Keep your sales team motivated

It is absolutely essential for your business health, that have motivated and energized sales team. Think of a salesperson as the soldier fighting in the frontline, what does he need to keep motivated and energized to keep up the fight and bringing home those orders.

In addition think of the personality of salespeople as strikers in football / soccer team, they are goal scorers. They depend on their confidence and the ground work of other members of their team. They also play the first level of defence, as they master relations and get valuable market information before everybody else.

Here is 8 points you need to consider to keep your team motivated and bringing home the orders:

1) Transparency

Keep your sales staff in the loop. You will have to be clear on targets, informing about new products and other relevant information. Information like this very valuable for the sales person, not only because it is important that he or she has this information, when talking to customers, but also for emotional reasons. Keep them involved.

2) Pay commissions promptly

Salespeople is competitive by nature, you should enforce this instinct with a compensation package, where a substatial part of their paycheck is based on their performance.

When the salesperson reaches a target, make sure to pay compensation straight away. Pay bonus every month over every three months or yearly.

Paying promptly encourages salespeople to sell more, at they quickly see the results of their work.

3) Keep sales targets reasonable

Make you sales targets thoroughly and ensure your salespeople gets paid for their results. Do not set to ambitious targets, but set targets which can be reached and bonuses can be paid.

4) Do not undercut them

Your salespeople should be able to offer the best possible price, period. Customers should not be able to find a lower price on the company website or by buying directly. This will upset your salespeople and in worst case make them leave the company.

5) Distribution of leads

Make sure you spread your leads fairly among your salesstaff, each should get an equal number of good and poor leads. If you prioritize some reps over others, some will have a negative opinion about this. Keep in mind, you can cultivate new talant this way, over just feeding the "the usuals".

6) Support their efforts.

Make sure that your sales team always has access to leadership and senior staff, who can assist them negotiate and close deals.  Make sure, that the most popular products are available to the salesstaff, for them to demonstrate, which is important to close a sale. 

In addidion, give them support and convey learning from failures and success, to help develop.

7) Give them time to sell.

Do not overload your sales staff with administrative reporting and trackers that "steal away" their time, that could be spent selling.  CRM may create great reports, but at what cost?  Have a support function, to assist with reporting and such.

8) Have fun

Sales should always be fun. Fun do not they should not work hard, but rather a place where people experiencing success, feeling supported, learning, growing and enjoying what they do.

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.