Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners are creative, in any economy.  We have to be, because traditional banks and rules don’t always make sense in our world.  We barter for services, we finance start-ups on credit cards, and we try things no one else would ever do to get our businesses up and running.

Small Business Consultant, Andrew Barden shared a wonderful story about how Kenneth Cole got his start.  After being turned down by the city of New York when he asked for a permit to sell shoes from a truck he asked who can set up a truck?  He discovered only utility companies and movie production companies could set up a truck in the middle of Midtown, so he became a production company!  This from an interview with Kenneth Cole:

With Kenneth Cole Productions painted on the side of the truck, we parked at 1370 6th Avenue, across from the New York Hilton, the day of shoe show. We opened for business with a fully furnished 40 ft trailer, a director (Sometimes there was film in the camera, sometimes there wasn’t), models as actresses, and two of New York’s finest, compliments of Mayor Koch, as our doormen. We sold 40 thousand pairs of shoes in two and a half day.

Had Kenneth Cole let the first No stop him, he would never had been able to start this business.  Instead he asked another question and found a workable solution.  What about you?  What is the NO slowing you down right now?   Is it time for a different question?