Business and Money Tips

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs To succeed, you need not just a reason but a strong compelling reason - Patrick Liew (Singapore) You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus A leader's job is to make people work hard, not make people's work hard - Andy Ng (Singapore) Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown Have a D  (damn good) day.  Related articles: Spend more money today to earn more...

Successful salespeople use a very effective sales tactic that win business over easily. This tactic is actually a process that sells without selling.  It is said that a good salesperson never sells anything, he simply creates the conditions for buyers to buy by themselves.  This is because selling is defined as professionally helping other people to buy.  The oldest and most effective tactic is Asking Questions.  You see, when you ask questions you are not selling.  You're helping the buyer to solve problems . Asking questions helps you to find out what are the real needs of your customer to determine how much they are willing to pay for a solution. But you cannot just ask a few questions and expect a sale. You need to ask the RIGHT Questions in the RIGHT ORDER .  Other than that, you also need to use questions to overcome sales objections.  It is said that the real job of a salesperson is in overcoming sales objections.  For if ...

Everything in business starts and ends with sales, so all salespeople must be selling or they are simply redundant.  I f you don't make a difference to your customer, you are no different from other salespeople in the market, and customers will not choose you.   Making a Difference (MD, not MAD) is  not about offering the lowest price at the highest quality and the fastest delivery .  Nor is the MD Salesperson providing the best entertainment, for you are not an entertainer.  It is also not about you providing the most service, especially services that are way beyond the core of what you're doing.  This is because a salesperson is NOT a Service Provider, but a Service Provider that Sells.     There are 7 ways that you can make a difference to your customers: Adding Value to Customers Even When They Don't Buy .   Giving Referrals to your Customers Help the Customer to Save Money, Time and Energy  Make the Customer and his...

There are 5 things that every trainee is looking for in an external training program: Enhance their thinking , for it is the thinking capability that determines our work performance. That's why most trainers like to ask provocative questions to broaden the minds of the trainees.  Sometimes to make an impact trainers would purposely give the wrong information to ' wake people up ' Get Inspiration and Motivation .  As we know, the typical working life is full of stress and people usually get motivated when it's time for bonus or increment.  The fact that trainers help trainees to see things from another perspective will inspire people to do more.  Furthermore, trainers are external professionals that have no personal interest in the trainees, thus they can offer motivate people easily without being mistaken as phony Get Solutions to their Problems.  This is a very common and useful outcome of training, where trainees get answers to their current work proble...

The front 10 seats are reserved for the hungry ghosts What a strange title! What has this Singapore superstitious Hungry Ghost Festival got to do with modern professional management? The Toaists Chinese in Singapore believed that when people die, they become ghosts and live in hell. Once a year, such ghosts have a one-month holiday when they can come up and roam the streets and enjoy themselves to relive the experiences of human life. Such a month falls on the lunar 7th month every year.  They are called Hungry Ghosts because they are hungry for food, entertainment, money and most importantly, attention. Imagine if your neighbourhood suddenly sees an influx of people, surely there will be disorder, disturbances and even chaos?  Would you call the police for help?  What the Chinese do in 7th month is not to call the police, but instead get together to do praying and offerings (food and paper-made things like money, house and cars) to them throughout the entire 7th...

In Buddhism, there is this bodhisattva called Avalokiteshvara, or commonly called 'Guan Shi Yin" in China and South East Asia (or "Guan Yin" in short).  This bodhisattva is an enlightened being living in heaven that has delayed his own buddhahood so as to save mankind from their sufferings.  He (or she as in Guan Yin) has the ability to listen and understand the suffering of others.  Buddhists believe that if we evoke his name, he will listen and help us.  Note that his one life cycle is of a few thousand years.  In everyday life, you as a human being are also like Avalokiteshvara if you can practise deep listening and active listening .  Just by being able to listen with calm and understanding and without any judgement, we are already easing the suffering of another person.  If you were to engage in 30 minutes of such listening, you can relieve a great deal of pain in another person.  That's what coaches and trainers like us do: we listen...

As I learnt from James Pickens, master sales closers ask one minute, one liner closing statements that close the sale instantly.  The top 7 such questions are: "What could I do to help you buy?"  If the customer says, "Nothing" you say, "Why?"  The customer then answers, and you overcome the objection and closes the sale If the customer says he can't make a decision, you suddenly ask him if he wants more coffee . Whatever answer the customer gives, you just say, "Don't tell me you can't make a decision; you just did." "Let me tell you something I've learned.  When you don't know which road to take in life, any road that looks good to you will do.  Isn't this proposal I showed you look good?" "Mr customer, if I give you this product free of charge, you would take it, wouldn't you?  So we're only talking about money, right?" "Mr customer, anyone can say no, because that's easy....

A good salesperson is one that can sell in difficult situations, that is, selling when people don't want to buy.  There are 7 situations when people don't want to buy: You are selling something that they already have aplenty - like selling ice to the Eskimos Your customer has just bought the same thing that you're selling Overnight, the number of suppliers increased by 200% while your target market shrinks by 50%.  In other words, there is a massive over supply, much like the PC market here now Your product or service has a bad record - and no matter how attractive you make them, no one wants to buy. This is much like the Windows Surface RT now There is little demand for what you sell now as people can get it for free on the internet - much like DVDs and CDs now Your prospect has been approached by over 10 vendors from your trade in one week - how would you expect him to buy from you? People just don't want to buy because there is no mood - much like Thailand ...

It sounds funny, right?  How can one be happy when stressed?  What is stress?  Whenever you're not getting what you want, you have stress.  Note that it is negative stress that makes us suffer, positive stress gives us energy and impetus to do more.   The next time you are stressed, you are doing this thing called Focus on What Went Wrong .  The simple way to de-stress immediately and be instantly happy is to Focus on What Went Right .   It is not what happens to us that makes us suffer, but what we do to what happened that makes us suffer .   For example, your team members are not demonstrating the teamwork and responsibility you want.  As a result, work gets piled up and you're now stressed.  Instead of scolding your team members for being irresponsible and upset everyone, why not focus on what's right?  What are right could be: you have a team, your team is intact and not broken, your team's turnover is low, your team hav...

Knowing the truths makes one wise, believing in the myths makes one unwise, so said my teacher Andy Ferrari Norman.  The top 7 myths and truths of training that few people realize are: 1.  Training will make me 'Get High' Truth: Yes, you may get very pleasant feelings of peace and tranquility but you should not get high or the trainer has just embarked on 'emotion brainwashing'.  Training will increase your self-awareness of your knowledge, beliefs and experience .  For example, people often told me that they didn't realize that they were using the wrong words and phrases in their work until they came to our training. 2. Training will equip me with 'Magic Power' In promotion flyers for seminars, they often use words like 'turn you from unmotivated to highly charged' and that gives many the impression that training has some magical power.  Truth:  Trainers are not magicians , they don't possess magic power to transmit them to you. But wi...

Our achievement-oriented society is always crazy about skills and certification: the more skilled you are, the higher would be your income. However, we do know that in the longer term, having more skills without being skillful will not sustain your success.  You need to be both skilled and skillful to enjoy sustainable growth.   By the way, skillful means being careful, mindful, considerate  and most importantly, having good intention with wholesome thoughts .  Wholesome thoughts include love, kindness, equanimity, empathy and joy.  For example, if I am a skillful driver, I would be very considerate and would not want to cause traffic jams unnecessary by driving too slow during peak hours.  A skilled driver may not be as skillful as me unless he has the same state of mind as me.  At the end of the day, what matters are always moments: it is not what you do but what you do in that moment that makes the difference .  Accidents are usually caus...

In his military classic "Art of War" written 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu taught us that to defeat the competition and achieve your goals, you must have foreknowledge.  Foreknowledge is not about the following: Prediction based on the past Unsubstantiated Hearsay Analogy with past events Derived from calculations Foreknowledge is about 4 things: Detailed research and analysis from people who know the competition situation in details Knowledge of the personality and behaviour profile of people Psychology of things, why people do things in certain way Knowledge about the environment, including business climate Foreknowledge does not stop at knowing your competitors.   The most important knowledge is to know yourself.  You must know where you are strong and where you are weak so that your weakness will not be exposed and instead positioned as strengths.   Having foreknowledge will also help us to exercise Deception, which is simply not letting the...

Note: Successful Selling Strategies seminar is now on 17 July 2014 Thursday 9 am to 12.30 pm.  Details at here . Everyone from Facebook to Google and Apple are jumping into this bandwagon of Successful Selling Strategies , which are summarized as follows:(source from here ) Your salespeople are the solutions to increasing sales , not more advertising or image building.  All Apple Stores (not to be confused with Apple Resellers) staff undergo 3-months of intensive training before they can attend to walk-in customers.  How about you?  When was the last time your salespeople attend training?   2 years ago?  Take advantage of PIC claims and sign them up for sales training now! Content is king, context is emperor.   Yes, content is important, but what is more important than content is context, how do you customize and contextualize your content to the local market?   Customer satisfaction is worthle...

Mention 'work hard' and many equate it to be toil, suffer, to be on tenterhooks, sweat, labour, fret, tolerate and even slog.  Truth be told, working hard is a virtue that all successful people have.  I have yet to see a self-made man that has never work hard.  If you want to get rich, you need to work hard.  In fact, working hard is not the same as hardworking, as when you are working hard, you may not realize that you are working hard.  For work has become a joy , and working hard is second nature as you are just fulfilling your calling. If you enjoy your work and work your enjoyment, work is never hard at all and you'll never need to retire.   Understand that work hard is not hard if you work with your hearts. If you find that your work is hard, it's hard for you to work hard. Hard words make work hard (read here for full article).  Heart words make hard work not hard.  A manager's job is to make people work hard, not make pe...

Yesterday's article on Planting Seeds of Happiness  in 7 easy ways drew one comment asking me to elaborate how to do that in the office. As we know, the office is one place where we spend more time than anywhere in this world.  Smart bosses often equate happiness at work as the ingredient to high productivity, the other 2 ingredients being management system and management sty le.  The 7 ways that you too can plant the seeds of happiness in the office everyday: Know Your Value in the Office for the Day - yes, some days people feel that they are just messengers but the moment you realize your value in the office, you'll start to feel you are doing something good. Such good feelings give you instant happiness Validate and Appreciate your colleagues for what they do for you .  Before going back, ask your boss this question, "Can I ask you a question before you leave?"  The boss will of course say, "Sure".  "Is there one or 2 things that I can do tom...

This article appeared in The Straits Times on 28 August 2015 Friday Page C32. For article on "Plant Seeds of Happiness in the Office", click here If you plant seeds of happiness, flowers of happiness will bloom.    Everyone wants to be happy, yet often we have very little idea of what brings about genuine happiness.  It's obvious that material comforts will only bring us momentary happiness, as the moment you have something good, you start to want more and better and diminish your own happiness.  In fact clinging on to material comforts only leads to suffering.  No one wants to suffer, but do we know how to give up those actions that cause suffering? True happiness is an inside thing, it is your inner feeling of bliss and joy.  There is no clinging, no craving, only pure enjoyment.   What is planting a seed?  It's the simple act of setting something into motion that will help you create the life you want.  It's taking a moment of ...

Every salesperson (including those not selling but selling ideas like those in management) wants to know the fastest and easiest way to make the sale. One day I asked an audience of insurance salespeople, "How many of you would like it if I gave you a list of people who wanted to buy insurance now? Everyone raised their hands. Truth: There is no such list. The one-word meaning of sales is "WORK". The 2-word meaning of sales is "WORK HARD". The 3-word meaning of sales is "WORK EVEN HARDER". How Do I Make a Cold Call? There answer is, "Don't". Don't make a cold call. Make a warm call.   Warm up the cold call and you'll get your results improved by 27%. Guaranteed.  We teach in our courses the 7 ways to warm up any calls. Instead of calling people and look for "Mr Andy", tell the other side that "I've been asked to give Andy a call". If they asked you "What's it regarding?" You don't answ...