Business and Money Tips

With the lockdown from COVID-19, it is very obvious to see the good quality people from the bad ones. B PEOPLE - DO NOTHING Those that treat the lockdown of no need to work and still get paid (although less, but it is okay because of no need to work) from their employer and in Singapore, from the Singapore government (each person gets $600 cash on 18 April 2020) as a pure holiday.  Actually, since January 2020, the whole economy is very slow and their work was already much less as compared to 2019. But nevertheless, they treat this as their well-deserved holiday.  They may stay at home and get entertained the whole day from the many free channels offered by Starhub and Singtel.  Some stay at home and get glued to COVID-19 news and videos, busy forwarding such news to people on WhatsApp and social media a few times an hour.  They know that 99.9% of such news are fake, but they are good news and they feel that by forwarding such news to people they are savin...

(Read the update at here) Looking at what happened to China's Hebei province and Wuhan city now, there are 5 things in the world that will change forever when the COVID--19 lockdown is over: People get used to working and living online for everything : shopping, banking, groceries, tuition, training, seminars, office meetings, networking, social meeting and even dating. In future asking people to come out for your physical seminars,  meetings or events will be more difficult.  But the good news is that your reach is wider now as you can reach out to many people outside your country or territory via online. For example in my company, we used to conduct 4 physical seminars a week at our shop at Fu Lu Shou Complex. During the lockdown period, we hold almost daily online seminars via Zoom and Facebook Live.  Our audience now includes people from KL, Penang, East Malaysia, Taiwan and even New Zealand.   Working from home is more common, with any companies slas...

(Read also How to Secure Your Zoom meeting ) Other than Zoom Cloud Meeting, you can use other video conferencing platforms like Google Hangouts, Skype and WeChat Video Conference.  Zoom is the most popular because it is free and is easy to use, especially on the phone .  Here's how you can use Zoom effectively: Use a laptop, not your phone or tablet, especially when you are hosting a meeting.  On a laptop, you can see everything: the PowerPoint screen that you are sharing, video of all participants and the group chats.  You can easily type on a laptop and this is useful when you are translating or doing detailed explanations.   The host of the zoom meeting should mute everyone at the settings and only unmute them when they speak.  Participants can indicate that they want to speak by raising their hands before speaking Use earpiece or headsets or wireless earbuds so that you have a better concentration of the voices in the meeting and not be d...

When you work from home, you look at WhatsApp 5 times more than normal.  If you do these 5 things on WhatsApp, you will be hated and lose many friends on WhatsApp.  The 5 taboos are: Immediately upon joining a WhatsApp group, you send private messages to the group members promoting your products and services.  It is okay to first send a self-introductory private message, like your name card, but not to sell straightaway Forward fake news and fake videos , especially on COVID-19.  99% of all news on WhatsApp and Facebook are fake, so if you send or forward them you are committing a crime in Singapore and other jurisdictions Send voice messages to people as you are too lazy to type.  You are irritating the world with your voice, unless you have a sexy voice like Rod Steward or Lin Zhiling Every day send the same old good morning messages to people Be negative on WhatsApp, like being sarcastic or argue about opinions.  It is okay to state your opini...

Many people are feeling very stressed now from the COVID-19 Pandemic, as evidenced by the messages in the group chats and news from the media.  Definitely, life is different now, from simple things like eating lunch to more complex things like how to get the report out to your client and negotiate a business deal. We know that if you don't deal with stress, the stress will deal with you and your life will be affected, both emotionally and physically. The 5 ways to deal with Stress from COVID-19 include: Balance your receipt of negative news with positive news .  We know that when you receive news about COVID-19, it is mostly negative. So we need to also catch up on other news like history, geography, travel, music, entertainment etc Exercise (in your house).   Simple exercises like stretching, push-ups, sit-ups and even yoga can be done at home using videos from YouTube as a guide Stop meddling small things. When you work from home, you will tend to get picky on s...

Everyone will be working from home in the entire world when the COVID-19 Pandemic spreads.   For most people, working from home will be very unproductive, unless you do the following 5 things: Wake up Early and Sleep Early.   You have to wake up early and need to sleep early so that you will wake up early.  The reason you cannot sleep late is you will be taking several breaks during the day (and night), and as such you have to avoid over-sleeping.  It is good to take a proper 15 to 20 minutes nap during the day, but improper to take 3 to 5 naps during the day Put away your handphone most of the time while you are working from home.  This is common sense as the phone will distract you more than ever when you're working from home Off the power button for TV, as you don't want to be watching TV news most of the time, especially on the COVID-19 situation Exercise once a day to keep your spirits up.   Working from home initially will be energizing f...

The biggest lesson for me from Covid-19 is Procrastination is more deadly than the virus itself. Because of procrastination, people may not get tested and treated and they may die instead of getting healed.  Because of procrastination, people put off doing things, waiting for another day.  The things that they put off could be to lose weight, look for a job, get organised, learn the course that they want, or simply putting off eating their favourite food or buying the wireless earbuds that they yearn for.  N ow with shops closed and lockdown in cities, they cannot do anything other than watch on the internet. Even without the lockdown, people are afraid of going out.  Because of procrastination, people didn't say the things they want to say, do inner self-cleansing, or be religious or spiritual.   Now they cannot go out, they cannot do anything, not even visit the temples or shrines they wanted, or talk to the pastor that they need. Because of procrasti...

Many self-employed people and entrepreneurs, myself included, are badly hit by the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis. Instead of sitting down complaining and waiting for money to drop from the sky, I took progressive proactive steps and managed to still have some income and business in this difficult period.  What about you?  Let's share our experiences so that we can leverage on each other. The 5 Things That I Do In My Business include: Promote eBooks, hard copy books and e-learning instead of asking people to come to my place to take up our training on WeChat, Sun Tzu Art of War, Mobile Number Profiling and Cash Flow Success Promote SkillsFuture courses , as these courses cost little and the government provides an income of $7.50 an hour for self-employed people that attend these classes.  The SkillsFuture classes that we promote include SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace, PDPA Compliance, and Leadership and People Management course.  Go into consultancy services t...

31 Reasons to Use WeChat Many people resisted using WeChat. Why use another app when WhatsApp and Facebook are so good already?  There are 31 reasons to use WeChat: 1.   We know that as of today, China has started to recover from the Covid Pandemic. People expect China's economy to rebound this year. If you don’t do business with China, who can you do business with? The people from China only use WeChat and nothing else.   It is best that you use  WeChat.  2.       You get to know people outside your usual circle of friends in Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.   This WeChat circle of people is very familiar with Chinese ways of doing business, an essential skill today 3.       You get a brand new mini-website called Official Account for free and you can use this to market your business FOC 4.      You don't need to download so many apps as what you need are already inside WeChat. This...