Business and Money Tips

By: Ziyad Jawabra During the press conference to announce NOKIA being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly. Nokia has been a respectable company. They did not do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful. They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival. The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition. It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated. Conclusion: 1.      The advantage you have yesterday, will be replaced by the trends of tomo...

Some people think that a coach has something that they don't know. So they consider the coach to be god-like and create miracles like god.  Truth be told, the coach is an ordinary human being that claims no inspiration from any external power of being. He attributes all his wisdom and realization to human endeavour and human intelligence. Each person has within himself the potential to be a great person, all the coach does is to help each person to achieve par excellence.   This is because the coach understands that each person is his own master and we are all responsible for our own destiny. A good coach encourages and stimulates each person to develop himself and to work out his own emancipation. If the Coach is to be considered a guru or saviour, it is only in the sense that he let us know that we each can be our own guru and saviour.  Whether you are leading a group of companies or a team of people, you know that you the manager and leader play a big role in ...

(This article was published in the Straits Times on 24 Feb 2016 page C31) As time passes, you fall into your comfort zone and feel bored at work. You think of changing your job. Instead of changing your job, why not think of new ways to make your work more exciting?  As we know, many employees get too engrossed in the daily grind. They just want to get the job done and fail to consider if what they are dong is really necessary.  A lack of mndfullness is a sure sign an employee needs to up the ante at work. When you find yourself becoming absent-minded, it means that are getting too stressed or bored at work.  Before you decide to leave your job, find out if the problem lies with your job or with yourself. If you are the problem, don't need to blame yourself. Just acknowledge it and move on.  There are 5 ways that you too can fall in love with your job and excel at work: Learn something new every day and better still, help others and you'll learn more i...

Why people hate salespeople? Because they always do the following 7 things: They talk about their products and services without first finding out what customers need and want They use proof sources (like case studies, testimonials, white papers and even demonstrations) when the customer feels that his situation is very different from those they cited Their values and visions are out of sync with the customer, e.g. talking about saving money when the customer’s priority now is not enough time They like to talk down to customers by saying that their should not have bought from other vendors They are always so nice before the deal is closed. After collecting the money, they are always so busy Salespeople are money minded, they think in terms of how much they themselves earn and not the client’s interest They think they know a lot, and seldom go for training, for they see training as a waste of time and prefer to sell to earn money. They did not realize that by not improving on th...

In the next 30 days, I want you to climb your own mountain and really ‘huat’ in this new year. Everybody wants higher sales, but we know that sales come from customers, and customers give you sales transactions with a certain dollar sale. And customers come from prospects, and prospects come from our target market. So from here I derive the “ 5-Way Sales Leverage Chart ”: Target Market X Marketing Conversion = NO. OF PROSPECTS X Selling Conversion = NO. OF CUSTOMERS X No. of Transactions X Average Dollar Sale Price = SALES From the above formula you see that there are  only 5 variable things – the target market, marketing conversion, selling conversion, no. of transactions and average dollar sale.  So how to change the 5 things so as to build your business?  Let’s look at an example. I have inserted some simple figures into our formula: Target Market 4,000 X Marketing Conversion Rate 10% = PROSPECTS 40...

The scientist, searching into the mysteries of human life, reveals to us a wonderful world of power, possibility, and promise. He tells us that the mind is the creative cause of all that transpires in the life of  Man.  Science tells us that that the personal conditions of men are the results of men’s action. This means that all the actions of men are the direct outcome of his ideas.  We can never make a move of any kind until we first form some image or plan in our mind. These plans or ideas are powerful ad potent.  They are the causes - good, bad, or indifferent, of the effects that follows.   Science therefore concludes that when we learn to employ our minds constructively, we use correctly these hidden powers, forces, and faculties. This, the scientist tells us, is the KEY to success in living life. As what William Shakespeare said, “The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.” If all conditions are the result of...

We all know that to achieve financial freedom, we need to not work for money and let money work for us. This means we must have income when we are not working, or commonly known as passive income. Unfortunately most people think that they can never have passive income, for they think passive income is only for investors and business owners, especially people in Network Marketing or MLM. Today I shall teach everyone how you too can have passive income, even though you are just an employee and hold no investments and not doing network marketing. That's right, you hold on to your full time salaried job and get passive income without the need to take on another job. Passive income, according to the dictionary, is i ncome you earn when you are not actively working or working passively . Notice the key word 'working'. That means you earn passive income when you work , just that you are not working actively . For example,  you are not working the same hours as before.  Acc...

(This article was published in The Straits Times on 3 Feb 2016 at page C44) Some people think that training and development are a luxury for you cannot really measure its tangible benefits. Yet others think that there must at least be a 200% payoff (benefits over training cost) for any training program to be considered beneficial.  To us, there are 7 tangible benefits that you can touch and feel IMMEDIATELY after the   training : 1.      Ask the participants to do a written assessment  of the training in terms of  3 areas: how does it improve their work, make their work easier or given them new ideas . You can also ask them to do a  30-day Action Plan  on the action that they will take within 30 days of the training 2.      Voluntary self-reporting by the participants .  If your participants can report to you without being asked, you can be sure that they enjoyed the training and find it useful 3. ...

Imagine the God of Fortune comes to your house. The Chinese believe that if you work hard and are positive, you'll get wealth from this God of Fortune. When this deity comes to your house, he offers you 2 choices: an abundant supply of gold and American dollars; and, an oil well. My choice is obvious: I'll still prefer an oil well. Even now with oil price slumping to the twenties and everyone is pessimistic about oil, I'll still prefer an oil well than gold and American Dollars. This is because an oil well is not just about oil. An oil well is about a stream of income . Even if the income is not high now due to the market cycle, the cumulative effect of the income is more than anyone can imagine. Furthermore, the oil well is giving me passive income , and unlike gold and American dollars, the income just come without me working or asking for it . And with the passive income, I can buy whatever amount of gold and American Dollars as I like. Isn't this the best o...