Business and Money Tips

Mention the word stress and people get stressed out. I cannot stress enough that stress is something that we need to deal with, whether you like it or not.  If you can handle your stress well, you can turn your stress into success. Sounds interesting? What is stress then?  Stress is defined as our body (physical) and our mind (psychological) responses to things that we don't handle well. Like if you forget where you drop your handphone, that is definitely a very stressful experience. The symptoms of stress are worries, tense, bad temper, short breadth, faster heartbeat, and in many cases, lower body immunity to illness. In short, stress is how our we humans react to changes in lives that we don't feel comfortable with. Note that if you do not react to stress, you do not have stress . If you respond to stress positively, you will have success. That's what this article is about. What causes stress?  There are 3 major causes of stress: Time Money People 1. Tim...

I dare to claim that a healthy cash flow is even more important than your business's ability to deliver its goods or services! That may be placing a bit too much importance on your cash flow, but consider this: if you fail to satisfy a customer and lose that customer's business, you can always work harder to please the next customer. But if you fail to have enough cash to pay your suppliers, creditors, or your employees, you will be out of business!   A healthy cash flow is an essential part of any successful business.  It is just like blood flow in your human body.  We know that if your blood is not flowing smoothly in your body, you will suffer stroke and eventually die.  Same as business.  If cash is not flowing smoothly in your business, your business will be stuck and eventually fail. No doubt about it, proper management of your cash flow is a very important step in making your business successful. So understanding cash flow is the first step in...

Mindfulness is often thought of the same as meditation, when in fact it is more than that.  Perhaps it is easier to understand mindfulness from the opposite, i.e. when do we consider someone as mindless?  When he does things without thinking, or when he does things with so much 'auto-pilot' that he becomes robotic and apply the same approach to different situations.  Like many salespeople assume customers like details and would go into details without considering the client's needs.  Mindlessness can also be found in salespeople that are ill prepared and incompetent, and yet try to pretend that they know.   Simply put, mindfulness has 3 elements: you need to first  take note  of something,  be aware  of it, and  remember that awareness .  So for example if I am being mindful in a sales meeting, it means that I have to take note of my client's objections, be aware that it is an objection and remember that awareness.  Note that...

Many people want short cuts to sales success. This is good as long as we don't cut short things. Short cuts are not bad as long as we are always fulfilling one purpose: service to others and not just serving ourselves. The 5 short cuts to sales success are as follows: Good compensation for the sales team. There must be incentives to make doing more sales rewarding, not more pressurizing Good sales and management tools. The basic tools include CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software that incorporates automatic emailing, SMS and calling. Best of all, this tool should be fully funded by the Singapore Government under SPRING Singapore's ICV (Innovation Capability Voucher $5,000 scheme) Good Objections answering system. Many companies fail in sales because their sales team does not know how to overcome sales objections Trained sales team. A trained sales team not only has the skills, attitudes and knowledge in sales and marketing, but is also highly motivated and is...

Two biggest headaches in sales: how to overcome sales objections and where to get new customers? Your company can advertise heavily and send your team to a multiple-day or weeks long business school. Smart companies know that the reason why the sales team is not performing is not due to lack of education but lack of push.  How to push your salespeople everyday? Wouldn't they sick and tired of the same message from the company? Why not out-source to us. (see video at here ) We at www.asiatrainers.com   have been doing business coaching and executive coaching (on a one-to-one or small group basis) since 2001. Typically people start with training. This training, which was last conducted to Vitagen in February 2016, has received raving reviews. You can check us out at www.youtube.com/AndyNgCoach/videos   For a limited time until 14 March, if you register 5 pax, you will get 50% fees reduction, plus 1 pax free. Check us out by calling 6225-1784 Idah or v...

Two words are often confused: creativity and innovation. Creativity is the ability to generate lots of new ideas, new concepts or new ways of doing things, including problem solving and fulfilling opportunities. Innovation is the process of generating and applying creative ideas in some specific context. Creativity is full of ideas while innovation is full of achievements. Creativity starts with a dream while innovation completes the journey. The 8 Steps to Innovation: I (The mindset) - You as the 'I' must have the mindset to want to innovate Innovation Statement - which focuses on both the problem and the upside Ideas Generation - Need to generate lots of ideas in a short period of time to be effective Ideas Selection - need to filter the 1,000 ideas into a few good ones Incubation - put some thought into the ideas' practicality Investment decision - the selling of the ideas selected Implementation  Iteration - where the innovation project is connected...

People often think that mentally strong salespeople do certain things. The truth is that mentally strong salespeople don't do certain things, and the 5 things they don't do are: Blame the company for not having products and services that are competitive in price and specifications. They know that if the company's products and services are so strong, they will sell by themselves and don't need any salespeople at all. That's why mentally strong salespeople will instead find out how to turn the product's weaknesses into strengths Look at their 'upstairs' for help. Mentally strong salespeople know that their business and strengths come from below, i.e. people that they take care of, be it their clients, support staff or sales team Give away power. Mentally strong people know that they are powerful, and they don't give away power in negotiation, meetings and daily communication. The biggest power we have is our own choice. So mentally strong salespe...

A Letter from my heart: Dear all friends, Over the last 2 months, I have been approached by 10 friends, each with very interesting business proposals. Some of them have business proposals that span the globe and run into millions of dollars of income. Others are more subdue, but none of them conflicts with what I am doing now - coaching and training. After thinking for 2 nights with some meditations, I conclude that I have to evaluate each proposal not based on how attractive they are in terms of money and business models, but what type of people that I am working with.  Without a pinch of doubt, I only can work with people that s hare the same values and philosophies as me. I am not interested in just making money, there must also be meaning in the way I make the money . Also, the business must contribute to mankind , and not just some ideas to take advantage of opportunities. That's why I think these 5 businesses I will never deal with: computerized trading, gambling, m...

S N Venkat is senior associate director, Office of Postgraduate Professional Programme, Singapore Management University At the end of the first set of United States presidential primaries, and as Super Tuesday — the biggest primary election — starts today, it is becoming clear there is a real possibility that billionaire Donald Trump may be the Republican presidential candidate this year. While it might have taken many political pundits by surprise, there were some, like the creator of the famous Dilbert comic strip, American cartoonist Scott Adams, who warned in 2015 that there was a method to Mr Trump’s apparent madness and that it came from the art of persuasion. There are scholarly attempts to explain them, based on well-known books on the subject such as Mr Robert Cialdini’s Influence — The Psychology of Persuasion, but what explains Mr Trump’s method is one simple sentence. Mr Blair Warren, author of the e-book The One Sentence Persuasion Course — 27 Words To Make ...