Business and Money Tips

If you don't fire your people up, you might as well fire them. More at here Your people are your greatest asset, but how many leaders actually make their people feel powerful?  Instead I see many leaders make their people feel powerless by taking away freedom from them and insulting them in public.  From now on make your people feel powerful and you'll have a powerful team . There are 5 powerless ways to make people feel powerful: Delegate important tasks to them.  Let them take the risk and fail if necessary.   Let go of your authority, control and compliance.  Let them do things their way, and they will realize that following your system and path is better Communicate with them frequently, let them be the first to know important things, and encourage them to share their views on important issues.  Ask them, "Can I have your opinion on this?" You don't have to promote people to leadership position to make them powerful, all you need is to offer choice

If you don’t like the title of this article, read on.  By ‘boss’ here, I am referring to a person that an employee (or self-employed) reports to.  That reporting boss can be a customer, the shareholders, superior and in some cases, the government. Today I shall focus on your superior, that is, someone that you report to in your work.  Most of the time this person is a manager or supervisor. Whenever an employee has a performance issue, most managers will assume it is the lack of training.  As a trainer with 16 years of experience training 81,131 people in 13 countries since 1996, I know that many a times it is not the lack of training.  It may not even be the lack of skills or attitude.                     The biggest obstacle to performing well is not about knowing what to do.  The biggest obstacle is n ot doing what we know we should be doing, due to Interferences by Bosses. The following are the 5 most common interferences by bosses that are causing the performa

As we know, management is an art and not a science, and the best managers do not manage at all, for they  make people better than themselves .   I follow the  8-Path Wisdom  in Management as follows, using how to ensure people hit their targets as a case study:  Right Understanding Do we have the right understanding on the reasons for people not hitting their targets?  Is it due to lack of skills, motivation or attitude? Right Intent Is hitting targets our intention?  Or making people perform at the highest level possible our intent? Right Action What is the Right Action to Take if Lack of Skills is the reason for people not performing at the right level?  Let's say it is weekly training, plus monthly new challenges.  Right Effort What is the most positive action, every day, in both ourselves and our team?  How can we engage our people so that their  efforts becomes more effective? Right Speech How do we inform and engage our team in a way that m

As we know, nothing happens by itself and everything has a cause and an effect.  This causality is explained as Dependent Origination, which means that  something is always depending on something else, and without the origin of something, something will not happen .   The reason is nothing is absolute or permanent.  Everything is relative and impermanent.  Nothing exists on its own, but arises from something else.  Things continue to exist and transform owing to the  coming together and dissolution of factors .  This natural law can be simply stated as:  When A arises, B comes to be.   When A does not arise, B does not come to be. Similarly, when A ceases to arise, B ceases to come to be. In short,  without A, there is no  B.  With A, there is B.  So this explains where your business come from.   Understand that there are  multiple causes , i.e., many As and Bs.  All these factors interact with one another and  each is a cause and also an effect for something else .  The 7 common

You wouldn't believe this: as much as 60% of small and medium enterprises are struggling to survive in Singapore when the economy is growing at 3% to 4% this year.  In fact not just SMEs some bigger companies (including MNCs) are also doing badly.  People often asked me: are there ways to turn around this? Companies that do well usually exhibit the following 6 attributes: They treat their staff well, not just in salaries but also in development and opportunities for growth They allow people space , i.e., they don't squeeze until the last drop of juice.  They make sure people work hard but are not workaholic They invest in marketing and sales , for they know that having the best products will not sell unless the selling and marketing are good They tapped into the expertise of outside vendors, like trainers and consultants.  They use their expertise often and multiply their intelligences multi-fold They are not in sunset industries (e.g. traditional printing) or in in

Read 'How to Add Value When Your Price is Higher' at here As we know, the world cannot live without selling. Yes, we can live without the internet and smartphones but ultimately someone must sell something for the ball to start rolling.  Selling is defined as the offering to exchange an item of value  for a different item.  The original item of value being offered may be either tangible or intangible.  The second item being exchanged must be seen by the seller as being of equal or greater value than that being offered for sale, otherwise there is no exchange.  Of course the second item are mostly money but it can also be another item, tangible or intangible.  If you sell something in exchange for something other than money, it is called barter trade. The 7 most common types of selling that we teach in our sales courses include Attraction Selling, Team Selling, Consultative Selling, Relationship Selling, Action Selling, Hard or Push Selling and Heart Selling 1.  Attrac

Either you fire them up you'll have to fire them is at here My background in retail sales since the tender age of 5 has taught me one important lesson: never take anything for granted.   Never believe anything at first instance, not even your own percep tion. Whether you're dealing with staff, candidates, voters, suppliers, contractors, customers, children or bosses, the first step to getting anything done is to understand your customer .  Customer here refers to people you're serving now, which could anyone of the preceding statement.   To understand your customer, you must open your mind fully to what he says and how he says it .  To do this, you must go beyond your own experience, knowledge and skills.  You must get confused.  When you are confused, you will seek clarification, and you will ask questions.  Like, "What does that mean?  Why is he doing that?  What's going on?"  That's confusion! Confusion is a state of learning .  If you think

Many courses teach people to communicate well, have good teamwork and be efficient in their work.  There are many trainers that teach employees to take initiative and how to work smarter, not just harder.  Some bosses requested that employees must be trained to be high contribution employees or they're just a cost, not a value contributor. To train your people to be high contribution employees, you need to equip them with the following skills: How to think the right and only way - value add, not just work Working well as a team , especially coping with colleagues that are slower or faster than you The do's and don'ts of contributing more to your employee Six ways to boost profits or value of your employer:  Increase sales, Lower Cost, Increase Productivity, Improve Cash flow, Reduce risks and Improve Profit Margins Creating Sustainability in your efforts - how to de-stress and re-energize How to Get More Customers and Get Customers to Buy More  without droppi

This parking charges appear to be cheap when in fact it is dear An irresistible offer is one offer where no one can resist it, unless you are the seller. There are 7 ways to create an irresistible offer without dropping your price: Relief - frighten people first with a higher price, then announce your price, which is so attractive that it gives people instant relief  State in the smallest term - per half-hour instead of per hour, per second instead of per day Huge benefits - where the benefits are so huge that any price will be considered ridiculously low. Like our courses where you can get PIC 60% cash back , plus guarantee on results Alleviates Pain and Satisfies a Deep Desire - The deeper the pain and the desire, the better. That’s because all good offers are emotionally driven. People don’t buy things for logical reasons — even the most logical purchases include some driving emotional reason underneath Social Proof - based on results and testimonials of others.  Like

Everyone says the best leadership is leadership by example. So I see some bosses go all the way down to the ground, and many even below the ground.  They work, suffer and toil as hard as the workers.  Some think that leadership by example means the boss accepts the same pay as the staff.  Others say that the leader has to arrive at the office earlier than everyone and leaves later than everyone. There are some who assert that a leader is leading by example when he is there to solve all the team's problems and assumes all blames. If the above principles of leadership by example is true, who wants to be a leader?  The leader is the worst of all, he suffers the most and enjoys the least.  No wonder many people in Singapore are afraid of stepping up as they fear leadership by example.  Truth be told, leadership by example is none of the above.  If you follow great leaders like Genghis Khan, Steve Job and Sun Tzu, you'll realize that leadership by example is about one and only

As I learnt from Master Hsing Yun: A loser is one whose passion lasts only five minutes.  A winner is one whose passion lasts through the final five minutes. When it comes to business, many define making money as success and losing money as failure.  Scientists define success as proving a theory.  When Argentina lost the World Cup to Germany, some called Argentina losers as they believe that the winner takes it all and the loser stands to fall.  At least the above beliefs are still better than those who believe success of failure lies in geomancy, destiny, supernational power or some other people's bad intentions.  In reality the condition of achieving success or failure lies in us - whether we are fully competent or not.  The businessmen who does market research thoroughly has rich capital resources coupled with good opportunities will undoubtedly yield good profit.  A staff that is well trained who works diligently and passionately with a strong ambition will achieve s

A good manager or leader is one that  makes people work hard, not make people's work hard .  Working hard is indeed a virtue, but in today's world of smartphones and smartness, many equate working hard to be not working smart.  This mistaken belief arises because most people treat work as drudgery and an necessary evil.  If you treat work as enjoyment and play, you would work hard because working is playing .  Understand that working hard is actually diligence, but it is not blind diligence, which is simply being a workaholic and work hard until work becomes very hard.  Those who know will tell you that  if you really work hard, work is not hard at all but very easy .  Those that find work hard are those that are not working hard enough to find the joy in their work. There are 7 situations that you too can work hard and yet have an joyous time: You work on your Passions , whereby every working minute is actually passionate and full of positive emotions.  Like I d