Business and Money Tips

When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented a search engine in 1998, their idea was to sell their technology to an existing IT company. At that time Yahoo! was the number one search engine in the world, followed by others like AltaVista and AskJeeves. But no one wants to buy Google's search engine as it was unknown.  During this time, Yahoo! was busy evolving itself into a media company on the net, and they need to outsource their search engine service to a contractor. They found  Inktomi. Before Yahoo could appoint Inktomi as their search engine contractor, the Google's founders made a bold move.  Google's Larry and Sergey made a proposal to Yahoo! They told Yahoo!, smilingly, that they can do the search engine for Yahoo!  "Why should I pass it to you when you are a nobody?", asked Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo! Google said that they will  help Yahoo! to become more successful in media  because Google's search engine will be very simple -

Employees are often considered a cost to their employer.  Most employers think that only the salespeople and top management make money for the company, with the rest just spending money.  "All employees are simply cost" as exclaimed by one senior management of a big organization. Is this true?  We show employers in our training "High Value Employees" (details at here ) that there are at least 36 ways for every employee to make more money for their employer.  (Note: Our "12-month Weekly Execution Training Program helps companies implement all the 36 strategies with ease). Whether you are in sales, customer service, engineering, finance, administration, human resource, operations, production, warehousing, research, quality control or technical support, you too can make more money in 36 ways in the following 5 areas: 1.  Increase Sales without Spending a Single Cent  Serve customers better, leading to more repeat business, thus higher sales Always ask

Gone are the days where people will buy what you sell if you sell well.  Also, a long established brand may not bring in sales.  Look at the dismal sales of Windows Phone and you'll realize that what customers want is nothing but increase in profits.  (see here for winning sales strategies) Profits to an individual could mean more convenience, faster productivity and reduction in cost.  If you are selling to a business, there are 36 ways a salesperson can increase his customer's profits: Increase in sales.  Like our sales training can help our clients achieve a 10% increase in sales in just 2 months Reduction in wastage Lower direct and indirect labour cost Lesser overtime and thus lower labour cost Higher and more predictable quality products and services, leading to more sales Cut down in repair and maintenance cost Faster turnaround, resulting in higher sales and lower overheads Lower overheads Higher productivity, leading to lower labour cost and higher profi

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.      Openly Dece

(Read 4 Weeks to a Better Manager at here ) We know that with the Singapore's economy growing at 3% to 4% this year, companies should be enjoying at least 5% to 10% of sales growth.  Yet many businesses that I talked to, including the famous restaurant at Orchard Road that I attended, are seeing stagnant sales.  Some are even experiencing declining sales.  Why? Lack of Labour . Because of the low birth rates from 1990 onwards, there are far fewer job seekers than job providers.  This, coupled with the continued tightening of foreign labour, means that it is the lack of labour, not lack of customers, that is causing sales to stagnant .  Is there a solution? The solution must be a permanent one, that is, it should once and for all solve this labour shortage problem, at least for the next 10 to 20 years. It should also not increase the cost of doing business , yet at the same time does not require government's funding.  What is this perfect solution?   Increase in Produc

Sun Tzu Art of War uses tactics to achieve maximum results with minimum resources.  One of the most used stratagem is "Kill with a Borrowed Knife" or 借刀杀人。Unknown to many people and unreported by the media, our Finance Minister Mr Tharman used this tactic in pushing the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit). You see, Mr Tharman had a tall and challenging task.  How can Singapore 250,000 companies, of which over 95% are small and medium enterprises, reduce the reliance on cheap foreign labour and use higher skilled local staff and automation to increase productivity?  So he came up with the PIC scheme in 2010. In 2012, Mr Tharman enhanced this scheme and increased the cash subsidy from 30% to 60%, payable quarterly instead of yearly.  But he has another problem: how can this scheme be pushed out quickly to the most number of SMEs without the government hiring a big public relations team?  The answer lies in making use of vendors. You see, vendors doing training , I

Throughout the world serving 69 million customers every day, the world's largest and most profitable restaurant group earns net profits as high as 20% of its sales.  From New Delhi to China, from Tanzania to Singapore, every time when you order something at McDonald's counter, their staff will inevitably ask you one question: Do You Want to Up size? In fact this single question made McDonald's rich.  Notice that McDonald's did not ask you other questions that most salespeople ask, including, "Can you give us some referrals?", "Do you want to become our member to enjoy discounts?" or "Can you please come back next week?" etc. If you answer no to the above 'Up size' question, McDonald's staff will next ask you, "Do you want an apple pie to go with your meal?"  If you still answer no to this question, the staff will ask you "Do you want to add $1 to get the limited edition Minion toy?" All the questions

Human beings like to fight even though they know very well from past history that fighting never work for any parties.  Just look at the devastation World Wars I and II and the on-going wars today and you'll realize how silly we are. Psychologists said that fighting is an animal instinct, for people have this scarcity mentality and they are too attached to the notion of having things and that's why we cannot let go. Yet wisdom from over 2,000 years of ancient civilisation including Sun Tzu Art of War, Zhuang Zi, Confucius, Lao Zi and Sidharta Gotama 'Pali Canon' told us that at the end of the day, the winner is the one that wins EVEN WHEN HE DOESN'T FIGHT .  In fact smart companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple know and practised these No-War Strategies.  In particular, Facebook is a latecomer in social media but they did not go out to fight head-on with pioneers like MySpace and Friendster.  Instead Facebook created a perfect photo-sharing and time-l