Business and Money Tips

Tom Peters said, "The surplus economy has too many similar companies employing similar people, coming up with similar ideas, and producing similar products and services at similar quality and similar prices".  Just look at the smartphone market now and you'll know what Peters is talking about.  In fact, knowing this will explain why Samsung's Galaxy phones are not selling well this year (more at here ). If that is the case, how do we differentiate successfully?  From Jack Trout's best-selling book " Differentiate or Die ", there are 7 ways to differentiate unsuccessfully: Creative Advertising is never a differentiating idea . This is because customers want information, not news Quality is rarely a differentiating idea .  These days quality is a given, not a difference. Even if your quality is good, how long can you sustain it in the face of onslaught from hungry competitors who come up with better and more advance features?  A good example is S...

To sell well in any market, the key is to ask and answer 5 questions well.  The 5 questions lead from one to the other.  Note that in this fast-paced business climate, you must be ready to be wrong and don't defend your answers if you think they're wrong.  Change your answers fast by taking the right action and you'll be on the road to success. The 5 Questions are: What is your Specialisation ?  Type of customer? Product or service?  Geographical area?  For us, we provide effective training on sales and management for companies in Singapore and the region.  Differentiation : How are your products and services different from others?  In what ways they are superior ?  For us, our training programs focus on easy to remember key points and practical issues.  In fact we don't train but coach people in our courses, leading to participants feeling their burden relieved.  Segmentation : What are your very best customers, the ones tha...

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...

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...

‘THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF MARKETING’ book written by Al Ries and Jack Trout is a wonderful book. I just re-read it (after 10 years) and find that if you just use 3 ideas, your business will explode.  1.      Law of Leadership – it’s better to be the first than it is to be better.  People tend to stick with what they’ve got and reluctant to change. Eg iPhone or Android phone.  2.      Law of Category – if you can’t be first in a category set up a new category you can be first in.   Prospects are defensive when it comes to brands – but they have open minds when it comes to categories because everyone is interested in what’s new and not what’s better. 3.      Law of Mind – it’s better to be the first in the mind than to be the first in the marketplace .  Being first in the marketplace is important only to the extend that it allows you to get in the mind first.  Once a mind is...