Business and Money Tips

What is the main reason for business problems? If you were to analyse the reasons, you will come up with one common reason - lack of sales. What then causes the lack of sales? Is it the economy? Product? Pricing? I say that at the end of the day, it can boil down to one cause: the salesperson did not close the sale. How important is closing the sale? Well, if you are not closing sales for your own company, you are closing sales for your competitor . For the prospect will simply go to whoever that closes on him, even though he may not be close to him. Sales Closing is defined as Moving the Sale forward . Throughout the different steps in the sales process, the salesperson has to close the sale and move the sales process forward, not backward. Many salespeople know that selling is just about 4 steps: you first have to find the prospect, you need to present to the prospect, you have to answer the prospect’s questions and you follow-up with the prospect until close. At every ste...

The Thirty-Six Stratagems 三十六计 is a unique collection of a mysterious ancient Chinese military book that describes not only battlefield strategies, but tactics used in psychological warfare to win with deception. Its origins are unknown, and no one knows who is the author or compiler. The modern version is derived from a tattered book discovered at a roadside vendor's stall in China in 1941. It turned out to be a reprint of an earlier book dating back to the late Ming or early Qing dynasty entitled, The Secret Art of War or The Thirty-Six Stratagems 三十六计. A reprint was first officially published for the general public by a government-related printer in Beijing in 1961. Today most scholars agree that the Thirty-Six Stratagems is likely a collection of idiomatic expressions taken from popular Chinese folklore, history, and myths.   Here are the 36 Stratagems in listing and our translation in simple English: Stratagems When You’re in Superior Positions 1.  ...

It is common knowledge that nothing happens without a reason.  There are always causes and conditions and they in turn will produce effects, which will in turn become causes and effects and this goes on.  They called this Dependent Origination , which simply means everything originates from something (read here for the details).   As explained in our previous article on sales, you can use this understanding to boost your effectiveness quickly.   Today I will talk about Training: what causes people to do training and what are the effects of training.  First training is defined as any learning that is more structured, less informal and not unconscious .  So if you unconsciously learn how to cook better or you hear from friends how to do a better Facebook posting, that is not strictly training as it is called Self Learning .  Therefore training is always coming from somewhere outside you , and the driver of training is usually from someone other t...

Everyone knows the PIC ( Productivity and Innovation Credit ) scheme, which started in 2010, will end in 2017.  You can read our 7 blogs on this PIC by searching for 'PIC' at our blog ( Successful Sales Strategies is on 11 Sep 2014)  Today I will talk about 5 finer points of PIC that most people may not take note: PIC Bonus will definitely expire by December 2014 or your financial year end in 2014, WHICHEVER IS EARLIER.  There is no extension to PIC Bonus scheme All PIC Cash Claims must be done using online form and no other manual forms will be accepted from 1 August 2014 onwards. The IRAS site to get the form, plus how to use the form are found here   Equipment List: you need to follow the list of equipment by industry and any equipment not found in the list will need to apply for approval first. Click here for details Training fees: you can only claim PIC for training done for employees. Employees include part and full time employees, local and fo...

Everyone say they work for money, but if you ask them will they work for money if their boss is a jerk, most will say no.  Obviously there are many things worth more than money.  A smart boss will give these to them, simply because they are costless but are perceived as priceless to the receiver. These 7 Invaluable Non-Monetary Treasures include: Recognition for not just achievements but hard work done .  Many bosses only recognize people when they hit the targets, but given the tough business environment that we are in, people will feel de-motivated if they work hard and fail to hit the targets.  That's why a smart boss always recognize people with simple words like, " Thanks for the hard work " coupled with a smile Sense of Belonging .  People want to feel that they belong to something more than just colleagues, their organization must stand for something and they must feel that they belong there and are not just work for money. The most effective way to...

Whether you are in management or sales , one of the most powerful ways to get people to follow you is to give people things that are low cost (or even zero cost) to you but high perceived value to them .  The 13 most popular such things to give to people include: Service, especially service that has a high perceived value.  Like we often give to our selected prospects a free Training Needs Analysis or Business Diagnostic session worth $298.  Do not give free service that you normally charge people, for this will cheapen your image Buy 2 Get 1 Free .  This beats 20% or 30% discount, for there is a high perceived value when people can get more without paying Praise, especially sincere and specific praise from the heart Acknowledgement and Validation , as most people see this as their worth Apology , especially when you may not be in the wrong, but you are the first to apologize.  People do appreciate your humility and seriousness when you apologize Ide...

From discussions with my clients today, I realized that many managers are not doing critical thinking in their job.  In fact many of them are doing 'Criticizing Thinking', because they think that criticising people is part of their job. Truth be told, being critical and criticising are different things .  You don't criticise just for the sake of criticising .  If a manager is not doing critical thinking, he is not doing the right thinking and will soon be doing 'follower thinking', or commonly called 'Group Think'.  Worse still, the manager is doing this thing called 'not thinking', and he will soon be not a manager. What is Critical Thinking?  Why is critical thinking important?  Critical thinking is about being able to think in ways that can understand events in this world and ultimately lead to problem solving .  It is obvious that a manager's job is to solve problems, and he is not doing critical thinking, how can he solve problems?  ...

The biggest mistake in business must be to think that one plus one is two. Imagine you have 2 salespersons selling $2 million, when you hire a new salesperson, your sales cannot be $3 million, it must be higher or something is wrong.  You must achieve this thing called LEVERAGE, or SYNERGY or ever more with ever less .  Here are 7 reasons why one plus one is never two in sales: Just 1 sales idea implemented will produce  sales far more than the course fee (as we now have PIC 60% subsidy for training) Stimulated Environment , especially when you have a high flying salesperson, your entire sales team will be motivated to achieve more than ever Splash in the Market , when you do aggressive sales and marketing activities, the entire market will wake up to your offer and your sales will just have to go up Referrals from customers , when you get 5 new customers, even if you get one new referred customer from...

You may wonder: I am a professional manager, what has love got to do with my work? As we know, a manager is only good if he can get good people to work for him and get good people to stay .  Often companies are caught in a vicious circle: they need to hire people quickly to replace the loss of good people.  Once people come in, they are given everything (money, power, fame, position, responsibility and stress) except one thing: love .  As a result, good people leave them fast and they are soon caught in busy trend: hiring.   Of course you could say that everyone in your industry is facing the same problem, this country has labour shortage, right?  It is not your fault as your company's salary is already very competitive.  Being a responsible manager, you know you have to do something to stop this.  Now there is a new strategy to do this: using Love.  Because if you don't love them, you'll lose them.  To many people, love is a dirty wor...

Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what you can do with it. Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge We humans are more concerned with having than with being. What we learnt that one plus one equals to two is incorrect I am everywhere We never really die When things move really fast, they are not moving at all Humans only use the most 10% of their brain.  Imagine if they can use 100% of their brain, interesting things will happen Time is the only true unit of measure, it gives proof to the existence of matter.  Without time, we don't exist The best way to do with the knowledge that you accumulate is to pass it on "Lucy" is a movie by Scarlet Johansson. By Andy Ng , more quotes at: One plus one is never two How to use more than 10% of your brain The 7 lessons from 2,600 years ago Believe nothing and yet believe everything Dependent Origination made easy A faster way to problem solving

Every child learns from school that 1 + 1 = 2.  This may be simple, but it could also be the biggest lie that adults teach to children. The truth is that 1 + 1 is never equal to 2.  It could be more than 2 or less than 2, but seldom 2. Two obvious reasons: Synergy, or leverage , where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts . If I have one idea and you also share your one idea with me, our ideas are more than two.  This is because we have both stimulated each other and we will have more ideas than we could think of.  That's why like-minded people like to be together, and birds of the same feather would flock together. Dis-synergy, or negative leverage , where the whole is less than the sum of it parts.  This is because the coming of two things will bring issues like compatibility and thus bring down the total value.  If you and me come together we may have less ideas because we need to trash out our issues like personality. In you...

“It is estimated most human beings only use 10 percent of the brain’s capacity,” Morgan Freeman says in 2014's best-selling movie Lucy. “Imagine if we could access 100 percent.  Interesting things begin to happen.” So is it true that humans only use 10% of our brain?   How can we use our brain more without incurring higher stress?  (Stress reduction with mindfulness at here ) Truth be told, unless you have a traumatic brain injury or other neurological disorder, you are already using more than 10% of your brain. Other than your active brain, like the one you're using now to read this blog, you also use other parts of your passive brain to control automatic bodily functions like breathing and balance.  I'm not a scientist, and until now modern science cannot come to any meaningful conclusion about how much of our brain we're using.  One thing for sure: it is less than 100% and more than 0%.  Whatever it is, we can always use more than 10% ...