Can you Improvise?

?The ability to ‘improvise’ is an important - no make that essential - skill in the entrepreneur’s bag of tricks, and yet it’s a word I rarely, if ever, hear mentioned in marketing circles.

Too bad because it holds the key to the whole game.?

The fact is, the vast majority of people need to be provided for or told exactly what to do.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have the ability to step into a chaotic and disorganised situation and find and create value with the material’s they find at hand.

According to Ken McCarthy in his book the System Club Letters he believes the world’s greatest improvisers the very high-level marketing pros share a common characteristic: they’re raging jazz fans.?

Now, this doesn’t mean that to improve your marketing skills and make more money, you should become a jazz fan, but Ken goes onto explain there are very valuable lessons that you can learn from the jazz world that will definitely make you a better marketer and put some serious money in your pocket.

By the way, while you may not be a jazz fan, you’re definitely listening to the work of jazz musicians all the time... Multi-track recording and the solid body guitar - the foundation of rock and roll - were invented by jazz musician Les Paul... David Bowie was backed up on piano for over 30 years by Mike Garson, jazz musician... Pop legend Stevie Wonder, behind closed doors, is a jazz musician... Multi-Grammy winning, ‘Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’ member Carlos Santana names jazz great John Coltrane as his prime influence. And on it goes.

What it’s all about what makes accomplished jazz musicians - and master marketers - so amazing is their ability to create value seemingly out of thin air.?

Jazz has three rules for aspiring players:?

The Three Laws of Improvisation

1) Find your own voice,

2) Never play a tune the same way twice,

and 3) Know the basics inside and out.

Here’s how these jazz rules apply to successful entrepreneurship:

1) Be unique Copycats don’t get far in jazz. In fact, they don't exist. Unless you can figure out how to bring something new to the table, there's no seat for you. Business is a little more tolerant of ‘knock off’ artists, but in the long run the prize goes to businesses that develop a unique personality. The ‘me too’ business makes for slim pickings.

2) Think ‘innovation’ all the time jazz musicians are always looking for new ways to ‘skin the cat.’ It’s practically in their job definition. Successful entrepreneurs have the exact same mindset. They’re constantly asking themselves: “How can I do this better? What’s next?” They don’t rest on their laurels or wait for instructions. They never coast.?

3) Be prepared, improvisers are the best prepared musicians around. The reason they can sit down and create a brand-new version of an old tune at the drop of a hat is because they practise relentlessly, study hard and know about music theory on a practical level.

Preparation for marketers is much the same it means knowing the fundamentals inside and out.

In fact, I’ve developed a test for how likely it is that someone is a master marketer or has the potential to become one.

It’s pretty simple I ask 3 Questions:

What do you read on a weekly basis?

Who are your heroes, the people whose work you study over and over?

What ‘bibles’ of marketing do you read and re-read on a regular basis?

Every serious marketer I know can reel off the answer to these questions in the blink of an eye.

Serious marketers know –really know - the work of people like Gary Halbert and John Singleton inside and out, just like serious jazz musicians know the work of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

Finally, improvisation - the ability to create something new from thin air - is fun. It’s an adventure. Like all adventures, it can have rough and scary moments, but to me, what’s really scary in business - is the idea of living without improvisation.