The 10 USP’s game

From time to time I like to break the routine in the office and stop everyone typing away at their keyboards for a little bit of creative fun.

Working on-line, sales and with coding etc… one needs to be creative and have the ability to think outside the box to really improve their game. One of the best things about working on-line, and working for yourself (or work for a really open company) is that you have the ability to be as creative as you want - there are no limits.

I admit, I have a slight uphill struggle as Thai’s throughout their education are not encouraged to speak up and be open with their ideas (so I’ve been told)… apparently it’s more about the teacher is always right. This is a pain, although not my team mates fault, that it takes me a little more time to get everyone to contribute their suggestions and ideas. However during our 45 minutes of creative thinking today I could see everyone enjoying themselves which after all, is what life, and work if possible, is all about. I love being around creative people.

Today I was talking about my old sales director that I was under while I was working in London - He is one of the best people I’ve ever worked with. He could sell anything to anyone - but not on a sleezy level. He generally listened to people and come up with great ideas for people to use to help/improve themselves.

Anyway, after the product development team had finished working on a product, I was made to sit down and brainstorm 10 unique selling points for the product. I then had the task of calling everyone of my clients to let them know about our new product, while dropping the 10 unique selling points into the conversation naturally. The aim was to get everyone I spoke to excited about the product, meaning they would give it that extra push. The process worked very effectively.

So, this brings me onto our afternoon exercise: I gave each team mate something from my desk and told them to write down 10 unique selling points for that product. I then got everyone round the meeting table 10 minutes later and they had to sell the product to me.

I gave my phone and ipod to the 2 people that speak little English so it wouldn’t be to difficult for them. A toilet roll to my code ninja, cigarettes to my PR guy and the calculator to our operations manager. In the mean time, I asked them to pick something out from the office that I should pitch… they gave me a polistiren box.

It was good fun and I will be doing it again next week to see how people improve - although next week I’ll be giving out products that are a lot harder to sell.