Business and Money Tips

Knowing the truths makes one wise, believing in the myths makes one unwise, so said my teacher Andy Ferrari Norman.  The top 7 myths and truths of training that few people realize are: 1.  Training will make me 'Get High' Truth: Yes, you may get very pleasant feelings of peace and tranquility but you should not get high or the trainer has just embarked on 'emotion brainwashing'.  Training will increase your self-awareness of your knowledge, beliefs and experience .  For example, people often told me that they didn't realize that they were using the wrong words and phrases in their work until they came to our training. 2. Training will equip me with 'Magic Power' In promotion flyers for seminars, they often use words like 'turn you from unmotivated to highly charged' and that gives many the impression that training has some magical power.  Truth:  Trainers are not magicians , they don't possess magic power to transmit them to you. But wi

I'm sure you have realized that this is getting more common nowadays: we are being subjected to wild swings instead of gradual swings.  In business , companies like to ignore customers' feedback and insist on pushing their new products to the market and forcing their customers to upgrade.  You see this in PC, mobile phones and TVs.  As the new product did not take into account customers' feedback, they will invariably fail.  The companies have no choice but to re-introduce back the old product.  A good example is mobile giant Samsung, who has taken out the micro SD card in its phones in 2015 only to be put back in 2016 Salespeople too like to subject their customers to wild swings.  When business is good, salespeople have no time to service customers and customers are forced to fend on their own.  When times are bad, salespeople have all the time and they visit their customers everyday and over-service them, until the customers cried out 'Buay Ta-han!' (mean

* Find out how to be a great manager in 4 weeks at here Everybody knows that the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) scheme is about the government handling out $60,000 cash every year (from 2012 to 2017) on your spendings on External Training , Internal Training, IT, Automation Equipment, Websites and Intellectual Property Rights.  However, the following are the 5 things that the government may not tell you about the PIC: The PIC Bonus scheme, which is expiring in 2014 , is given to you automatically without you applying.  What they may not tell you is that if your financial year-end is in 30 June, then your PIC Bonus has already expired on 30 June 2014.   Note that once expired, the PIC Bonus will not be renewed .  The g overnment will not send out reminders and companies can only blame themselves if they realized that they have not receive the full $15,000 PIC Bonus. PIC is given to all entities, including non-profit organizations like clubs and societies.  However, no

Feedback from my 8 articles on PIC and PIC Training revealed that many people, including top management and consultants, have mis-understandings about PIC.  Such mis-understandings arise because of misreading IRAS, hearsay from uninformed people and plain ignorance.   If you allow such misunderstandings to affect your career and business, you will lose as much as $375,000 cash over 6 years .  The top 11 misunderstandings are: PIC is only for Singapore companies.  100% foreign owned companies, like the Singapore Branch of Bank of China, are not eligible.   Truth: All businesses are eligible for PIC as long as they have 3 local (Singaporeans and Singapore PRs) staff on their payroll with CPF.  Note that the '3 local staff' here EXCLUDES the directors, shareholders and proprietors of the business PIC is going to expire in 2015.  Truth: PIC is expiring in 2017 (Y/A 2018) You cannot claim PIC for Training for foreigners and staff that are not on CPF.   Truth: All employees,

The reason people make mistake is that they are unaware of the mistake.  But if you tell them and they still make the same mistake, that 2nd mistake is no longer a mistake but a belief.  Mistakes are not the same as Fraud in that they are all made unintentionally and are all 'honest mistakes'. When you make mistakes in PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) claims, you won't get fined but the IRAS will just simply delay the claim process.  So the more mistakes you make, the longer it takes for you to get your money .  The top 11 mistakes make in PIC claims are (in order of frequency) are: Wrong Y/A (Year of Assessment).  YA is always one year faster than this year, so for this year 2014 claims, it should be YA 2015 Include GST when the business is GST registered.  You have to take out the GST portion as you're already getting back the input GST in your monthly GST returns Include non-qualifying amounts , like warranty, consumables, finance charges and st

As we know, PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) scheme from Government also funds businesses that train their own staff internally, i.e. do not engage outside training vendors and use their own staff to train their own people.  You can claim this under Line 4(b) in the PIC Cash Payout Form "In-house training not certified by WDA or ITE". Businesses can claim the salary cost of the trainer, not the trainees .  For example, if the HR Department incurs 20 hours every 3 months to do staff induction and staff training, they can claim the 20 hours of salary of the HR department trainers. The maximum a business can claim for Internal Training is $10,000 a year.  Since Cash claim is at 60%, businesses can get $6,000 a year or $36,000 for 6 years from 2012 to 2017.  This $10,000 must be within the overall yearly $100,000 cap for PIC Claims.  Businesses that claim PIC more than $5,000 in a year can receive the PIC Bonus automatically, which is another 100% of the amount c

Unknown to many people, the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) Scheme was tightened on 21 February 2014.  Effective from 2015 to 2017, all claiming businesses must have 3 CPF employees (excluding the directors and shareholders) every month , instead of only the qualifying month (i.e. March, June, September and December) as in the past. As for the popular PIC Bonus Scheme, it shall  expire for financial years ending in 2014 .  So if your company's financial year-end is on 31 March 2014, the last month for you to receive the PIC bonus is March 2014.  This is because although the PIC Scheme was extended till 2017, the PIC Bonus is not extended , thus it will end as planned in 2014. For those that are not familiar, the PIC Bonus is automatically given out to companies as long as their PIC claims exceed $5,000 in a year.  The PIC Bonus is given out in cash (not tax deduction) up to $15,000.  This PIC Bonus, unlike the PIC Cash Payouts, is taxable . Andy Ng wrote this arti

With the PIC Grant , companies can claim up to $10,000 a year on internal training, i.e. their own people conducting training for their own people.  A good example would be HR Department doing Induction for new staff.  Other than that, it has become something as common as buying stationery when companies send their staff for external training .  This is because under the PIC Bonus scheme, companies get 160% of what they spend on training.  Before you sign up for your next public course , or get the trainer to come to your premise to conduct an in-house training , make sure that your next training program has the following 5 key attributes: Mix New School with Old School .  If what the trainer is doing is to replay old school principles, there won't be much value in today's context as the world is changing rapidly.  A phrase we often use in our training in describing what needs to be today in 2014 is a "time tested tactics blended with time relevant concepts". Si

Sun Tzu Art of War uses tactics to achieve maximum results with minimum resources.  One of the most used stratagem is "Kill with a Borrowed Knife" or 借刀杀人。Unknown to many people and unreported by the media, our Finance Minister Mr Tharman used this tactic in pushing the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit). You see, Mr Tharman had a tall and challenging task.  How can Singapore 250,000 companies, of which over 95% are small and medium enterprises, reduce the reliance on cheap foreign labour and use higher skilled local staff and automation to increase productivity?  So he came up with the PIC scheme in 2010. In 2012, Mr Tharman enhanced this scheme and increased the cash subsidy from 30% to 60%, payable quarterly instead of yearly.  But he has another problem: how can this scheme be pushed out quickly to the most number of SMEs without the government hiring a big public relations team?  The answer lies in making use of vendors. You see, vendors doing training , I

Note: click here for PIC training As we know, the PIC ( Productivity and Innovation Credit ) scheme has been in place since 2010, and has just been extended till 2017.  Under this general and generous scheme , the government gives 60% cash or 3 times additional tax deductions to businesses that invest to innovate and up their productivity. The 8 types of expenditure eligible for PIC Claims are: Training , IT Solutions, IT Hardware, Software, Automation Equipment, R & D, Intellectual Property Rights and Singapore Design Council design projects. Many employees that we talk to feel that such a scheme only benefits their employer and they cannot see any benefits accruing to them. In fact some employees told us that making PIC Claims only adds up to their already heavy work load.  It's just a government's gimmick, right? Make no mistake: the Government is serious about making Singapore's employees more productive . When employers receive money from the gover

Over the past few days, I poured over 20+ pages at IRAS website and managed to sniff out the 7 changes to this PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) Scheme .  Know them and you'll be able to take advantage of them.   If you are ignorant, you will lose out at least $375,000 .  The 7 Key Changes are: PIC is now extended to 2017 (originally to end in 2014).  This means that companies have more time to plan and take full advantage of this very general and generous scheme; Cap for Tax Deduction claims are now increased from $400,000 to $600,000 a year, effective for years 2013 to 2017.  This new scheme is called PIC + .  For cash payout, the cap remains at $100,000 per year; Website design and creation, including the registration of domain names, now qualify for IT claims, also effective for years 2013 to 2017.  Note that Search Engine Optimization (SEOs) will also qualify for this if SEOs are done as part and parcel of website creation . This means that companies can invest

*Good news: No new foreign workers caps PIC Extension till 2017* As announced by the Finance Minister Tharman on 21 Feb 2014, this is a 'People' Budget.  As such, there are not many things for businesses.  In fact, if you are an old person (called 'Pioneers'), you will get lots of benefits.  Not so for smokers and drinkers, there will be a 10% tax and 25% increase respectively. Here are the highlights: (more details will be revealed by the Government over the next week). All Singaporeans will receive GST vouchers of $250 cash , an increase over last year.  This may not mean much to most you, but will make your staff feel slightly happier TODAY Excise duty on tobacco and liquor to rise by 10% and 25% respectively, effective from 21 Feb 2014. Drinkers will face rising cost, and this will affect pubs that rely on liquor sale negatively Betting duty rates on lotteries to rise to 30% from 25%. This has zero impact on the punter (impact on Singapore Pools only) L

Yes, certain things are so important but they just don't tell you. Either they assume that you know or they find it hard to say it out.  But we know that misunderstanding is the cause of all work problems and clear communication, even to the extent of over-communication , is the safest policy. So managers and bosses should tell people the most important thing at work: Work Ethics. What is work ethics?  Many people equate it to honesty and integrity, when in reality it is more than that.  In our work with companies training over 81,131 people in 13 countries since 1996, other than integrity and honesty , the following are the 5 Key Elements of Work Ethics: Fairness - put in fair share of work and not take things for granted.  Do not work only when the boss is around, instead play fair by putting in the 8 hours that you're contracted with.  If you take time for facebooking and whatapping with your friends, make sure you pay back the lost time everyday .   Add Value - ever

Many working people tell me (in our training courses) that it's hard to keep the momentum going and they are feeling tired at work.   We know that if you are drained at work, your productivity will go down.  This will make you feel even more tired as you are not making headways at work.  If left unchecked, you will soon reach burnt-out stage.  Thus all employees, including bosses, must ensure that they don't checked out at work.  The following are the 7 proven ways that everyone can remain fresh and not get drained at work: Keep a Fresh Perspective every 90 days .  Every 3 months, take a fresh look at your job and its contributions to the society.  You'll realize that your work is not as stale as what it seems.  For we know that as long as you dig deep into your work, you will discover gems at your work. Take short breaks (5 to 10 minutes) every 2 to 3 hours  at work.  If this is too much for your boss, you don't have to take smoking breaks; all you need to do i

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 , which means to be very mindful

As we know, the job of a manager is to get the highest performance from its available people.  Bosses often expect managers to be coaching and guiding their team, and turn people with negative mindset into positive mindst.  In our courses , we teach the 8 Ways to Turn People from Negative into Positive Mindset as follows: Give Incentives, especially monetary incentives , for display of positive attitude.  This always work, even if the amount is small, because people appreciate such tokens Train them, coach them and educate them. If you cannot do this on your own, it makes sense to send them for external training Give them 2 choices , and let them know of the consequences of their choices.  People often prefer the positive attitude choice as they shun the negative consequences Peer pressure always work, for no one wants to be the odd one out.  Like in wedding dinners, peer pressure will turn non-drinkers into drinkers Assume that they are positive, and empower them to put 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 apps work with its hardware and

Unknown to many people, many people are actually adding work at work and not adding value.  You see, when one person is untrained in his work, he is not only not doing his work, but adding work to his colleagues.  Similarly, when people have poor inter-personal skills , they create work friction and lots of misunderstandings. As a result, their bosses have to step in, run team-building trainings, and put in extra manpower, all just to get the house on order. Studies done by International HR consultants indicated that only about 30% to 50% of people are actually adding value in their work.  The rest are just adding work!  Worse still, some employees are adding trouble at work.  For example, they make careless mistakes and mislead customers.    So the key to success in management is to ensure that your people are adding value at work.  Here are 7 ways that all employees can do to add value in their work: Do Self Quality Control and Self Audit .  This will ensure that things ar

Ambitious people tend to give people the impression that they are too focused on their own success and will manipulate others to achieve their own goals.  Many such people, including some poor salespeople, tend to look upon every transaction as an opportunity to make a sale and get out. On the other hand, Empathy people are those that have a long term perspective. They always think of others before thinking of themselves. They do not think of closing the sale as much as they think of opening long-term customer relationships. A good salesperson balances between ambition and empathy.  Because he knows that if he is too ambitious, he will frighten away customers; if he is too empathetic, he will not be assertive enough to ask for the sale. There are 5 ways that good salespeople balances between ambition and empathy: Ask Questions and Never Make Any Assumptions .  When you ask questions and listen to the answer, you put yourself into the other person's shoes.  One can never