Business and Money Tips

e veryone knows training pays, but is the return really infinite? I design this '4-Ways Training Leverage Chart' to illustrate how training pays: (the highlighted lines are the areas that training works on) No. of hours work         x Output per hour         = Output         x Quality of output         x Value Add        = Employee Value Now let's put in some numbers: No. of hours work is 40 x  Output per hour is 100 giving me output of 4,000 units If the  quality of each output is 80%  and the  value add is $10,  the employee value is simply 4,000 x 80% x $10 = $32,000 Suppossing the training increases this employee's productivity by 10%, all the  highlighted numbers  above will increase by 10%: No. of hours work              44 x             ...

When we say that a food is wholesome, we mean that it is healthy, conducive and generally sound.  Same for thoughts and actions, for they can wholesome or unwholesome.   It is not the act that is good or bad, but it is the act's wholesomeness that will determine if that act is good or bad.   For example, if you are sleepy and tired, sleep is wholesome.  But if you sleep whole day, sleep will become unwholesome and thus no good.  If we hurt someone and regret it, that regret is wholesome.  But if your regret leads you to a guilt complex that colours whatever that you do in future, that regret is unwholesome.  In the same vein, when our thinking helps us to see clearly, thinking is wholesome.  But if our thinking is clouded by prejudice and inhibits us from seeing clearly, that thinking is unwholesome.  Here are 7 ways that we can can live more wholesomely everyday: Start with the right intention : is it only for our own good and not for ot...

We human beings are social animals. Although we like to focus on ourselves a lot, we actually focus on other people a lot. Not that we notice and care for other people, we only care about how other people think about us. So if we are liked by people, we feel great. On the other hand, if we were to be disliked, ignored, hated, rejected or even dejected by others, we have a end-of-the-world feeling.  In short, we live in communities and socialize with others. We yearn for recognition and acceptance by others. What happens when we are rejected? You know the scenario: your great idea got rejected by the people that you love the most, your closed friend. You are now lost. How can you turn this rejection into an injection of confidence? Learn this tactic and you will never have any rejections in your life again.  See the rejection as a way of negotiation and you can always negotiate anything you want in your life. Negotiation is simply taking the rejection as ...

Without lowering your price and spending more advertising, we coach and teach our clients how to increase their sales by 79% in a year with the following 7 Winning Sales Strategies: Tiered Incentive for the Team , whereby the sales team will be incentivised for their efforts, both direct and indirect efforts. Their manager too will be rewarded when their team does well, like given a matching commission.  For example, if the salesperson earns 4% commission, the managers is getting 20% of that 4%.  If the sales team achieve a higher level of sales, their commission too will be step-up. Step-up Incentives for Customers  for staying with the company (Loyalty bonus), pre-pay bulk purchase (but delivered over time) and incentives for introducing customers Weekly Training for the Sales Team ,  coupled with mid-week one-to-one coaching Increase Average Dollar Sale , primarily with bundled selling, up-selling, cross-selling, add-on sale and down sell.  For the 36 ...

Surveys after surveys showed that more than half of people at work are unhappy.  Just look at the many gloomy faces on the morning MRTs and it's obvious what I'm talking about.  Many people work just for money, and some work to support their mortgage, families and the ever rising expenses.  To me, people are unhappy due to 3 mis-understandings: 1.  Conditional Happiness   "I'll be happy if I get promoted or I get the job at Google".  In this thinking, the grass is always greener on the other side. People will, instead of making the best of what they have in their current career and enjoying every moment of it, look for the next happiness.  Because of this, they are distracted from the present and thus cannot do their best.  Without doing the best, how can they produce good work and have a rewarding job?   We know that such pursuit is futile because the perfect job does not exist.  Even if it does exist, it cannot last.  The S...

Find their hot buttons, press their hot buttons, we have heard these thoughts before; but what do they mean? Is it to say that as a salesperson you should try to discover their primary areas of interest? How do these hot buttons help you close sales?  What is a Hot Button? Hot button is not to be confused with Benefits or Emotions, nor is it about Fear and Force. In sales, a Hot button is a  Trigger that once activated, the person will not go back to the original state of mind.  This means that when you press the hot button, a sale will result. You  do not need to close the sale as the sale is already yours. Note that different people have different hot buttons, and they too differ at different time. Also note that You as a  Salesperson is also a hot button , the same goes for your company marketing, branding and positioning.  As I learnt from Barry Feig: author of best-selling book Hot Button Marketing, there are at least 14 hot buttons: #1: Hot Button,...

Trainers teach trainees many skills but as a full-time trainer since 2001, I realize that the following 7 skills are not taught in most training programs, including SkillsFuture courses. But they are so important that if you know them, you will turn yourself from stress to success. 1. Be Lovely People teach you to love others, but if you are lovely, people will love you and this will make your life much easier. To be lovely is not just to be cute, it is also about being open and generous in receiving love. Like I always enjoy being praised because people think I am lovely from the pictures that I post on my Facebook . 2. Sleep at Work Sleeping at work means knowing when to let go and be 'not conscious', and pretending not to know when you know everything. That to me is mastering work!  3. Time Squeezing Effective time squeezing is in, time management is out. Time squeezing is to make use of tiny pockets of time (less than 2 minutes) to do useful things like updating your...

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...