Business and Money Tips

There's a Zen story in which a professor visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The master served tea. When the visitor's cup was full, the master kept pouring. Tea spilled out of the cup and over the table. "The cup is full!" said the professor. "No more will go in!" "Like this cup," said the master, "You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" If you want to understand and learn, you need to empty your cup.  So how do people empty their cup when they go for training courses?  From experience in conducting in-house trainings for over 440 companies and over 81,131 people in 14 countries since 1996, there are 7 ways to empty your cup:  (click here for list of courses) (For slides, read here ) Learn with an Open Mind . Do not hold any fixed ideas before the course.  Like the parachute, the mind is only useful when it is open.  Opening your mind also mean...

Sales Training in Singapore falls under 2 categories: Academic-style long training lasting into weeks and months and Corporate-style training lasting from half-days to 3 days.  Marketing Institute of Singapore (MIS) conducts the most academic-style training, while for Corporate-style short sales training, there are 3 main styles: Motivational style , which models training after NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and Motivational Principles.  You get very charged up after the training;  Guru style , which are usually done by 'ang moh' gurus like Joel Bauer and T Harv Eker, usually from USA.  They typically conduct free 2 to 3 days training (or more correctly previews) to on-sell a week of training costing 5 to 9 thousand dollars; Down-to-Earth Style , which are done by over 20 training providers, ranging from one-man shows to established providers like Asia Trainers, Asia Coaching Training and ActionCOACH.  They mix hard (specific sales strategies) with so...

At the beginning of every training session I normally ask my students why they are here.  Inevitably I get answers like, "I was told by my boss to attend", "I have to come for training or my boss will not be happy" and "Do I have a choice?  Coming for training is part of work, right?" I would often counter what they said by saying, "That means you are forced by your boss to attend this training, right?"  The whole class would erupt into laughter.  I then thank them for their honesty and show instant appreciation to their boss (who could be inside the class). Indeed the best reason for coming to training is no reason, that is, come because of being forced by bosses.   As we know, training is not playing or social activity, very few people, maybe less than 0.01% of the population, would attend training on their own.  Most people need their bosses to force them to attend training.  The reason is that many employees feel that they know a lo...

As an employee, it is your wish to earn more but work less this year. Otherwise, how are you going to improve your quality of life and work life balance?  Unknown to many people, it is possible to work less (really work less hours) but earn more (from promotion, bonus and incentives).  The following are the 5 most common ways that we teach to our clients: Higher Skills - either move up to management level or become even more specialized and be an expert in your work.  Higher skills also mean skills that are of higher demand , like leadership, sales and communication skills.  Studies in Australia show that if you attend at least 2 courses in a month (totalling 8 hours), your chance of getting a promotion in this year increases by 43%.  One of the fastest and free ways to acquire skills is to sign up for corporate training.  Your company will be happy to pay for them because they can get $15,000 cash under the PIC Bonus scheme.  Be More Skilful...

Mention the word training and most people would think of going back to school. Some will equate training to those long sessions into the nights where you would be challenged to do the impossible like cutting a cane with your neck.  There are some who think that training is for people who are not up to the par, high performers, they say, do not need training. Recently, most people know that training is a competitive tool to outsell your competition, for the government's PIC scheme gives 60% cash or 400% tax deduction for training. Yet we know deep inside use that the purpose of training is not the accumulation of knowledge and skills, but the use and application of such knowledge and skills to bring about change withi n us .  For when we change, then would our teamwork and organization change.  The teachings of trainers is to help us develop a good mindset so that we can think and act skilfully, not randomly.  Then the productivity and profits of the organizat...