The 5 Costs that You Cannot Save

Basic Financial Intelligence: Know the difference between price and value. Save cost, not save value. In business, there are 5 costs that you absolutely cannot save, for they are not costs but value:

Training: for if your people are not trained, they will do things the wrong way and this will cost you more than the training cost. By far the biggest training cost is not the training fee you pay to external trainers like us, but on-the-job training. Like your staff make a mistake and your company has to compensate the customer for this, this must be a large training cost! But if your staff is trained to do the right thing, you would have avoided this large cost
Marketing and Sales: even the world's largest consumer product company Apple has to incur hundreds of millions dollars on sales and marketing, what makes you think your company can save this cost? Your sales would definitely drop if you cut you this marketing and sales cost. The largest portion would be salespeople remuneration and sales incentives, and this too cannot be cut or you will have a sales team that under-performs
Compliance with Legal and Safety Regulations. This is obvious and needs no mention
Staff Salary for the Right Team. For the wrong team, you should not cut staff cost but simply get rid of the wrong people. Please pay well for the right people for they are your profit generators, definitely not a cost
Purchasing Cost. If you cut your purchasing cost, like reduce remuneration for your purchasers and squeeze your suppliers, what you will get is high purchase cost. Purchase cost includes not just cost of purchases, but also stock-out costs, delivery costs and opportunity cost for not having purchased the right goods and services. Click here to see how to have Successful Purchasing Strategies. Related articles: (for courses see here)

If Not You, Who Else?

I learnt this very powerful 5-word phrase from Singapore's highest ever box-office movie ever: "Ah Boys to Men II". In one scene, the recruits were about to start their 3-day field camp. Their Officer-in-Command asked them, "Before we moved out, anybody not feeling well?" All the soldiers replied loudly, "No Sir!!!" "Gentlemen", continued the Officer, "Every time the training gets tougher, one thought comes to your mind, 'Why Must I Serve National Service?' "My answer to you is, 'If Not You, Then Who Else?'" Wow! What a powerful phrase! If Not You, Who Else may mean: You are the most suitable person, and we can't find anyone better than you. This is appreciation at the highest level How can you push this responsibility to someone else? I am making a request to you specifically, please don't reject my request Can you find me another person more suitable than you? Please refer me anot...

How I Became a Fortune Teller: Leveraging NLP, Fear and Greed, and Motivational Theories

Becoming a fortune teller wasn’t part of my childhood dreams. It started as an experiment, fueled by my curiosity about human behavior and the subtle forces that drive our decisions. Over time, what began as a study of psychology and human interaction evolved into an unexpected career—one where I use the tools of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), the primal drivers of fear and greed, and motivational theories to help people uncover their paths. The First Step: Understanding the Human Psyche I was always fascinated by why people do what they do. During my university years, I studied psychology, particularly the works of Abraham Maslow, B.F. Skinner, and Victor Vroom. Their theories provided insights into motivation, reinforcement, and decision-making. But I wanted to move beyond the academic realm and see how these theories worked in real life. Around this time, I discovered NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). This framework for understanding communication and behavior is based on the...

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