Business and Money Tips

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...

How people think: if you have been having 3 boys in a row, you will think that your chance of a girl the next round will be high.  Truth is that the gender of your next child has nothing to do with the gender of the previous child.  This is because each sex has an equal probability independent of the last one .  The failure to recognize this is called ' Gambler's Fallacy ', which reflects how people make mistake in their decisions by mistaking that the past will predict the future . Anyone that try to foretell your fortune for 2014 will end up being wrong most of the time, simply because they base their prediction on the past. We all know the failures of companies like HTC, Nokia and Blackberry: they produce their products based on past demand and end up with excessive stocks. The truth is that everything that happen today is made up of many factors happening not just now, but in the past .   There is no one single factor that we can attribute to any success ...

Salespeople are known to be a different breed of people, and top management often do not treat them the same way as they treat office people.  They say that you must give salespeople lots of freedom, just make sure that they achieve your sales targets and everything will be fine.  Is it so? From our experience in managing, training and coaching salespeople, there are 5 fetters that all salespeople must avoid if they want to be more successful: Sales as War - such a aggressive approach will imprison salespeople to constantly win battles with a 'out to kill' mindset.  If we were to examine closely, we discover that t he biggest war the salesperson need to fight is not with the marketplace but within himself . A good salesperson work on improving himself first before he can conquer the market . Sales as Entertainment .  Here the salesperson simply believes that all customers must be entertained in order to get the business.  We know that the focus on entert...

In this world of mobile phones and tablets, it is hard to be heard as people will hardly listen to you when you speak.  This is because everyone is so busy looking at their own screens that they will not hear your screams. Many people lamented that youngsters today have no respect for elders. Employers complained in our training courses that their employees often do not follow their instructions.  Salespeople talked about the good old days when customers would simply believe everything that they said.  Teachers increasingly find it difficult to get their message across, regardless of how hard they try. It seems that nobody listens anybody.  Is there something that we can mention so that people will listen to us immediately?  The answer is: Benefits. Benefits is the world's most common language.  It is read in the mind as ' What's In It for Me ?'  Psychologists said that the moment you mention benefits, people open up their minds and they wil...

All managers must avoid 2 deadly pitfalls or risk being redundant: 1. Control - Too little control or too much control is a problem. Too little control would mean not having rules, but most often we see rules not followed and management never do much about it. For example, many companies have rules on working hours, but ask yourself how many management actually work to ensure that people come to work punctually? Many people have got used to being late, and the common excuse is they work late, so they can come late for work. Many don't know that this is causing some issues in teamwork, e.g. if some people are not here by 8.30 am, how am I going to get certain things done without them? So as a manager, make sure that you set the rules of the game. A good rules of the game is Values. Values like honesty and 'Go Extra Mile' must be laid down and followed by all staff. 2. Losing Their Voice: It's easy for people to lose their voice after working in the company...

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...

We all have this experience: there is dispute between us and another person.  If we insist that we are right, they will start to dislike us.  Soon there will be quarrels and exchange of bad feelings. We also know that it is hard to find agreement or consensus immediately. If we let such bad feelings linger on, relationships will be affected. Whether we disagree with people, or they have complaints about us, if we want to diffuse tension and move people towards us, we must make them like us immediately. The strategy is very simple: make yourself same as them . Psychologists told us that once people see sameness in us, their hostility towards us goes down immediately.  Sameness creates rapport, with rapport there is trust. And if your tonality is warm, they will like you instantly.  Like this morning, I received a complaint call from a person that received our email blasts.  She was angry but I told her that it must be a computer error, for our computer...

It's strange but true: those that are very concerned of being right often end up being wrong most of the time!  You can see such people everyday: they are so focused on being right (efficient) that they end up being wrong (ineffective).  We call such people busy for nothing!  When you're concerned of being right, your focus is on yourself and not on serving others.  You'll become selfish, and people will dislike you for that.  Also, to be right means that you cannot be wrong, and it means that you cannot take risk.  We know that those that never take risk end up never being wrong: because they just simply didn't do anything!  So by not taking risk you will end up doing nothing! Furthermore, people that want to be right often close their minds to alternatives.  As a result, they are dogmatic, inflexible and often lose touch with modern times. People that want to be right plan very well, but their plans often fail because they didn't consi...

Mention the word training and most people would think of going back to school. Some will equate training to those long sessions into the nights where you would be challenged to do the impossible like cutting a cane with your neck.  There are some who think that training is for people who are not up to the par, high performers, they say, do not need training. Recently, most people know that training is a competitive tool to outsell your competition, for the government's PIC scheme gives 60% cash or 400% tax deduction for training. Yet we know deep inside use that the purpose of training is not the accumulation of knowledge and skills, but the use and application of such knowledge and skills to bring about change withi n us .  For when we change, then would our teamwork and organization change.  The teachings of trainers is to help us develop a good mindset so that we can think and act skilfully, not randomly.  Then the productivity and profits of the organizat...

Yes, everybody work for a living but we need to be happy at work or we will be working like slaves.  Whether you are working for a large MNC, local SME or medium-sized company, if you too want to get ahead and get the promotion and bonus that you desire, you need to have high work satisfaction. You'll know that you have work satisfaction when you can keep on working and never feel tired.  If not, you are having work frustration and not work satisfaction.  The following are the 5 Cs ways to have high work satisfaction: Competency . Make sure that you have the capability to do your work well. If you find that you always struggle at work and have to be reprimanded frequently by customers or bosses, it means that your competency is below the passing mark. Get trained by your company or sign up for external courses .  The 3 most common courses are communication , management and sales . Create Value.  You must not just work but really create value in your wor...

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...

As we know, human beings are capable of doing anything and if we don't set rules, there will be chaos at the workplace. Just look at the number of politics fighting in the office and you'll know what I am talking about. In our trainings , we teach 5 Precepts to follow . By the way, there are no penalty for not obeying the precepts, but if you follow them, you will be protected from harm at work.   Value Work , that is, treat your work seriously and don't do anything that will jeopardize your career, like taking things home from the office Respect the Happiness of Others, which includes not to create unhappiness among colleagues like spreading rumours Respect for Personal Freedom, that is, the right of a person to say 'No'.  Many a times this precept is ignored and we see supervisors forcing employees to do overtime. On the other hand, we also see employees asking from their employer for the sky and cannot take 'no' as the answer Refraining from F...

Sun Tzu 孙子 (or Sūn Zǐ in pinyin) was a 500 BCE  Chinese general , military strategist , and author of The Art of War 孙子兵法, an immensely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Many great leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan studied his work and became legendary leaders. Many corporate leaders paid thousands of dollars to attend courses to learn Sun Zi's secrets. We at Asia Trainers believe that you too can learn this master's secret with just two hundred dollars. This is because we take the key essence and compile them into a 4-hour course that will leave you with just enough materials to lead your team to greater heights. Since October 2010, we have trained over 373 leaders coming from countries including Hong Kong, Japan, Myanmar and even China. The next run of Leadership with Sun Zi is on 26 Sep 2014 Friday. Limited seats are available, click here or call Niza at 6225-1784 to register. The most valuable lesson out of his 13 chapter of 5...

If you were like most people who always say, "I'll do charity when I have money", or "I'll take care of my house once I got a big one", then you are having this syndrome called Perfection. Yes, perfection is an ideal but if you were to base your life on perfection, you'll never do it.  Like Confucius who lived in China 2,600 years ago, Confucius continued to teach even when his own country (Lu) was against him.  He was chased out of his own country and left wandering in 16 countries for 19 years but he never give up. Today, Confucius' teachings has become the national culture of many countries like the 2 Koreas, Taiwan and many Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and North America. Because Confucius understood this important principle: there is never a perfect time to do anything .  As long as that thing you do is of importance to you and the society, now is the time to do it.   If you fear that you may do wrong, you can always correct it.   The ...

As a boss or entrepreneur, you could be your company's best salesperson as no one understand better than you what you are selling.  That was what the CEO of Apple, Steve Sculley, thought in 1983 when he promoted the Macintosh computer.  But we know that the Macintosh failed miserably, and by 1997, Microsoft and IBM-compatible computers took over 98% of the market share. It seems that the best salesperson can never be from your company or your industry. Unbelievable but true!  That's right, the best salesperson is actually your customer .  When Steve Jobs re-joined Apple as its interim CEO in 1998, he realized this and focused the entire company's operations to nothing but the customer. Not just focus on the customer, but focus on the customer's experience .  Once he does that, Apple's products, from the Macintosh to Macbooks to i-Pod and later i-Phone and i-Pad, sell like hot cakes.  By 2011, Apple has become the world's most valuable company and remain...

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 ...

It may be obvious to many people now that the Singapore government applied the Sun Tzu Art of War in dealing with the Little India Riot. Sun Tzu considered war as a necessary evil that must be avoided whenever possible. The war should be fought swiftly to avoid economic losses.  This was what the Special Force has done: they avoided direct confrontation war with the rioters and instead formed a wall to prevent them from running away. By 11.30 pm, just 2 hours after the riot broke out, the police has fully controlled the area and began arresting the rioters. The most famous verses from the 5,000 words book is this in chapter 3: 知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。 So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself. This can be shortened to: 知己知彼，百戰不殆。If ...

Everyone is striving for success.  Many are looking for The Secret, some are searching for the right connections and many are continuously learning from the those who have made it. My teacher Andy Ferrari Norman once told me that you must follow the right leader if you want to be successful.  For a leader will point to you the direction to success and you can also avoid many mistakes and reduce your chance of failure. What if there is no right leader leading you?  Or you have a bad leader that you just cannot follow? As a Coach, I believe that everyone is powerful.  Everyone is a leader for leadership is not a position or seniority thing.  Leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less.  Since everyone is already a leader, everyone can lead himself to success.  In fact that leading yourself to success is easier than following a leader for you are in full control of the situation. There are 5 ways that you can lead yourself to...

You see this all the time: the salesperson does his job well in the sales presentation.  The prospect too showed much interest in what he has.   Everything seems to be smooth, until the prospect said "No" and the salesperson simply freeze.  This is the Frozen moment . Fret not, because an objection is not the end of the world.  Unknown to many, a sales objection is simply an indication that the prospect has interest in what you have. Otherwise, why would he want to object you?  It is also a sales negotiation process, and you need to win it over with tact. The way to handle the sales objection is to take it easy, using our EASE method: E mpathy, A sk Questions to clarify, Serve the S olution and E xcite them of the rewards of going forward. Empathize with their objection and never argue with them . Empathize means that you feel what they are feeling now.  If they say it is expensive, you can say, "I understand how you feel, most people felt the sa...