the The Intuition-Led Business Podcast. She lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband of 18 years and their two children.

If you’re inspired by this episode, I’d love to hear your biggest Aha! moments. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your social media and tag me, @christieturley!

LINKS:

These Sparkplugs Will Inspire Creativity 

The Ultimate List of What Lights You Up

Customer Interview Questions 

Sparkplug Music Playlist on Spotify

My interview with Robert Belle on unleashing your creativity

Transcript:

Christie:
Welcome to the Mind Muse Podcast. I’m your host, Christie Turley. Today we’re going to be speaking about the eight principles for creating a new product, service or message, or rejuvenating a flat one. So as you may know, I help my clients get to the point quickly in a world where speed is the new currency and disruption is the catalyst for reinvention.

And I really love helping my clients to uncover their hidden brilliance so that their message shines even brighter than before, and helps them to create even higher profits, meaningful impact, increased visibility and happier employees, which then makes happier customers. So what we’re gonna be talking about today, that’s very multifaceted. In fact, when it comes to creation and creating a new product, service, or message, there’s a lot of pitfalls that entrepreneurs come up against.

And one of these pitfalls is approaching product creation and skipping to the last three steps. You see, it’s like an iceberg. An iceberg is an object that we can see above the water. And it’s rather massive above the water, but below the water, below the surface, it’s even larger. So what can happen is you can skip to the last three steps that we’ll talk about. And just because that’s all you know! You don’t realize that there’s all these other ingredients that go into creation.

The other thing that, the other pitfall is that, a lot of entrepreneurs might not consider themselves creative. So whether you’re creative or not, or consider yourself creative, is besides the point. Because we all have a creative life force. We’re all born with this natural wonder, and natural curiosity and natural creative abilities. And I really believe that as we grow up, we start to lose them. We really start to diminish them. And that could be through conditioning, people telling us that, some idea we had was stupid or that maybe we should, keep her mouth shut.

And we start to diminish that creativity. So I, first of all, would love to encourage you to reclaim your creativity. And there’s actually another episode that I did with Robert Bell about that very subject. So that might be another good episode to review of the Mind Muse Podcast. And anyway, let’s get on with this. So yeah. Remember this as an iceberg. So I’m- the first five steps, five principles that I’ll go through are what’s beneath the surface. This is what most people skip past and to their detriment.

They end up creating a product that is not that exciting, that falls flat. And this is precisely wall. Why? Because they don’t realize that there is so much else that goes into product and message creation before you even get to the steps that people love to get to. So again, underscoring that we are all creators, we all are creative. And to that end, I’ve created an acronym that is the eight principles to the acronym of creators.

So we’ll go through each letter and we’ll start with of course C. But before we get into that, I would like to express to you that there are certain things that I do. And I encourage my clients to do before, even sitting down to start this process. And that is to create a container for creation. So what does that mean? It means that you’ve got to create some sacred non-negotiable time and dedicate that towards this. So that means no distractions, no bells, no notifications, no cell phone, lock screen lighting up.

In fact, put all of your electronics in another room. I want you to go to a totally different room away from your computer, possibly a totally different location. If you can work it, but you don’t have to. So adjacent to my own office, I have what I call my lab. This is my laboratory, no electronics in there. There’s a whiteboard. I have markers, I have a white paper. I do have some construction paper. I also have index cards. I have many tools that I use so that I can really have this creative container.

The other thing is I like to put on light music. So non lyrical. So you don’t have words coming at you, nothing distracting. I actually really love a meditative type music for creation. So something you could also look into is binaural beats, plugging into some headphones and learning a little bit about Solfeggio frequencies. This can actually create new brainwaves or not new brainwaves. It can get your brain working on a certain frequency that is prime for creation, and that is the alpha wave.

So look into that. I can also put some links in the show notes of some of my favorite music to help you create. The other thing is, I love stimulating, like my sense of smell and the sense of hearing. So talk about music. Now the sense of smell—I love to diffuse essential oils. So, if you’re into that, pick something and create that container. You can also light a candle. So just set the mood for creativity. Again, go into another room without any electronics, any devices or iPads or iPhones, or if you use a another platform, you know what I mean?

So put it in another room and then you can begin. So the first principle, the C of creators is Curious. So being curious. Having a sense of curiosity. So really if you think about it, creation energy is a playful energy. Okay? And so you’re going to want to be a bit spontaneous. And if you have a reputation for being a little bit on the serious side, I’ll give you a tip. Turn off the Solfeggio frequencies for a moment. Turn the alpha waves or the brain entrainment. Turn that off, put on your favorite song and just dance around like, no one’s watching.

Like you don’t even care. Just shake off any kind of stiffness or feelings of being a grownup and just dance and jam. Trust me, this might sound really strange, do it! Okay? And this will get you in the right energy for what you’re about to do. So again, that creation energy is playful. So who is more playful than a child? so this is about being childlike and approaching the work with a sense of wonder and asking questions like, “What if?”

Okay, this is where you can get your white board or your markers and paper ready to whiteboard, all sorts of ideas like leaving no stone unturned. Also you can mind map on papers, you can write words on index cards. You know, all of these things I’ve done with my clients, with myself, and just being in that element of, “Hey, things might get a little messy. I might have a ton of books during about, I might have a ton of index cards or post-it notes on the wall. It’s okay!” Okay? So here’s what I want you to do. I want you, with the end goal of this curiosity leading to clarity.

So this is what it’s all for. It’s about clarity, right? So one thing you can do is create a list of everything that lights you up. Everything that fascinates you from all sorts of categories. They might not even sound like they have anything to do with business at all. Okay? So, and that’s okay! You know, it does not have to do with business. In fact, I have a list of these things and it could be anything from historical figures who you admired, books you loved, quotes, I have a whole list of brain joggers so that you can, write this list.

Now it might not be a list that you can create in a couple of hours. This might be a list where you give yourself permission to take three or four days to do. And it might seem like there’s no purpose to it, but there is. And you’re always are gonna find themes running through what lights you up and what fascinates you, and start with you. Okay? Life’s too short to be miserable in your business or to be delivering a product or a service or a message that doesn’t light you up. So this is where we start. And for more of these brain joggers, go to my website ChristieTurley.com/sparkplugs.

And I have actually a ton of sparkplugs of these creative ways to spark inner innovation in a form of a guide or a video. So this is one of those sparkplugs. Go to that website and I’ll also put it in the show notes. And this is a list of what fascinates you. So those are some good prompts. Now, another thing to be curious about are your customers. Okay? And so I really- this would take something separate, right? This would take a little bit different energy of having customer interviews, actually asking them, why did they buy from you?

Or people who didn’t by interviewing them, recording the conversation. Why didn’t they buy from you? Doing a survey, finding out really what was missing from your product or service? What are their core desires? What are their results that they’re looking for? What it is an average day look like for them? And I also have a list of questions that you can ask your customers on that sparkplugs page. And so you’ll want to check that out as well. So overall approaching this with a sense of curiosity and you won’t believe how many common themes that you will see running throughout your customer data, your customer interviews, get them transcribed!

Start seeing common language patterns, and then looking at that list and what lights you up. So another- so the next letter is R. And R stands for Reframe. So this is an opportunity to reframe the who, what, when, where, why, how and the how much, whether you look at how much as a number of people or dollars. So reframing those five W’s and two H’s, okay? This is gonna require a perspective change.

This might require you to put on a different set of glasses. Okay? It might require you to go outside of your comfort zone. In fact, it will. You might even need some outside help to serve as a catalyst. And I love doing that for my clients as well. We tend to like our comfort zone. So set yourself up so that you know you’re going to be reinventing some things and reframing perspective and shedding some skin like a snake does to adopt a new one. So think about this. If you really want to up-level your business, what got you here is not going to get you there.

So it does require some reframing, some repositioning, some reinvention. And when it comes to positioning or repositioning a product, service, or message, everything in business, every problem in business I believe is due to a positioning problem. So when you change the words to describe something, you change the reality. You change the perception of that product, service or message. So reframe that stage is so important. You ask yourself, “What can change?

What can be better?” So really think about that. Okay. So the next letter in creators is E for Edgy. So if it’s not edgy, if it’s not provocative, if it’s not bold, it’s a non-starter, really. So think about any title or headline or product name or service name, or your podcast name, or your book name. Put it through that filter. Is it edgy? If it’s not, then it’s not getting the impact or reaching the amount of people that it really has the potential to do.

So, now, this goes back to the idea of a big idea. This is one of the elements of positioning is to have a big idea. It’s the central theme. Like if you were writing an essay in school, this would be your thesis statement. It’s the big idea. It’s the reason why your businesses exists. It’s the reason why you were put on this Earth, if you want to get really deep about it. So do that, and then also be edgy with the number of people that you want to reach. Be bold about the impact you want to create.

Now, the next letter is A for Accidental. This describes the feeling that a lot of inventors have had when they strike upon a discovery. Think about Newton and his discovery of gravity. You know, he’s sitting under a tree, he notices an apple fall on the ground. And all of a sudden—no, he didn’t invent gravity. He discovered gravity. And so when you’re thinking about what is this product or service, or message is gonna be, it might feel accidental, like a flash of brilliance.

This is what intuitionist do—if you’re really connected to your inner wisdom and your higher purpose, and even higher power, if you want to go in that direction as well. When you are connected like that, your intuition is so much stronger. You know, those flashes of brilliance are an every day occurrence. And this is really what it means to be creative. If you’re not feeling creative, you might be a little on the disconnection side of things and that’s okay. You can always realign and come back to your center.

And I’ll say this too. When things are accidental, when it feels like an intuitive flash of brilliance, it just feels right. It just feels right! So quick story about the name of my company. I recently repositioned reframed my business of 16 years and I renamed it. And it was interesting because I knew I needed to rename it. Like I just knew that, I had it evolved, our services had evolved and we needed to change. And the name of the company, my company is BoldImpact42.

A lot of people wonder about the 42! And here’s the story about it. It was quite accidental. And there’s a series of events that I won’t really go into in depth. But I will say this, that the number 42 kept showing itself to me. Whether it was a show I was watching where they mentioned the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the night before, and then synchronicity set in. And I kept seeing the number 42 everywhere. And when I looked into what 42 meant, I found all sorts of wonderful coincidences about the number 42.

And I made a list of them actually on BoldImpact42.com/philosophy if you’d like to take a look. But one of the best coincidences about 42 was when I discovered that when light refracts to make a rainbow or a spectrum of color, it does so at precisely 42 degrees. Now, if it’s 39 degrees, it’ll be barely visible. You might just see the red spectrum of light. If light’s refracting at 51 degrees, you might see, you might see a little bit but it’s going to disappear very quickly.

The cool thing about 42 degrees is that it represents alignment. And this is something that- ask any chiropractor. Right? Our backs, get out of alignment from regular use, right? The idea of alignment is my answer to the people that are talking about authenticity and having authentic marketing or being authentic. The reason why that can rub a lot of people wrong or ruffle some feathers is because people tend to think that the opposite of authentic is being fake. Well, no one sets out to be fake. No one wants to be fake.

And when you try to avoid being fake, it can sound even more fake, even though you’re not trying to do that. So I really prefer the word alignment, because what we’re really talking about is being in alignment with your true self and your true message so that you can shine even brighter. And that means shedding some things that aren’t really you and coming more into an alignment. And this isn’t a one and done. It’s just like a chiropractor, you know? I haven’t been to one in a while.

Speaking of which, but one little move—like let’s say you’re, taking a run around the block, you could get out of alignment with that. So, from daily use, you can get a little out of alignment. And so, getting more and more into alignment is so important. And when you’re in alignment, then you can really see the message, the clarity of the message, and the product, and the service that you have in front of you. And so that’s really why I love the 42 and why it had to be part of the company name because having a bold impact like a huge rainbow spanning across the sky has to do with aligning to what lights you up and aligning to how you can meet your customer’s needs.

And so, that’s the story of 42 degrees and why it’s part of the name. And so that just felt to me on this deep level, like, “Yes! Like, this is a cool story! This is something that I can incorporate into branding, into a keynote, into a book.” And it felt like such a part of me. And so that’s how you’ll know, it’ll feel, it’ll be almost accidental. It will be synchronistic and you’ll know that it’s right. Again, like Newton discovering gravity, or even Alexander Fleming when he discovered penicillin and it changed the world. So the next letter is T for Tall.

And this is like, I want you to envision yourself like a light house. Okay? And your- you as the light house, you’re shining your light, you’re helping your customers not to crash into the side of the cliffs. You’re guiding them safely into harbor. You don’t chase after them. You don’t change your message, or your product or your service based upon, they’re out there and struggling. No. You shine your light and you are immovable in this respect.

And so this is where, what lights you up comes into play and letting yourself really be free. You know, letting yourself have that freedom to be you. And to really allow your message to shine through your product and your service and all the messaging on throughout your website and throughout your brand. So this is contrary to what a lot of marketing experts might be talking about out there. And a lot of these experts will talk about polls. Like, you need to poll your customers, you need to survey your customers. And as I explained in the first letter, the C, it’s important to do.

However, it’s not the end-all be-all. And so one example is Henry Ford. He is famous for saying, “If I would have asked my customers what they wanted to see, they would have said faster horses.” And of course we know he invented the car. So hold true to what it is that lights you up and the gifts that you want to bring to the world. And sometimes you might need, again like I said, that outside help, because what people see in you, you can’t see in yourself.

And so I feel like we all have a lot of untapped potential. One of the biggest fears that people have at the end of their life is, or regrets is that they’re dying with the music still in them, that they didn’t live life to its fullest. And sometimes that is just out of reach where we can’t really see it themselves. So please, please, seek someone like myself to help you to discover that hidden brilliance and help guide you through this creation process so that you can find some hidden diamonds in the rough that you may not have discovered on your own. And so, yeah, this is about standing tall.

Standing tall in your truth and having those fresh perspectives and those bold ideas and putting them together and combining what really lights you up. Okay? So that’s so important. Again, you don’t pander to your customers. You stand tall like a lighthouse. Okay? You don’t chase after them. You’re still. You’re still in the storm. Okay? The next letter is O for Organize. Now, this is where a lot of people think they need to start.

Okay. This is the top level of the iceberg. This is above the surface. Everything that we’ve talked about to this point is all below the surface. So what’s above the surface now? So O for organized. Most people again, start here. So this is where you’re focused on the Game of attraction: the name, the brand, the design, the copy, the tech, the systems. And I actually have something that- what I call the six elements to a soulful brand. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of brands out there that feel like they lack soul. They feel like they lack connection. You feel like what they’re saying, is not really what they’re believing. And it feels a little out of alignment, right?

And so the six elements of a soulful brand, which I believe really leads to uncopiable positioning are as follows. So the first one is, declaring your big mission and making that first and foremost. And having that “Be Huge” on throughout your brand, throughout your website and everything that you talk about, as having this big mission, okay? Two, is philosophy. Describing what you believe, what you stand for, what you stand against.

This is all really important. And it’s very unique to you just like your big mission. So this is again why it becomes uncopiable positioning, and this is really part of the soul of it too. So three is stories. Your unique stories, how you created what you created. Your origin story, or an epiphany story where, well, kind of like the Newton example. That’s an example of an epiphany. It’s like Eureka! “I figured it out!” You were going a long one path and you had an epiphany and that lead you to create whatever it is that came next: the product, the service, the message.

Four is Structure. And we’ll talk about this a little later too. Five is Style—so the brand, the look and the feel for the structure is more like the systems. And again, we’ll go into that a little more in depth later. And then six, The Customer Journey—what is it that you’re putting into the customer experience to really have your brand stand out and make it feel good? It makes people feel good about themselves. It makes people feel good about your brand. So those are high level. We don’t have time to go into them in a deep level right now, but I wanted to mention it because, again, O for Organization or Organize, these are the things that people, when they go and they say, “You know what, I need to create new product.

I need to jazz up my brand.” They go out. And the first thing they do is hire a branding firm or a designer or something like that, a copywriter. And a lot of times they haven’t done these previous steps! They haven’t done enough thinking. And so what happens is the designer or the copywriter, or the branding expert ends up putting together something based on history, based upon what’s been done and jazzing that up, except where after what hasn’t been expressed yet.

That brilliance you haven’t yet brought into the world and all the thinking and the strategy and the Who, What, When, Where and Why, and all of that, that comes before it. All the items that are underneath that iceberg. Okay? So then R for Reach. So this is when you’re off to the races. This is when you launch it and you get feedback and this is where you kind of let go of, “Okay, it doesn’t need to be perfect,” in the organized phase. It’s reached the place where it’s ready to launch, doesn’t have to be perfect. The perfection comes in getting the feedback and hearing from your customers and seeing if what you have is a viable product.

Now you need to go forward in the stage with power, with confidence and create momentum. And then S, the last letter of creators is Structure. So Growth requires structure. Think about that. If you want to grow something, it does require some structure, otherwise it’s just chaos. So think about a tree. And in order for a tree to grow tall, it needs some structure. It needs some deep roots. And if it doesn’t do that, then it can be tossed to and fro in the wind, someone can come up and say, “Oh, I know what you need to do to your product.

You need to do X, Y, Z, or this, you need to add this to your message.” And, you’ve got to stand firm in those roots. And, have those structures to reach the number of people that you want to reach. So those structures could involve team—your team, growing your team, growing your systems, marketing, sales, IT, having better structure with your website. So that brings us to the end. So that- those were the eight principles of creating a new product, service, or message and rejuvenating a flat one.

And I want to end with this. First off, I encourage you to go to the website, ChristieTurley.com/sparkplugs, and download a lot of free resources to help spark creativity and innovation in your business. And the last thing I’ll say is this. A lot of people are in a plateau in their business and they don’t even realize it.

And they’ve been going along, marching along. “Everything’s great. Why should I change anything?” And I want to tell you that if you want to get to that next level, if you really want to create a business and the life that you love, it’s gonna require you to do more of what lights you up.