Business and Money Tips

Regular users of Facebook find it fascinating to use WeChat.  The 5 common Facebook features are simply not available on WeChat.  Note that other than this, WeChat has at least 28 features that Facebook does not have.  The 5 FB features that cannot be done in WeChat are: 1 .  Hastag # In Facebook, you can simply hastag a topic so that this topic can be easily searched by people. But there is no such hastag on WeChat This is because WeChat uses a very powerful search engine where you can search for key words without the need for a hastag.  Go to your 'Discover' page and select 'Search'. 2. Tag people You can tag someone on in your Facebook's posts so that such posts will appear on their timeline. There is no such feature on WeChst.  As such, your 'My Posts' on WeChat is cleaner as no one can put something not posted by you on your timeline In WeChat, you can simply mention your friends by using '@' in your Moments posts and they w...

We all know WeChat is such a powerful tool as it has 28 unique useful functions that Whatsapp and Facebook do not have.  Why are people not using WeChat as much as Whatsapp? There are 3 hurdles when it comes to using WeChat: 1. Lack of friends Yes, the reason we use Whatsapp and Facebook so much is that we have many friends on them but we have few friends on WeChat.   We know that in Singapore, 3 out of 4 mobile phone users are using WeChat. This means that there are not few but at least 4 million people using WeChat in Singapore . The question is are your friends using WeChat?  If they are, are you guys WeChat friends?  One way to check if your friends are using WeChat is to simply find them on your phone's contact list. Simply go to 'Contacts' page on WeChat, press the '+' on top, select 'Add Contacts', then select 'Mobile Contact' and press 'Upload Contacts'.  Your WeChat account will simply tell you which of your friends on yo...

‘THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF MARKETING’ book  written by Al Ries and Jack Trout is a wonderful book. I realise that we too can apply the laws to management.  In fact the world's 2 most preferred employers Google and Facebook use many of these 8 laws:  1.       Law of Leadership  – Be a Good Leader first then be a Good Manager. (Be a better manager in 4 weeks at here ) 2.       Law of Mind  –  it’s better to be the first in the mind than to be the first in the marketplace .   Once a mind is made up, it rarely changes.   So make a strong name in your people's minds that you are an Effective Manager (details at here ).  3.       Law of Perception  – management is  not a battle of ideas  but a  battle of perceptions .  All ideas is relative.   Management is a  manipulation of perceptions .  Make sure your people perceive you to be ...

This small artist monopolised the entire Chinatown.  Yes, micro players can always monopolize the market if they do things differently.  Yes, a micro like You can become the Microsoft of your industry today.  This is because the market is not absolutely homogeneous and is heterogeneous, that is, each segment of the market is actually different.  Many small players do not realize this and make the mistake of following the market leaders blindly.  They end up with no business because customers would rather play safe and go with the leader than an unknown brand. The following are the 7 ways that any small player can monopolize the market easily: Do Things That Nobody Does .  Like NEXT Computer (1986 to 1998), it focused on the education market and avoided the rest of the market dominated by IBM-clones PCs powered by Microsoft's operating system.  In fact NEXT was so successful that Apple had to use up all its available cash to buy it over in 1998 to...

In this age of high land cost and high staff cost, how can companies increase their sales at the least cost?  Are there proven ways that you too can win new customers effortlessly ?  By 'effortlessly', we don't mean without effort but things that you do with your heart that it seems like effortless , like when we update our status on facebook, watch videos on youtube and play games on iPad Air. There are 7 Ways that companies can win new customers effortlessly: Referrals , because what customers say are more believable than what salespeople say .  Referrals have 7 types: word of mouth referral, testimonials referral, word of social media referral, word of print referral, referral by action, referral by suppliers and referral by enemies.  Phone-Mail-Phone Marketing .  Yes, the Personal Data Protection Act, which takes effect on 1 Jan 2014, does not include marketing to companies.  That means that you can still market to companies via the phone but ca...

Following my blog on Add Value, Not Add Work , 2 friends messaged me at facebook asking me to elaborate how we can add value to customers even if they don't buy.  Well, we know that if people that don't buy today they may buy tomorrow, and our job in business is to create happy relationships with people.   Business will come if you can add value.  Just look at how Facebook, Twitter and Youtube created value for over 2.5 billion people and you'll know what I mean. The following are the Top 6 Ways You Can Add Value to Customers Even When They Don't Buy: Show them the Pros and Cons of Your Company's Products and Services.  Most salespeople shy away from showing people their weaknesses for fear that customers will not buy if they know that. The reverse is true: c ustomers will trust a vendor more if they were to tell first-hand (without being asked) their weaknesses .  With trust, business will come. Show them How to Save Money .  Always start with the...

By now the whole world realizes that Apple's iPad Air has broken another new record for tablet sales.  Many people wondered what makes Apple successful while others like Samsung and LG are still fighting hard? According to my teacher Andy Ferrari Norman, there are 5 Selling Rules to follow: Non-self. Yes, selling is about not focusing on yourself but on your customers .  You need to find out what customers want and give it to them.  Selling is not about the seller's ego but making customers heros.  Apple has obviously focused on the user's experience and not the brand awareness.  The App Store it created is second to none.    Impermanence : selling is about creating new things every now and then and making things non permanent .  That's why Apple has product upgrades every 12 months or so. Interconnectedness :  As everything changes, everything in this world is connected.  Apple pays attention to the connectivity of things : its...

Mention the word 'branding' and most people will only think of international brands like Facebook, Google and Apple. In reality, we are each a brand, as a brand simply means what you stand for. Today we may be a not-famous brand, but tomorrow we could be reaching out to people we never thought of before, as long as we build our brand in 5 easy ways: Know What We Stand For.  Yes, what we stand for are usually our deepest passion and innate desire to help others.  Like me AndyTheCoach, people know that I stand for coaching and teaching, for I gave up a high-figure Director post in a Japanese MNC 13.5 years ago to go into full-time coaching and training.   Do That Few People Do .  It doesn't need to be something big, all you need is that you don't do what others do and you dare to do what others don't do .  Like Steve Jobs in 1997, when he took over the interim CEO position in Apple Inc, he took just a $1 salary but asked for huge amounts of stock options...

Commonsense tells us that there is no fire without wind, and everything happens due to causes and conditions. Yet many still believe in lottery and think that they can break laws as long as they are not caught.  What we teach in our training are all commonsense, yet they are not common practice.  The following are 5 Most Ignored Commonsense: 1. Multiple causes vs Single Cause   It is A, B, C, D, E that leads to F, G, H, I J, and not A leads to B. You cannot just advertise and expect business, your people must also know how to close sales or there will be no business. Of course your product must be right to begin with. 2. Better than Late Than Never is Stupid!  But the moment you say 'Later', you are closer to never. It's better to 'Just Do It' as what Nike said than to wait for conditions to be perfect. 3.  Time Simply Has No Value It's not time that has value, but what you do to time that has value.  How often we hear 'time i...

It's inevitable that we make mistakes at work and in life. Some are small, like calling the wrong number, while others are big, like allowing fraud to happen or even committing fraud. Of course no one in this world intentionally want to make mistakes, and everyone dislike mistakes. This is because mistakes create confusion and doubts and leave us feeling inadequate and embarrassed. Because of this, we tend to treat mistakes more as enemies than teachers.  We want to annihilate mistakes at all costs.  Since mistakes already made cannot be undone, we often end up covering mistakes, and worst still, justifying mistakes . There was this guy that I know from my training assignments.  He was a Vice President of a large MNC, and he is very skilled at avoiding responsibility and placing blame. For example, if his department is spending over the budget, he would 'calmly' recall that he had make an adjustment to his budget 6 months ago and was 'surprised' that the acc...