Ever see a great chef cook? It’s very similar to seeing a master painter at work. Beyond the sheer beauty and confident energy in motion, both create their masterpieces with a simple, but proven attribute: preparation.
And like great painters, the best chefs always have all their ingredients planned out and at hand when the action starts.
It’s the same for writers, performers, athletes, and any business requiring a mixture of creativity and discipline—preparation is key. Writers do research until they are ready to tap away. Performers practice and practice, and voila! a flawless performance. Athletes train and stretch, and are at peak performance level game-time.
But chefs are probably the most similar to creative marketing people, like us. For us to do our best work, which always translates to the best work for our partners—we need creative assets.
Chefs have their cooking assets right up-front. Having prepped meats, veggies, sauces and spices all within quick reach in the kitchen allows them to not only create fabulous dishes, but to also deliver those dishes in the shortest time with the most efficient use of ingredients. This gives the customer a tasty and memorable experience, the restaurant a profitable bottom line and stellar reputation, and the chefs a lot of pride in their work.
When we work with our partners, we know we will be doing a lot of creative “cooking.” Therefore we always plan and collaborate together first, positioning them for maximum success. A design firm might skip this part and create an attractive dish—but often they don’t know what the customer wants, or perhaps how many will patrons will show up that night. Surprise! Ah, preparation. A little goes a long way.
But then it gets really fun.
Creative assets are like a chef with the freshest seafood, the most locally-grown vegetables, and desserts that fit the occasion—all ready to go. We like to develop the photography, video, illustrations, graphics and key messages up-front as well. So when the kitchen starts heating up, we have everything we need to leverage the material, keep the brand identity consistent and spend our time on creatively solving our customer’s challenges—not spending it all running around trying to come up with what’s needed to do the work.
This approach to creative marketing is also being a good steward of a partner’s budget, knowing that anything you can save them throughout the process will show up as a satisfying, even delightful return on investment.
Boy, all this talk about creativity is making me hungry…
“Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness, and entertaining is a way to be both generous and creative. You’re sharing your life with people. Of course, it’s also an expression of your own need for approval and applause. Nothing wrong with that.”
—Ted Allen