Business and Money Tips

By now over several million of people from Singapore and the workd have paid their tribute to the late Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away on 23 March 2015.  Lee Kuan Yew loves the world, especially Singapore, very much.  In 1965, he shed tears in front of national television when he announced the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Fifty years later in 2015, the entire nation shed tears for him.  Singapore and the world are showing Lee now how much they love him too. The funeral on Sunday 29 March 2015 reads like a 'Who's Who's' of the world leaders.  No other world leader's funeral has attracted so many visitors, not even the late Princes Diana in 1997.  How does Lee Kuan Yew love his people?  Many young people may not appreciate what he has done for the nation, because they perceive him to be a strict and fierce parent.  One thing for sure: he does not love them by spoiling them, he loves them by developing them.  From watching over hundred...

Never marry the woman you love, love the woman you marry. This is because if you marry the woman you love, your love for this woman may not last.  What happens years later when she is old and ugly?  Do you still love her anymore? On the other hand, if you love the woman you marry, you are committed to this marriage.  You will do whatever it takes to make the marriage a success.  Your love for the woman will last longer. Same as the workplace.   You don't take up a job that you love.  You love the job that you take up. Not many of us can make our passion our vocation.  Because we need to make a living, many of us have to settle for a job that we may not dislike, but we also don't love it either. In other words, there is little passion in the job that we take. But if we can love the job we have, we will make every effort to ensure that our job will be a success. We will do whatever it takes: be it acquiring new skills, improve our communicat...

From Dr Gary Chapman's best selling book "The Five Love Languages", many people tried to apply this relationship love concept in the workplace.  While many have met with success, some have found the ideas too complex to transfer them to the workplace effectively.  At Asia Trainers, we have, since 2006 in management and leadership courses, applied such concepts successfully.    Chapman's 5 Love Languages are as follows: Words of Affirmation Quality Time Acts of Service Gifts  Touch Chapman's book claims that this list of five love languages is exhaustive but we should not use the love languages that they like the most but rather the love languages that their loved ones can receive.  So in the workplace, which love language you use would depend on who you are dealing with.  Today I shall only talk about the first love language: Words of Affirmation .  Come back to our blog at www.andyngtrainer.blogspot.sg for the remaining 5 love l...

Customers are getting sick and tired of being bombarded with marketing and selling messages.  Many of them are crying, "Leave me alone".  It seems that the usual way of aggressive and persuasive selling does not work anymore. Indeed Sell Without Selling is the new way to sell.  There are 7 ways to do so easily: Provide a checklist that helps them to go through what are the necessary and good-to-have things Serve them really well , and go all the way to serve even when they don't buy.  Seven out of ten people will feel guilty and end up buying if you serve them with all your heart with no intention of closing the sale! Let your clients do the talking: show them testimonials and past track records and let them decide if they too want to enjoy what others are having Educate your customers on the right way to do things, hint but never mention buying from you is the right choice Let them taste early success , like giving them a free trial with totally no obli...

The front 10 seats are reserved for the hungry ghosts What a strange title! What has this Singapore superstitious Hungry Ghost Festival got to do with modern professional management? The Toaists Chinese in Singapore believed that when people die, they become ghosts and live in hell. Once a year, such ghosts have a one-month holiday when they can come up and roam the streets and enjoy themselves to relive the experiences of human life. Such a month falls on the lunar 7th month every year.  They are called Hungry Ghosts because they are hungry for food, entertainment, money and most importantly, attention. Imagine if your neighbourhood suddenly sees an influx of people, surely there will be disorder, disturbances and even chaos?  Would you call the police for help?  What the Chinese do in 7th month is not to call the police, but instead get together to do praying and offerings (food and paper-made things like money, house and cars) to them throughout the entire 7th...

Following yesterday's blog on  7 Shocking Truths , people asked me if I could elaborate further from there.  If you were, like my friend, read all the management and business books out there, you will get nothing but confusion.  That's why I like to once and for all cement the following truths: 1.  Suppliers Are More Important than Customers We often said that customers is king, but if you do not have the right type of goods and services to sell, you have no business to sell to that king!  Unfortunately, most schools do not teach people how to treat suppliers well.  There are 3 things that every supplier look for: fast payment, business referrals and advance order informatio n.  Do not give your suppliers nasty surprises, or treat them like a beggar.  Give them the respect that they deserve: fast payment. 2. Employees Want to Do More than What You Told Them It's shocking to hear this: many employees don't mind to do more than what they we...

Everyone talks about the importance of love, but most people mistakenly equate love to personal affection, i.e. the kind of love when people are in a relationship of love or romance.  We know that true love is one that is more than that.  Love is defined as a Strong Positive Emotion that's Warm, Uplifting, Endearing and Inspiring .  Love is unconditional and non possessive. Love knows no boundaries, language, race or religion.  Love of course is a verb and not a noun. Ultimately you must feel love in order to understand love.  To do that, you need to be connected to people. There are 4 types of love that we teach in our courses: Loving-kindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy and Equanimity . 1. Loving-kindness This is the most sincere type of love, the tenderness and consideration towards others.  Its opposite is Anger. However, many people mistaken Loving-kindness to be Affection.  You express loving kindness when you are kind to others...

There was a King in ancient India who had four wives.  Naturally, he loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with all the riches in life.  He thought that she love him too. The King was also very proud of his 3rd wife and always showed her off to neighbouring kingdoms. The King's 2nd wife was his confidant.  She was always kind, considerate and patient with him. Whenever the King faced a problem, he could confide in her, and she would help him get through the difficult times. As for the King's 1st wife, she was his loyal partner and had made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and kingdom.  However, the King did not love the first wife, that's why he married 3 other wives.   In fact he hardly took notice of her! One day, the King fell ill and he knew that he was going to die. He thought of his 3 wives (except the 1st wife) and wish that they will follow him so that he can continue to enjoy life with them in the other world.  So h...

The desire to be happy is what drives us to whatever we do.  In fact, humans spend so much time in their waking moments everyday to be happy that makes us forget what are the things that make us happy.  For example, many people equate money to be happiness, when in fact money only makes us comfortable and not happy .  From coaching and training over 81,131 people in 12 countries since 1996, the following are the 5 conditions that make us happy: 1.  Hope for a better tomorrow Despite the generally accepted notion that the fulfilment of a wish brings happiness, I believe that a person who has hope can taste happiness before that hope becomes a reality.  For better or worse, the human being is always discontent with present reality.  It's okay to be discontented as long as you direct that discontentment into new hopes on a higher plane.  For example, if I am not happy with my Samsung Galaxy S4, I can direct my efforts to earning more money so that I...

Often when we start out in our profession, we do it out of love for the profession, our passion and our interest.  In the beginning our intentions are good.  We do good jobs and soon more jobs and money come.  Then slowly we become consumed with pursuing success in our work. We crave for more power, money, name, ranking, profits and fame.  These slowly replace our focus on the profession.  Love becomes a distant dream. This is how we slowly become lost in our pursuit of bottom line.  The fact is that humans are never satisfied with anything, and the bottom line that we pursue is often at the expense of someone else . Look at the phenomena high profits luxury product companies made and you'll realize that they exploit cheap labour in poor countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia.  Banks incurred huge fines by governments and have to compensate billions to customers for failed investments.  In short, the pursuit of bottom line has made us be...

Yes, the best communication you can ever have in this world will give you everything that want, be it money, success, happiness and peace of mind.  This communication, when given in a timely and targeted manner , will turn any suspicions into trust.  People will start to understand you, give you business, and most importantly, give you what you want. What is this 'best' communication?  How much does it cost you?  Many times this communication cost just your thoughtfulness or mindfulness.   It does not cost you any money . The best communication in this world that you can give to anyone is Giving . Yes, not just giving anything, and not just giving for the sake of giving, but giving something that is both useful and relevant to the person receiving it.  And giving without any conditions or expectations of rewards.  In short, self-less giving. What can you give to people?  There are 7 things in this world that everyone needs and wants that ...

Of all the words in the English language, Love is the most mis-understood.  Many mistaken love to be attachment, lust, affection or relationship kind of love. We know that love is more than that. We also know what Love is NOT. Love is not about possession, condition and blind faith .   Many say that love is an inner feeling, and when you express that feeling to the outside world, that feeling is called an emotion. We define love as promoting the welfare of others.  It is to serve others, not ourselves .   It is to use your heart, not just your brain or your body. There are 7 kinds of love that we can use in business and at work: 1.  Showing Kindness, Care and Concern (non material benefits) 2.  Welfare and Material Benefits (e.g. money) 3.  Commitment and Loyalty 4.  Trust and Confidence in People, especially when the going is tough 5.  Empathy (to feel what people are feeling without them telling you) 6.  Friendship and C...