Business and Money Tips

In our previous article , we talked about the one and only reason to use WeChat is to go back to our Chinese roots.  In that article (you can read it at here ), I mentioned that being an ethnic Chinese, it is important to know and live the Chinese culture.  The other day my friend Divandran, who's has roots in India, asked me how can he as an Indian go back to his Indian roots with WeChat, a predominantly Chinese tool.  I told him, "Yes, of course, you have Chinese roots in your blood".  He was shocked!  We all know that the word 'Chinese' is not a racial or political term. In fact, if you look at China's history you will realize that throughout its 5,000 years of unbroken civilisation, there are many non-Chinese that invaded and ruled China. Some even established large dynasties lasting several hundred years, like the Jurchen's Jin Dynasty (109 years), Mongolian's Yuan Dynasty (97 years) and Manchurian's Qing Dynasty (268 years). If you lo...

You got a problem in sales. Your product is not first in its class, nor is it second. Maybe your product is outmoded. Or it hasn’t been positioned correctly.  Maybe it is competing in a very crowded market. It doesn’t matter the reason.  The fact is people are not going to buy your product, no matter how you sell. Welcome to Selling Sand to the Arabs, the situation faced by people from selling ice to the Eskimos to selling hot weather to Singaporeans. If you are now selling a product that few have, like iPhone, or you are selling something at the lowest price, like Xiaomi, do not read further. This course is for people who want to sell when people don’t want to buy. SELING SAND TO THE ARABS Date: 23 Feb 2018 Friday 9 am to 12.30 pm Fee: $149 each (usual fee: $298)         $99 each for 2 and above         $59 each for 5 and above (80% off) Venue: 89 Short St 09-03A, Gol...

Yesterday I met a Sales Director from a Fortune 500 company. He commented that many of the so-called sales training in Singapore and Asia are actually motivational and goal setting training disguised as sales training. They often get people on the high during the course but leave them unsure of what to do after the training.  Most of the sales training do not have adequate sales strategies and techniques. They often teach things that even 10-year old kids know: ask questions, overcome objections and close the sale.  We teach people more than that. We often cover situations that people consider impossible - how to Sell the Impossible. Many people consider the following 10 situations to be selling the impossible: 1.      Prospect has just bought from your closest competitor 2.      Your product pricing is way too high to be considered 3.      Your salespeople have little knowledge to c...

As most of us know, the main reason for using WeChat is to get connected with people from China.  Recently one of my friends asked me, "I don't go to China, and I am already very busy serving the Singapore market and have no time serving the Chinese (non-Singaporean Chinese) living here. Can I don't use WeChat?" Well, you don't have to use WeChat if you are not interested in serving the market that uses WeChat, which is mainly the non-Singaporean Chinese living in Singapore and the region.  Many of us would think of WeChat as a business tool, and the incentive for using WeChat is to capture a wider market so that we can earn more money and probably get rich. Is it so?  If your reason for using WeChat is mainly to make money and nothing else, I suggest you don't use WeChat.  For sooner or later, your selfish motives will be known to people and people will start to abandon you for being so money-minded. To me, the one and the only reason to use WeChat is...

In our previous article (you can read it here ), we stressed the importance of becoming an active WeChat user if you too want to tap into the immense rewards that WeChat offers.  'Active WeChat user' means to use WeChat daily, with 1 to 3 Moments postings a day and adding new friends every day.  There are 5 steps that anyone can become an active WeChat user: Step 1: Make Sure Your WeChat Profile Stands For Something Until you make a dent with your WeChat profile, people will not take you seriously, even if you were an active WeChat user.  To create a high impact profile, upload a professional photograph, like the one I have in this article.  Other than profile photo, you need to describe yourself in a way that makes you stand out. Step 2: Put your WeChat icon on the front page of your mobile phone.   Step 3: Post WeChat Moments 1 to 3 times a day If you are like most people, you post a few times every day on Facebook and find posting daily on ...

I realised that despite being so immensely useful, less than 20% or 800,000 out of 4 million of WeChat users in Singapore use WeChat daily. Why is it so? Firstly, many are frightened by the Chinese language, including many Chinese that studied Chinese as a subject in school all the way to 16 years old.  They told me that since they are not familiar with Chinese, and Chinese being the most commonly used language in WeChat, they have decided to not use WeChat often. Well, to understand correctly, there are total 21 languages that you use in WeChat, including Spanish, Jewish, Malay, Japanese and Korean.  You can always go to "Me" page, select "Settings", then "General", and change the language to the language of your choice. Even with this, some people told me that they still receive many postings on WeChat Moments and since they don't understand Chinese much, they decided not to read them. Well, there is a translate function in WeChat where you...

Many trainers teach Sun Tzu Art of War. Some conduct 3-days courses and go very deep into the book.  Others teach you in simple terms.  We at Asia Trainers don't just teach you the art of war, we put the application of the art of war at the centre of our courses.  Since conducting Art of War in 2010, we have conducted Art of War for Leadership, Customer Service, Productivity and Innovation and also Sales.  The most valuable lesson of the Art of War 13 chapters of 5,000 words is found in the 3rd chapter: Win Without Fighti ng. 不战而胜 In war the best thing is to take the enemy state whole and intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. To capture the entire army is better than to destroy it. Hence, to win on hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is supreme excellence, or simply win without fighting How does it apply to your sales?  1.     "Enemy" here refers to not your competitor...

According to Tencent, WeChat now has 1.08 billion users worldwide in 21 languages. In Singapore, there are 4 million users with 20% or 800,000 active users. Many people use WeChat passively, with many responding to messages too late. What happens when you are not an active WeChat user? First, you will not harness the power of WeChat Wallet, which is not just about WeChat Pay but also free advertising on Groupbuy and other pages only available when you have WeChat Wallet. Second, the less you use WeChat, the harder it is for you to build your brand. Unlike Facebook and Google where you can buy page views and likes, you can only build your brand in a gradual but engaging manner in WeChat. Third, you will miss out knowing the right people. Who would want to accept you as a friend if you only post on WeChat Moments once a month? Fourth, the less you use WeChat, the less you become savvy with WeChat as it is evolving very fast. Soon you will give up and be left out in this fas...

First, examine are you over-promoting or over-selling yourself and your company/products?  If your fundamentals are not strong, over-selling or over-marketing will set you back greatly Next, examine do you have a strong conviction: can you name 100 reasons for doing what you are doing?  If you do not have enough reasons to do what you are doing, you will have little reason to continue to do what you are doing. Spirit of marketing: do you have the proper values in your marketing?  Like you don’t mislead people, don’t over-promise, don’t over-pressure people. Understand your business model: why your company does what it do and have offerings like free samples?   Know inside-out about your products and services: what benefits do you (yes, you the seller, not the customer) derive from them?  Do you have a perfect script in 30 seconds, 60 seconds and 10 seconds? Limit your sales presentation to 30 minutes Objections: never object, resist and...

Most people hate to do sales. Many prefer to do social media marketing so that they can avoid face-to-face selling. But we know that today's world has evolved. Selling is no longer face-to-face. Many times it is over the phone, Whatsapp messages, WeChat Moments and email. What remains is still the same: you need to close the sale.  It is said that if you are not closing sales for your company, you are closing sales for your competitor.  (watch short video at here ) To close every sale, you need to follow a proven P-FBPA formula. You must ask questions, not just take the order. Ask "Yes" Questions only. What happens if the prospect wants a lower price? How to handle customers that just want to delay? Check for prices? Are there ways that we can not just close the sale, but open the relationships for life-long business? AndyTheCoach did his first sale at the age of 5, in Chinatown's Trengannu Street when he sold a piece of face towel for 50 cents. Si...

1. WeChat Wallet is not allowed in Singapore Wechat Wallet is an e-wallet service much like Paypal or Grab money.  But it is  NOT a crypto-currency  like Bitcoin.  WeChat Wallet is allowed in Singapore and many people are using it everyday to pay for purchases in restaurants, shops and even training companies like ours.  The only currency allowed in WeChat Wallet in Singapore is the Chinese yuan or Renminbi.  WeChat Wallet money is real because you  need to have real Chinese yuan inside.   There are  only 2 ways to fill up money in your Wallet:  get someone to transfer to you or purchase Chinese yuan from an authorised WeChat agent like Fomo Pay. 2. Cannot Open WeChat Wallet in Singapore Anyone can open Wechat Wallet in Singapore  without the need to have a bank account opened physically in China . You simply use your Visa or Mastercard credit card to authenticate yourself. The process takes about 3 minutes.  In ou...

Since conducting WeChat training in August 2017, I have, to-date (18 May 2018), conducted 56 classes of WeChat, mostly in English.  Recently one of my students, who was in her 70s, told me that she finds it difficult to use WeChat because she is not IT savvy.  When I told her that WeChat is NOT an IT tool, she was shocked.  Next come another shock: WeChat is a tool for you to behave properly. I asked her, "Do you know how to 做人 or behave properly"?  She retorted, "Of course Yes".  "Then you can use WeChat easily", replied me. Why is WeChat NOT an IT tool?  To be an IT tool, you need to be good in IT. Yet I see many old people in China that have never touched a computer before use WeChat every day to book taxis, pay for groceries, give out red packets, and even book train tickets. WeChat is a tool for you to behave properly. This is because if you don't behave properly, you cannot use WeChat. What are the common improper behaviours of people? Ch...

Forced Management: Most people are doing Forced Management knowingly or unknowingly. For example, most managers set targets for their staff and simply pressurize them to achieve the targets. They do not get buy-in to the targets, nor do they help the staff to see how they can achieve the targets. And they assume that the staff will hit the targets on their own, if not, they will do some forcing like issue threats. Few would take time to motivate, inspire and lead the staff  to hit the targets. Even fewer will sit down and listen to the staff when they cannot hit the targets. We all know that all goals must be internalized for it to be achieved. If you don't buy-in to the goals, you will not achieve them. Even if you do achieve them in the end, you will not get the pride and satisfaction of achievement. We also know that if people achieve goals out of their own will, they will do so happily and willingly. Miracles will happen and we can turn all impossible to possible. ...

WeChat opens you up to a whole new world. You are immediately connected with 1.4 billion people living in mainland China and another 100 million overseas Chinese living in places from Tanzania Africa to Montreal Canada.  This is because  just like the Chinese language, WeChat is the only tool used by Chinese .  They may use WhatsApp, Facebook or Skype, but most of them prefer  to use WeChat.   This is because WeChat can do almost all of the things that other apps do, but none of them can do what WeChat does.  Many of us are brought up in Western influence and we do things the western way.  But when you use WeChat, you will realise that you have to do things the Chinese way.   The Chinese way of doing things is simply giving out red packets or hong bao .  In WeChat, people give out and receive red packets every day. A small token sum of money, maybe one Chinese Yuan or even 1 cent is okay to give in your red packets. Giving out re...