The Perfect Presentation to pitch your business

How do you make an excellent presentation to pitch your business and or concept idea. There are a number of really great opinions about this, when you search Google. But look no more!

The best one out there is made by Mr. Guy Kawasaki and called the 10 / 20 / 30 Rule of Powerpoint. Please visit Guy Kawasakis blog and read this or check Youtube for a video version. It all comes down to a three simple rules:

·         10 slides

·         20 minutes presentation

·         30 font size as a minimum

If you use the 10 / 20 / 30 Rule of Powerpoint, you will present your business or concept in a way which is simple to understand, direct to the point and cover the most important topics.

You will also be able to use the rule to other event, than pitching your business, such as informing your staff about strategy.

I hope you will enjoy and make use of this model.

Top 10 Inspirational quotes

Below is some of the best inspirational quotes ever said by historic influencers.



Sir Winston Churchill



“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often” - Winston Churchill



“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill



“Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.” - David Rockefeller

“You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” - Steve Jobs

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” - Henry Ford

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” Mark Twain

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”- Thomas A. Edison

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path” - Buddha

“It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” - Bill Gates

“Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games” - Babe Ruth

Importance of colors - infographic

Are you serious about your use of colors are you aware of the effect of colors, particular if you are using them correct?

When you look around, drive home from work, visit a store or taking a trip, you might notice other company´s signs and displays.

Some of them is probably super good, while others maybe not so much.... IKEA is fantastic, everybody can spot an IKEA from a long distance, due to Indigo Blue building with their yellow logo.

IKEA is using colors which you recognize and presented with great contrast. Coca Cola has likewise perfected this with their combination of red on white.

Study the major brands, and keep an eye of for the bad examples, try an locate where colors do not make sense and where the contrast is not good.

Below infographic can help, get on you on the right track.

Top 10 best books for entrepreneurs

In todays world of media you can get your inspiration and knowledge from many places other than reading books. Yet do I find reading books the most valuable source of knowledge and information.

You just have to be selective on which books to read, because it is a jungle. I will like to help you navigate through this jungle and read the books, which shares the fundamentals and give inspiration.

King of Madison Avenue by David Ogilvy

A portrait of my big hero with in marketing, David Ogilvy. The King of Madison Avenue portraits David Ogilvy very well. Mr. Ogilvy is considered one of the fathers of modern advertising. Get it here.

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Imagine a book written by one of the best, laying all the cards down for your to see, how to get the fundamentals of marketing. The book is written long before Social Media, but is still very valid, and should be in the bookcase of all people working professional with marketing. Get it here.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends & Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is best selling authour with a number of books, which each have a very high level of valuable information. Add that he is a very popular speaker at events like TED and a huge influencer though digital media.

This book is written back in 1999 and describes the social media even before it was here, through the push vs pull marketing. Get it here.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is another best selling author, which know a thing or two about marketing. This book is about how you get your ideas to spread and take off. Get it here.

The Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

This is a book, which will open your mind and think about how you can make your business free of contest in your marketplace. The book hold great well known examples of business, that moved from the Red Ocean (traditional marketplace) to the Blue Ocean. A great book in strategy. Get it here.

7 habits of highly effective people by Steven Covey

This is a new bestseller by Steven Covey on how you become more efficient by developing better habits. It is convincing and challenge your to become a better person. Bold words, but a great book. Get it here.

Who moved my cheese by Spencer Johnson

The author has written several books which are all very good. This book is in my opinion, the best book. It very easy and fast to read break the sleepy rhythm of when days becomes weeks, and weeks becomes months and months becomes years. Challenge yourself and look for opportunities wherever you go. Get it here.

Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

The book should be is the bookcase of everybody who is working with marketing. The book is written more than 30 years ago, why before social media and the viral effect of those. The book is about utilizing the element of surprise to market your business. This can be done both simple, fast, inexpensive and efficient with guerilla tactics. Get it here.

Buyology by Martin Lindstrom

This book is book is not old school, but yet fundamental. It describes what happens when you combine neuroscience and marketing, or what happen in people's brains when they are exposed to marketing impulses. The author has done much research, and the results is on display in the book. Get it here.

The Purple Cow by Seth Godin

This author is one of my heros and this book is some of his finish work. It is about how you make your product standout from the crowd. You will find this book incredible inspirational. 

The metaphor is, when you see a field about cows, there is nothing special about that, but if one of the cows where purple, that would be something and makes your stop up and think twice. Get it here.

How to make a 2 page marketing plan

Marketing is an essential part of most small business and start-ups, and probably the key to success. You need to get the word out, people need to know about your business.

Marketing is a complex, there is a ton of instruments you can choose from, one can easily get confused about which channels to use and next how to use them efficiently.

There is a number of analysis and studies you should do in order to make you marketing strategy, which determines which channel you are to use and how.

Make your marketing strategy

When you are clear on your marketing strategy, you can make you marketing plan, where you systemize your tactics and campaigns. Keep your marketing plan simple, below will you learn to make a 2 page plan.

Page 1

Build an excel sheet where you describe each campaign you want to do. You need to consider these elements:

• Objective
• Tasks
• Resources
• Start date
• Estimated cost
• Actual cost
• Tangible results

Feel free to use inspiration from picture below of an excel template:

Page 2

This page is about giving you and your staff the quick summary of your activities, when are your doing when and with which channels. Detail is in the first sheet.

Create a new sheet within the same document, use inspiration for the image below. Write your campaign with a short description in the left hand side columns, then build a calendar in the next columns. I prefer to have it index per month and divided into weeks.

This makes a matrix or a lot of cells. You can not color code the cell of when you have an activity. You will learn you are in control, you know exactly when a campaign starts, when it stops and when difference channels are active compared to each other, the tail effect.

Here is how you calculate the ROI

Do you fix what is broken

You see this everywhere, things that are now working as intended. Why are they not fixed?

I recently watched a video clip with Seth Godin, called "It is broken" and where he speaks about a number of things, services that are not functioning as intended.

Now watch the movie clip:

You have now watched the video and you can probably come up with a number of examples of things that are broken, which you have seen and experienced.

The scope is, what is broken in your business? And do your staff have the rights to change this on their own, or do such decisions have to go through a manager? Consider if this is right and remove the bureaucracy.

If you allow your staff to make their own judgements and solutions to a problem, which will get more motivated and enthusiastic employees and essentially a better business.

5 takes on Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing is fantastic type of marketing, the whole idea is about creating creative and unorthodox content - squared. I heard the we each day is exposed to 3.000 marketing impressions or interruptions.

Guerilla sets itself apart because it is unorthodox, customers feels refreshed and like something new and appealing. You want to use the element of surprise!

The beauty of this concept, it that you can be done with little or no budget, even though it can in the big numbers two. Some of the biggest brands is using this concepts, ever heard about the happiness campaigns by Coca Cola, if not this this youtube clip:

5 inspirational ideas anyone can do

Elementary

There is some really elementary things you should do, if you do not already have this in gear.

• Use T-shirts

Buy some T-shirts and have them printed with your company name, logo or statement. Wear the shirts your self and spread them around your community to people who will wear them. There is a walking billboard.

• Decorate your vehicles

Either decorate your vehicles with your company name and logo or consider wrap the entire vehicle for maximum visibility. The last options costs less than you think.

• Use flyers

Print flyers and leave them in strategic places, where ever you target group is, or swap flyers with other businesses in your community.

Business cards

You probably have a business card, likely a regular white card with your name, title, company logo and so forth. Why not make it fun, make it stand out.

Change the shape, make it relate to your company, to your product, use colors, statements, information, make sure it stands out.

Need inspiration to get started, check this link: http://www.quicksprout.com/2008/09/20/creative-business-cards-that-make-you-look-twice/

Free

Everybody like to get something for free. Have some t-shirts, cups, pens made with your company logo, website or a statement. Make sure it stands our.

The great thing about free, it people really like it, the bring it home and they use it!

Hang Apples (coupons) on trees

Here is a creative idea. In you local neighborhood is there some high traffic areas, and there is trees. Hang coupons on the tree, like they were apples for people to pick, ensure you use a eco friendly material. Check out the example below:

Contests

Have a competition is a classic, it always works. People love to participate in contests where they can win a prize. Think about a theme / reason for the competition:

• Company birthday
• Holliday
• come up with something relevant

Consider the prize you want to give a way, a good advice is not to be cheap. Buy / get something you would like to win your self. Sometimes you can partner up with some other company who wants to spread their new product.

Advertise your competition to draw attention, ask people to come in to your store to get traffic and ask people to participate. Consider a side effect, get people to sign up for your newsletter.

When you draw the winners, make sure to tell the story. The story might be strong enough to get press coverage.

Partner up

Forming a partnership is fantastic, because you can get help from another company brand. There are many directions to consider, here is a example:

Say you own a furniture store. Then team up with a business that shares the same target group as you, like a clothing store. Ask the clothing store to have a fashion show in your showroom. Invite guests using both companies mailings lists and tell people this is a exclusive event, and the have to make reservations.

Put together a goodie bag with samples for your suppliers.

Not take it up a notch, arrange food with a local restaurant. Let the restaurant sample food at the event, they will get their name out, and you will food and drinks. Moreover, will the probably advertise the event in their restaurant.

Again if done right, invite the press or help them with pictures and a press release.

What to you gain, because your sales will be limited at this event. You will get your name out, your showroom will be packed with potential future customers and the will use word of mouth, when they tell about the great experience they had last night. What is your spend, not much except your time and effort.

5 step guide to Partner Advertising

If you want to elevate and grow your business, you should consider partner advertising. This type of advertising is quite simple and you with relative little work get started and best of everything, very inexpensive. Below will you find a 5 step guide to get started and some real life examples for inspiration?

1. Find out which values your business represents.

• Who are your customers? (Which demographic profile do they have and where to they live)  
• Why do customers shop with you?
• Why do they like about your product?

If you do not know this already, you should ask your customers. There are some simple yet great free survey tools, which can use to learn about what other people think of your business.

2. Start scouting for potential companies, you should look for companies which shares your:

• Brand values
• Customer target group
• Strategic targets

Say you are the lucky owner of a furniture store; you should probably look for businesses that are in the interior business. Such related businesses could sell paint, kitchens, lighting, flooring or maybe interior design consultants.

3. Consider how this company, can help your business and how to can help them. You need to think of this as a two-way deal, it has to work for both of you. You are in the market to increase your turnover, by getting more traffic and / or increasing basket size. There is a number of activities to consider, below is some examples:
• Create a referral program
• Use each other mailing lists
• Is co-branding an option
• Advertise a free sample
• Advertise the experience / consultancy of the other business
• Consider an in-shop display

4. Before you approach another company, work on your pitch, practice your story. You can use the below point, when you work on your pitch.
• Prepare a one-pager summary of the concept
• Highlight this can be done with no budget or a shoe string budget
• Do not oversell this. It will not grow the turnover from 100 to 100.000.000
• Be fact based. Share insight about your company, like displaying who your customers are to show how the two businesses match each other.
• Respect a concept like this takes time to implement and probably a couple of swings before perfected.
• Accept you are not the smartest guy in the room, be humble yet confident.

5. When you meet, ensure you act professional through the entire meeting, not just during the pitch. Show your passion.

Which partner advertising tactics to use?

When you have decided on partner marketing, is there a number of tactics you can choose from. Below are there a few examples of what these tactics are and how they work:

Referral program

The good old word of mouth method is still valid and fantastic. In a world where you as an individual are exposed to thousands of marketing impressions each day, do you as a marketer have to be very good to make your impressions last with your targets?

A good method is establishing referral program, where you lead your customers to your partners business and the other way around. It is simplest format do you simply advise your customer to go to that particular business.

You can decide with your partner how you compensate each other, do you charge back per customer or do simply trade leads.

Mailing lists

Do you have a mailing list? If not you should get one. When you have what you can discuss with your partner how you can benefit from utilizing each other’s list.

I will advise you to advertise your marketing partners products in you newsletter, write a positive recommendation about the product. Hopefully is your newsletter digital, if not get it fixed, then you can lead traffic directly into your partners website or e-shop. Or maybe you advertise the customer can pick-up a coupon or sample at your store? There is a lot of option, consider what is best for your business.

Co-branding

This format is often used by major companies where they partner up and combine their brands to create a very attractive product. So is this solely for major brands? Nope!

Get some inspiration from my local McDonalds, they partner up with the local sport team. This means on game day all McDonalds is wearing the team jersey, moreover can you purchase a meal, where McDonalds donates an amount to the sports team as a sponsorship.

This is cleaver, because both McDonalds and the sports team benefit from this. McDonalds wins on the image part, where they cultivate their local offset, get awareness and visibility in the arena. The sports team gets a sponsorship (cash), awareness and publicity.

If you translate this to your business, you can maybe probably go very local with this. Engage with a local soccer or hockey team, market one of your products as a “hockey team product” and donate a x to the team and wear jerseys in your store and let the hockey team advertise your product in the media channels (email, newsletter, arena)

What happens if you cross two channels? Say you are a florist and you partner up with a local sports team or charity.

1. Brand a bouquet of flowers with the colors of the sports team or charity
2. Each party promote the product in the email channel
3. You get awareness and trial
4. You donate an agreed portion of your turnover to the team or charity
5. You or the charity agree on a press release which the team or charity submits to the local media

I have no doubt, that this works. You get more customers to your store with very little cost. Your biggest investment is time!