“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” — Peter Drucker

This list started as way to help a new sales associate get up to speed with the ideas our team uses.

Make sure to check out the two funny ones at the end. And let me know which resources you found the most helpful and which ones you think should be added to the list.

Motivation

1. The Success Principles book, video interview by Jack Canfield. Required reading at our company for all employees.
2. Happiness as a Competitive Advantage – video by Shawn Achor

Sales

3. 3. Fanatical Prospecting book and video tips, website  by Jeb Blount. Without prospecting, there is no sale.
   4. How To Build Rapport and other videos by Tony Robbins, the master of personal development.
   5. The Circle of Trust video by Michael Bernoff.
   6. The Science of Persuasion – video by Dr. Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin
   7. How to Persuade Others with the Right Questions – video by Daniel Pink
   8. Blair Singer’s YouTube channel – Watch these powerful videos on sales and let me know what you think.
   9. The Two Most Important Words in Sales his other great training videos on his youtube channel, along with The Little Red book on Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer

3. Cold Calling: How to nail the first 20 seconds video w Rapid Learning
4. Overcome Objections – 5 simple steps video w Michael Bernoff.
5. Closing the Sale: 9 Common Objections by sales and marketing expert Brian Tracy.
6. Spin Selling, the book and video interview by Neil Rackham
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Free download here.
8. Secrets of Closing the Sale book and video by sales legend Zig Ziglar
9. Question Based Selling written by Tom Freese
10. The Spinsucks.com blog – more about marketing but good stuff
11. Door to Door Sales Training video with Cole
12. Car Salesman funny video worth a watch

Personal Productivity

20. Active Inbox – if you use gmail, this is a great productivity tool.

Have a suggestion? Let me know…

You know, where you’ve got clear goals but your staff, your team, all seem to have minds of their own and everyone is going in somewhat different directions?

Six months ago, I hired a new account manager for our growing company, someone who could sell ice to eskimos. I’ll call her Sarah.

Sarah clearly had the potential to be a top performer but she seemed to think the whole company existed to serve her. If she was on a call with a client, she’d text other team members during the call and expect them to drop everything and get back to her instantly. Which, if you know anything about time blocking or switch-tasking, was a great way to destroy the efficient work habits our company thrives on.

The problem wasn’t commitment or effort by Sarah. The issue was she was singlehandedly undermining our company, turning our team of experts into her lackeys. At the heart of the problem was that Sarah didn’t see herself as part of a team, but that she was doing her job and everyone else was just slowing her down.

Sound familiar? Ever have an employee who was working in their own world, their own silo, and not in concert with the rest of your team?

What’s the solution?

Coincidentally my wife, an avid rower, had passed on a copy of “The Boys in The Boat,” a book I highly recommend, about the 1936 rowing team from Seattle that went over to Berlin to win the Gold and ruin the day for Hitler. Prior to heading to Germany, the crew had a similar problem. They had a boat full of team players and one person who was always trying to pull his hardest without regard to the rest of the team, which in effect slowed the boat down.

The advice given (and I’d say this applies to your company too) was: to win as a team everyone must put the team’s goals first, not their individual goals. This means working in concert with those around you. And while I know this doesn’t sound like business advice, the secret is to find something to like about everyone on your team.

Why?

If you and the rest of the team harbor doubts, don’t like or trust other members of your team, you’ll never pull together and be a winning team. On the other hand, if you enjoy and trust each other, you’ll all be on the same page and get twice as much done in a day.

The other day I asked our director of operations what she liked best about working for our company. Her response was: the people, the work, the flexibility. Whether your company has 4 employees or 40, having a clear focus, clear goals and a team that trusts each other and that enjoys working together you’ll be almost invincible.

Have questions? Ask away!

It’s good that our happy clients are telling other people but we could be generating twice as many referrals if we did one simple thing.

You know what it is?

Ask for them.

Ask happy clients and customers for a referral. It’s the one thing most people don’t do and I’ll explain why in just a second.

Last year, I kept bugging my partner about asking for referrals, but he just never seemed to do it. He thought it was an imposition to ask. Of course, now that he’s reviewed the data and sees where our best sales come from, he’s got it on his agenda to start asking.

Everybody knows that asking for a referral is key, but like my partner, they don’t do it because they don’t want to impose on their delighted clients and customers. Which is a big mistake!

In reality, your clients want to give you a referral; you’d actually be doing them a favor if you asked.

How is that?

Think about it…every time you or anyone else makes a purchase that they are happy with, they want to validate their decision by having friends and family do the same. It happens every time anyone I know buys a car, or when they go to a great restaurant, purchase new golf clubs, start a new diet, etc.

We all want validation of our ideas, our purchasing decisions.

If I buy custom-built skis, I’ll be out there on the ski slopes telling anyone who will listen what a difference they make. And I’m not alone. Sound familiar?

Here’s the referral secret you should know: when you ask a delighted client if they can do you a favor, they are going to say YES. And when you ask them who they know that could also benefit from whatever you sold them, they’ll more than likely be pleased you asked and more than willing to share the name of a friend or colleague.

In sum, it just takes two steps to generate a flood of referrals:

1. Understand that in asking, you are doing your clients a favor, giving them the chance to validate their purchase.
2. Ask. If you’ve got 10 happy clients, you can get 10 referrals. If you have 100 happy clients, you can get 100 referrals.

When you do this, you’ll see your business grow in leaps and bounds. I’ve seen it happen time and time again with clients I’ve coached. They use the referral/ask sequence and Boom! their business takes off.

Try it and see.

Her viewpoint is that branding is important to every business. I counter that it’s best left to companies that can throw hundreds of millions at their marketing. Who is right?

For national and international companies, spending large to create a corporate image or brand works. Coca Cola excels at branding, as well as Apple computer. Their goal is to saturate the online and print markets to ensure name recognition. This works, if you have millions to spend, but not if your marketing budget is under $5 million.

My argument is that it’s not practical to use branding as your primary marketing strategy if you are a small business (under $50 million in revenue) and market locally. Instead, the most cost effective way to grow your business is using the tried and true model of direct response marketing online and in print.

Does that mean, if you are a small business owner you should just forget about branding?

The answer is no. It’s still important to your success, it’s just not the primary way you can attract new clients or customers.

Here are the 2 questions I asked myself about one of my companies, and I’d recommend you ask yourself too:

1. In a perfect world, assuming your company was run perfectly and did just what it was supposed to do for clients and customers, what are the two/three words they’d use to describe your company? In other words, what is your prospects’ and clients’ perception of your company?
   Not sure? Just ask them. Ask them to tell you which 1-2 words describe your company and see what they say.
2. Then ask yourself if they have it right, meaning does it match what you want them to be saying. If not, if the words people are using to describe the sum of their experience of your company (e.g. your brand) are different than how you want them to define your brand, you’ve got work to do.
   Ask yourself, what you need to change about how the company is run, and how it delivers services or products, in order to create the brand experience you want them to have.

I’ll concede my wife is a least partly right, in this case. Defining your brand is important. It’s important to how you manage your company and in shaping your marketing messaging too. Just as long you don’t rely on branding to attract new small business clients and customers. You’ll want to use direct response strategies to do that, to spread the word about your brand.

What’s that you say? You stopped believing in Santa Claus and you don’t even celebrate Christmas?

It’s true, Santa isn’t real, but just for a minute, imagine if you could run your business like Santa. Your mission would be unabashed joy, your team would be motivated, and you’d only have to work one day a year (since Ms. Claus manages the elves.)

Seriously. Santa makes work seem like fun, which is kind of the idea. Wish you could do the same? Here’s how:

1. Stop thinking of work as a ball and chain.
When you started your own business, I’m sure your vision didn’t include being tied to your desk or computer 12 hours a day. Instead, you most likely had a vision of making a living, being good at what you do, making a difference, and having the flexibility to take time out for fun and family.

Now, I don’t know how it happens but almost every business owner I talk to thinks of their business as the noose around their neck or a ball and chain. If this sounds familiar, it’s time to reboot, to rethink how you run your business, to learn from Santa. I mean, with a business model that’s been around for well over a hundred years, there must be something to it.

2. Start by focusing on your mission.
I know when I mention vision, mission, purpose,  or values, some people cringe. To some, its sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus. But research points out again and again that the companies that have a clear purpose that are the most successful. And it makes sense.

Without a destination, if you get your car, you can easily waste a lot of time and gas driving in circles. I know I did it too many times as a teenager. Back then, that was sort of the idea.

But now when I get in the car, I have a destination in mind, a purpose. Which is exactly what every business needs – a clear mission or purpose that helps everyone on your team go in the same direction. And BTW, employees work harder when they feel they have a purpose, other than just making money.

Now, you might be thinking your business doesn’t save lives or feed the hungry, but every business that is a success, makes a difference by helping its clients and customers. Whether it’s satisfying someone’s sweet tooth with specialty ice cream or helping your dental patients enjoy a long happy life with healthy teeth, every business has a purpose.

What’s yours?

3. Have fun.
Over the years I’ve consulted with thousands of business owners, and when I ask them what their goals are for themselves, typically they start talking about their business goals, not their personal goals. But wait a minute, that’s backwards!

The reason anyone has business goals is to achieve their personal goals. And if you haven’t clarified your personal goals, are your business goals the right ones?

What do I mean personal goals?

For me? Last year, I skied 45 days while growing my business. This year, I want to do the same or more. Have FUN and increase my profits. And when I’m working, I want to have fun working with my team. The secret here is not to take ourselves too seriously, but to focus on our goals of having fun, helping others, and making a profit.

Think about it…you want to energize your team to be highly productive. What should you do, give them less vacation or help them do more fun stuff?

Santa’s Two Part Success Formula.

What it all boils down to is just two ideas:
a. Do good
b. Have fun

Focus on these two things if you want to mobilize your team to increase productivity and profits.  It’s worked wonders for my company and can do the same for your company too.

“Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.” ~Vince Poscente

We all do it, tell ourselves lies to avoid facing the truth and taking action. And while these lies may seem small, they limit what we accomplish and our potential, at work and in our personal lives.

21 common lies we tell ourselves…

I Don’t Have Time

1. I can’t do that or I don’t have time, I’m too busy or whatever excuse you want to make. It’s what people say to avoid work, avoid going on a diet, avoid getting exercise or avoid making better use of their time. And it’s all nonsense, since you can make time and the lie actually means… “I haven’t made it a priority.”

Confused? Look up “100% responsibility,” and find ways to go from “I can’t do that,” to, “I will do that.” The breakthroughs come WHEN you acknowledge you’re lying to yourself, that’s when you can move forward.

2. I’ll start that tomorrow. Just remember tomorrow never comes. The difference between successful people and those who just work hard, is successful people have a habit of doing the things today others put off for tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.

If you aren’t planning on doing something right then, then when? The key is to schedule it and then stick to your schedule.

3. The timing isn’t right. In most cases that’s just an excuse for not making it a priority. E.g. “I’m too busy to start my diet now.” The reality is we’re always busy. The time is always right to take action by at least making a plan and taking the first steps to reach your goals.

4. I’ll decide later. Of course that’s like your teenage son saying he’ll clean his room later, which means, NEVER.

Everyone and Everything Else Is to Blame

5. It’s not me, but clients, who make this job so hard. By blaming others, you’re giving them all the power in your relationships, instead of taking responsibility for success yourself. The first step is to take ownership for having trained the people around you, including clients, to treat you the way they do. Then train them to treat you the way you want to be treated.

6. What I eat and how much I sleep doesn’t matter. You’re body is a system. Deprive it and you and your work will suffer. Get 7-8 hours of sleep, eat healthy 5-6 times a day and you’ll get twice as much done.

7. How I treat my co-workers or my family has nothing to do with how I treat clients. …maybe if you’re like Sybil with multiple personalities. But how you treat your friends and family, the clarity of your communication and how you set expectations at home, is directly reflected in your work relationships and vice versa.

Working Harder Is The Answer

8. If I just work a little harder I’ll get it all done. Typically when people work harder they get less done because they don’t take the time to get organized, take mental breaks to let their brains reset, refresh themselves, eat well, and get up and off their butts to get the blood circulating in their brains.

One simple trick is to take a few minutes, close your eyes, let your unconscious brain rejoin your conscious brain and go back to work with double the brain power.

9. That sounds like a lot of hard work.  Well yes, being successful is – unless you win the lottery. But if you want to be successful all you need to do is work smarter than the average person. Sure, you may make a few mistakes along the way, but for each one you make, you’ll be that much wiser than almost everyone else.

I Can Do It On My Own

10. I don’t need to ask anyone for help. Do you want to spend your life reinventing the wheel?  When I was 18, I assumed my parents were dumber than donuts. What I discovered as I aged was how little I knew, and asking others for help, advice, and guidance was the fastest way to reach my goals.

11. I can’t afford it.  Which is exactly what most people tell themselves when they are buried by work. You tell yourself you can’t afford the help you need, but doing so helps you work smarter and frees you from administrative tasks so you can focus on the real work that makes you money.

12. The only way to make sure it’s done right is to do it myself. While you may be good at many things, telling yourself this is a falsehood that limits your ability to get work done and enjoy teamwork. It’s true, when I first started out I thought no one could lick a stamp as well as I could but… I soon discovered that if I wanted to grow my business I needed to learn to let go of stuff others could do better than I.

The “I can do it all” attitude at work and in your personal life leads to becoming unorganized, overwhelmed by stress, and ultimately not delivering the best results.

13. Delegation takes too much time. It’s true that effective delegation takes time, but once you’ve trained your team to do the task,  it saves you time every time you need it done in the future. Delegation is an investment in your team. And it pays off over and over again.

It rarely makes sense, especially if you own the business, to do clerical tasks or any task someone else specifically trained to do it could do in less time.

14. Delegation absolves me of my responsibility. In fact that’s abdication, which pretty much guarantees the task you want done won’t get done right. Delegation requires you taking 100% responsibility that your staff knows: what you want done; when you want it done;  that they have the training tools to succeed; and that you’ll be there to make sure they get it right and acknowledge them when they do.

Conflict Is Bad

15. It’s better to avoid conflict. In reality it’s much more productive to deal with it before it becomes a big problem; address small conflicts right away so they don’t grow into big ones.

16. This is the way it’s always been, so it needs to stay that way. In other words,  you don’t want to rock the boat. But you should know, before it became the way it is now, it was something else. Someone, possibly in the spur of the moment without any thought, created the system you think you are stuck with. The truth is most of the barriers to success are perceptual, in your mind, not unchangeable or written in stone. So go for it, suggest a change or an improvement, and who knows, you’ll probably see it happen.

I’m Not Good Enough

17. I’m not smart enough. Maybe you don’t know enough now; that could be true. But you can change that. You can increase your knowledge and your competence.

18. I’m stuck. Things won’t get any better. Life is full of challenges. You can avoid them and limit yourself or embrace them and thrive.

19. Failing is a horrible thing. The truth is, if you learn from your failures, it’s the best way to improve at anything.

20. People won’t like me if I’m honest with them. Sure delusional people like to maintain their delusions and staying in the status quo, but most people prefer honesty and growth.

 21. You can’t have success and a great life. Nonsense. You can manage your life however you want if you take control and balance your priorities.

That’s it. Let me know if there are anymore.

The key, of course, is to admit which lies you are telling  yourself and you know what to do… Stop. It’s the best way to open more doors.

For the last twenty years, I’ve run virtual companies and the answer is – it depends on two things:

First, your business needs to be one where showing up in person to work with clients isn’t a requirement. If you’re a carpenter, plumber, or hairdresser, remote or virtual employees aren’t going to cut it.

Second, you do need to understand that managing a virtual workforce isn’t less work, it’s more, and you need to love that part of your job or it’s going to be a disaster. If you run a business based on knowledge and information, you may want to consider a remote or virtual workforce.

My first experience with virtual employees was when I hired a Virtual Assistant to help manage my then growing website and coaching practice. Ros was my first employee. I live and work in Connecticut and Vermont; she was located near Austin,Texas.

I got lucky with Ros. She was smart, self-disciplined, and I couldn’t have been happier with her; that was until she fired me. Well actually, my business had grown so much, it was taking up all her time and she wanted more than one guerilla client. So, she helped me find a full time virtual employee.

With my current and much bigger business, when I went to hire on a virtual team, my beginner’s luck had run out. One of my early hires was a web programmer who I’ll call Jason. Jason seemed like a great guy and perfect for the job. That was until I noticed he was delegating all his work to our overseas team and never actually seemed to be available.

In order to understand how Jason was spending his time, I asked him to install Worksnaps on his computer, something everyone else on the team had agreed to do. It’s a program that takes a screen shot of your employees work every 15 minutes and allows you to sort by task, which is a great management tool. Jason refused to install Worksnaps. When pressed, he admitted that if he installed it, we’d see that he wasn’t doing work for us but for other freelance clients. This prompted his resignation.

Of course, if he’d been working in an actual office with a team, I would have noticed. But being a virtual employee, he had the scam going for a month or more before we figured out how to detect it.

Has that made me rethink using a virtual team?

Not at all. It just forced me to identify the key elements to making it work, to ensuring accountability and collaboration are the norm.

Here are the 5 key elements:

1. Hire people who are looking for a fair wage, flexibility in their schedule, want to be masters at their craft, and have a high degree of autonomy. Of course this isn’t for everyone and requires team members with very high levels of self-motivation, organization and self-discipline.

2. Test them out. When we hire someone, they start as independent contractors and we give them 3 months to prove that it’s a good fit. Then, if they are the rock stars we hope they are, after 3 months they become full time employees.

3. Pay people fairly. We have a simple system for determining pay. Before we hire someone we research salaries. Then if we want someone to join the team, we ask them what they think is fair compensation. If it’s within reason, we make them the following offer. We agree to pay them somewhat less than they’d asked, even $5k less for the first 3 months, then if we hire them full time, we’ll pay them more than they asked for. It’s a test to see if they really want the job.

4. Set goals. Our growing virtual team is up to 12 people and key to our success is having every employee be crystal clear on what their most valuable activities are, how they should be measuring their success, and their monthly, weekly and daily goals. Every week their manager reviews their monthly and weekly goals with them, making sure their priorities are aligned. And at the end of every day each employee updates their goals for the next day.

5. Monitor performance. The key here is to set aside time each week for each employee to report on how they’ve done with the simple idea of training them to take responsibility for their success. Sure, we still require everyone to use Worksnaps, but it’s primary use is to see where people are spending their time. This way we can eliminate switch-tasking and map out our staffing needs.

The biggest mistake that most business owners make is to confuse delegation with abdication. And it’s much easier to make this mistake when your employees aren’t actually in the same location as you. Imagine you assign a task and assume it’s going to be done. If the employee was in your office, you could walk by and check in periodically, answer questions, and keep them on track. When they are working virtually, you need systems in place to create a high performing work environment.

Managing a virtual organization takes conscious and continuous management. Of course if you do it right, you’ll have an inspired, motivated, highly productive, and happy team. One that gives your employees a life they never dreamed of, and dedication and commitment beyond what money can buy.

According to every symptom, my partner was a classic example of someone with A.D.H.D. Despite a surfeit of motivation he suffered from inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. He’d do things like be in the middle of a key project and then suddenly disappear following an urge to drive into town to buy a coke. Work wasn’t getting done and the business was headed downhill as a result.

I was almost ready to ask him to start taking drugs before his behavior lead us to bankruptcy. Fortunately, I hired an “A.D.H.D. coach” for him first.

Over the next 6 months, he eliminated all the sugar he was eating and changed his diet to more basic whole foods and his focus improved. Then he started exercising more regularly and I saw more improvement. Then he turned off his cable TV subscription and I saw even more gains. His A.D.H.D. coach taught him basic organizing skills ones, ones he’d never learned growing up, and his focus improved even more.

Then a few months ago, he got tested for sleep apnea, which it turns out he had. And now that he is getting treated for that, he is getting a full night’s sleep. No surprise his attention span and productivity have taken yet another leap forward, as has our business.

Physicians are taught to prescribe medication, which is what they do. I’d suggest that most cases of A.D.H.D. could be solved instead by changes in diet, exercise, reduction in external stimuli such as TV, getting a good nights sleep, and training in organizational habits.

Yes it takes more work than prescribing a pill, but it’s what most people actually need, not another drug to become addicted to.

So what does this have to do with your small business?

We all suffer from lack of attention to some degree and our work suffers accordingly, even to the point of bankruptcy, if not addressed. Sure, it would be nice if you could just take a pill to solve the problem. But the truth is taking a pill isn’t the solution, it’s:

• Diet – cutting out sugars, carbs and processed foods
• Exercise – getting daily vigorous exercise
• Sleep – getting 7-8 hours of solid sleep, which if you have sleep apnea can be a problem
• Turning off electronic stimuli well before bed or like my partner did, just shutting off his cable TV subscription
• Mastering the organizational skills you need to get the most out of every day.

Work hard at these 5 things and you could be five times as successful with your business.

The A.D.H.D. coach I hired to help my partner was Dana Rayburn. Here’s a great article of hers on “How To Identify ADHD Small Business Owners.”

I got to thinking about all the habits I use and I’ve been teaching my virtual team to use that help us make each day, well most, a success. 

Here’s the list of BAD habits and HELPFUL habits for virtual teams below. Let me know if you have any you think should be added to the list.

Habits That Distract

Forgetting to fuel up

• Lack of daily exercise
• Lack of sleep, yes nightly
• Lack of a well balanced breakfast, lunch and dinner – not to mention twice a day balanced snacks (we’re talking cheetos as an example of unbalanced snack)
• Forgetting to take short exercise breaks every hour or so

Inviting interruptions

• Lack of a defined private workspace (spouse, kid and pet free)
• Starting your day by checking your email inbox (most common mistake)
• Leaving your skype on green most of the day instead of using DND
• Letting others interrupt you on skype, texting you etc
• Letting family or friends interrupt your work day unless it is an emergency
• Taking personal calls / reading texts during work time
• Having the TV or radio news on
• Responding to personal email or texts during work hours
• Bouncing from one task to another within any 1-2 hour block of time

Missing Self-Monitoring

• Not taking a few minutes every couple of hours to clear your head
• Trying to figure everything out on your own
• When you have a question – bugging team members for immediate answers (in non-emergencies)
• Not reviewing how you are spending your time and whether you are wasting time switch-tasking

Habits That Help You Focus

Fueling your body and mind

• An hour of vigorous exercise a day
• Turning off all electronics communication devices an hour or 2 before bed
• Stretching before bed
• 7-8 hours of sound sleep
• A well balanced breakfast
• Taking a power nap/ meditation by closing your eyes for 15 mins and doing nothing, and thinking about nothing – so when you restart you tap your unconscious mind (where most of the creative thinking happens)
• Eating a balanced snack every few hours
• Stretching and or exercising for 5 min to get the blood flowing every hour or so. Dancing to music works too.

Focusing

• A private office
• Shutting the door if others are in the house
• Making sure family know not to interrupt
• Using time blocking
• Turning your cell phone off during work hours (unless you are on the road)
• Playing Pandora for background music
• Updating your daily agenda at the end of the previous day
• Starting your day by sitting down at your desk, closing your eyes for a minute or two and clearing your head and then
• Starting with your top priority agenda items (not email)
• When you have a question, writing it down and then at the end of the day contacting the appropriate team member
• Weekly reviewing how you are using your time and looking for ways to increase your efficiency
• Review your time blocking at least monthly to make sure it still works for you

Others? Let me know. BTW, if you haven’t done so already I highly recommend The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and I’m not just suggesting because we share the same name. It’s a great read for anyone in business.

Last week, I found myself struggling with questions about compensation -how to focus and reward our growing team. You see the failing business I took over and managed to turn around has been on a hiring spree and is up to a dozen employees. This may not seem like a lot to some, but it brought me to a crucial juncture. 

One team member was scheduled for their quarterly team review and I was trying to come up what we should be paying her in recognition of her increasing contribution. Now, when I only had a few employees to consider, I’d just make up a number like a $3,000 raise, whatever I thought we could afford at the time. But with 12 employees it was clear I needed a more precise methodology for focusing the team and for sharing our growing profits. So what did I do?

I ran a search for “reward systems” and read a few pieces on profit sharing, gain sharing, and bonus systems and within about 10 minutes was, well lost. I realized that this wasn’t one of those topics on which I could become an instant expert and I needed to talk to a compensation consultant, ideally one that worked with small businesses like mine.

Now here’s the funny part:

I tried searching online for compensation consultants, but all I could come up with was ones that wanted to work with billion dollar companies, which mine isn’t…yet. Then I had a stroke of genius; I emailed the support desk of a small business in California called the Republic of Tea, asked them about their compensation strategies.

Amazingly enough I got a response, a suggestion of someone to talk to, that being Rebecca Johnson or ConsultRJ. Within a few days we were on the phone and here’s the essence of the solid advice she she gave me:

1. Pay your employees a fair salary for their role and region of the country. There are a bunch of resources out there to give you guidance like Salary.com and many more.
2. Budget a 2-3% cost of living raise for employees.
3. Then, based on your target goals, let your team know they can earn a share of your net profits. Essentially X percent of net profits times their base salary. If you want to fancy this formula up, you can offer the above plus 1.5 times X for employees with outstanding performance, that way you’re rewarding both team and individual performance
4. At the end of year, review how the company did relative to your profit goals. Ifit hits them, pay out as indicated above. If the company under-performed, obviously you’re still going to pay employees a small bonus. If your company knocked it out of the park, you’ll pay more.

This all sounds like solid advice. It’s just one big challenge. Sit down and map your profit goals for the year and determine how much of your profits you want to share with your employees.

With the right small business compensation plan, and employees feeling like they have more of a stake in the outcome, you’ll continue to see your company grow. Which is what you want, right?