Business and Money Tips

Many people ask why I am so lame in my selling.  I do not promise massive results, neither do I tell people that they will become rich when they do what I say.  Some people like to promise the sky. I prefer to promise the ground but inspire people to reach for the sky.  This is because I believe that a salesperson is not a liar, nor is he a over-promiser.  A salesperson is a service provider , and he only can service people if he can help the get what they have been promised.  So if he promise little, he may lose some sales.  To me that is okay, because maximising sales is not my goal.   Maximising customer satisfaction is my pursuit, and I only can maximize customer satisfaction if I allow my customer opportunities to have surprises on the upside. That's why I under promise. So the next time if you are looking for someone that promise a lot, don't look for me.   I promise little, but I deliver. To me this is everything.  (But I do promise you these things at here )

If you too want your sales team to perform, not just conform, you need to inspire them to greater heights.  But first you must ensure that they possess these 9 hard skills: How to Look for New Customers without spending on expensive advertising Getting repeat business from customers Increasing the average spending of customers Converting all sales objections into buying impetus How to Sell the Impossible so as to sell ice to the Eskimos How to Present your product and service so that your product features make sense for the buyer Getting past gate keepers and reaching decision makers effortlessly Service from the heart and how to go the extra mile to serve customers Asking questions so as to elicit information from buyers and lead them to a sale On top of that, your salespeople must also possess these 3 soft skills: How to set their own sales targets and motivate themselves to work towards their own goals Persuasion, Influence and Negoti

Managers are trained how to manage and lead their people, and some of them are proud of the fact that they can change people.  For managers who are commissioned to hit some aggressive sales numbers, coaching is the last thing on their mind.   But we know that all change must come from inside, and a manager can never push for results or attempt to change people overnight.   Real change happens when people want to change by themselves , and the way to do this is to coach them.   In order to coach people, managers must know the following 5 important facts of coaching: Surrender Your Agenda When Coaching . Coaching is about the coachee, not the coach or the coaching program.  The coach must go into the mindset of the coachees, not his own mindset.  Although the coach may have some objectives when he coaches his coachee, he must remain flexible and realize that the most important thing is not to complete his agenda but to help to solve the coachee's problem Coaching is a Proces

As a Business Coach by passion and vocation, our goal is to help business owners achieve business success through analysis and systems implementation. What this means is that we help the self-employed build a profitable commercial enterprise that works without them. After all, systems should run a business, not the owner. The first thing we do is to access the business by working with the business owners to determine where they are, where they would like to be, and then helping them implement systems and strategies based on what we find that would be the most appropriate for that particular business’s needs (increase profitability, systems, employee training, controls, etc.). Today let's assess the business in the five key profit generating areas: 1.  Lead Generation (no. of potential customers generated); 2. Conversion Rate (success rate or ratio of customers over leads generated); 3.  Average Dollar Sale (average invoiced value or average sale value in dollar terms); 4.  Av

Mention the word 'Karma' and many would think this has to do with religion or superstition.  Some even equate karma as retribution.  Like Microsoft's CEO said 'it is bad karma for a staff to ask for a salary raise'.   The dictionary defines 'Karma' simply as 'action'.  So when we say 'bad karma', it is simply 'bad action'.  Because every action will have an effect, bad action will lead to bad outcome or effect.  Note that the effect may not be immediate, direct or even obvious .  For example, if you take in dirty food, you may get food poisoning, but it may be delayed, indirect (you get headache instead of stomach ache) or non-obvious (you may think your stomach upset is caused by water and not the food you take). Also other factors are at play, like how strong your body is.  Nevertheless, karma affects everything in life, whether you know it or not is irrelevant.  The 7 elements of karma are: Size : the bigger the action, t

You work hard and give your prospects good presentations. You also go the extra mile and put customers' interest first.  Yet to your dismal you discover that no matter how hard you sell, they simply won't buy.  Why? The reason is people don't buy what you sell, no matter how good or special your goods and services are.  People don't even buy the benefits of what you sell.  People buy base on one and only reason: their reasons.  Until you can satisfy any of the following reasons, they just don't buy.  This is the biggest secret you're going to learn.   The reasons that customers buy may not be the reasons that you sell .  Know them, and you will be able to even Sell Ice to Eskimos (click here for details).  The reasons customers buy include: They buy from you because they need to diversify their supply base You offer On-time delivery or just-in-time delivery They buy to fulfil their needs (internal or external)  You sell Quality (need not be the best)

You'll be surprised if you have a heart-to-heart talk with the people that you sent for  training .  "Tell me what have you learnt."  They will say, "Nothing much, I learnt those strategies that we may have taken for granted and not used much".  Is this their real answer? What do people really learnt from training?  You'll be shocked to discover the truths: there are 5 main things that people learnt but dare not tell you: They learnt about themselves: their weaknesses, strengths and most importantly, their potential.   Like people learnt that they can do magic: cut a piece of wood with paper.  Many people are frightened with this new discovery: they are afraid that now that they know they can do much more, will they be worked to death to implement the strategies learnt? They learnt about the best practises  that may not be practised in their organization, like having half-yearly dialogue style performance appraisal.  Some are afraid of telling this to

‘THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF MARKETING’ book  written by Al Ries and Jack Trout is a wonderful book. I realise that we too can apply the laws to management.  In fact the world's 2 most preferred employers Google and Facebook use many of these 8 laws:  1.       Law of Leadership  – Be a Good Leader first then be a Good Manager. (Be a better manager in 4 weeks at here ) 2.       Law of Mind  –  it’s better to be the first in the mind than to be the first in the marketplace .   Once a mind is made up, it rarely changes.   So make a strong name in your people's minds that you are an Effective Manager (details at here ).  3.       Law of Perception  – management is  not a battle of ideas  but a  battle of perceptions .  All ideas is relative.   Management is a  manipulation of perceptions .  Make sure your people perceive you to be capable, that's why you cannot show your weakness in front of your team members.  4.      Law of Ladder  – move your team up the Ladd

Most people equate aggressive selling to aggressive salespeople doing pushy or aggressive selling.  Nothing is further from the truth. By the way, Aggressive Selling is part of Motivational Selling .  As we know, selling is professionally helping other people to buy .  Aggressive selling is just professional selling done in an aggressive way .  Sun Tzu in the Art of War advocated wars to be fought quickly and with determination .  (The next Sun Tzu Art of War for Sales seminar is on 30 Jan 2015 Friday 9 am to 1 pm, details at here ).  Author Andy Ferrari Norman defined Aggressive Selling to be ' Determined and Energetic Selling that Produces Quick and High Results '.  There are 9 ways to do aggressive selling: A ggressive Sales and Marketing , like the government's aggressive and non-stop bombastic commercials on TV and Radio in August to promote the Pioneer Generation scheme.  If you have deep pockets, you can expect good results because no one can ignore such

In Buddhism, there is this bodhisattva called Avalokiteshvara, or commonly called 'Guan Shi Yin" in China and South East Asia (or "Guan Yin" in short).  This bodhisattva is an enlightened being living in heaven that has delayed his own buddhahood so as to save mankind from their sufferings.  He (or she as in Guan Yin) has  the ability to listen and understand the suffering of others.   Buddhists believe that if we evoke his name, he will listen and help us.  Note that his one life cycle is of a few thousand years.  In everyday life, you as a human being are also like Avalokiteshvara if you can practise  deep listening and active listening .  Just by being able to  listen with calm and understanding and without any judgement,  we are already easing the suffering of another person.  If you were to engage in 30 minutes of such listening, you can relieve a great deal of pain in another person.  That's what coaches and trainers like us do: we listen to the voices o

This is because Apple's salespeople are its customers.  Not only are Apple's salespeople free-of-charge, they are the best salespeople because nobody can resist word-of-mouth referrals. Apple knows how to people climb up the 7-Step Ladder of Loyalty, from Suspects to Prospects, and finally to Raving Fans. They know that the Ultimate in Customer Service is about turning Complaints into Compliments and turning Customers into Raving Fans that Sell for You. So if you have been thinking of how to increase sales at the lowest cost, now is the time. This seminar, taken from our high level consulting, will leave you miles ahead of your competition. Note: This course qualifies for PIC 60% Grant, i.e. your net investment is only 40%. Hurry! Last seats left!  Register now by calling Ida at 6225-1784 or email to andythecoach@gmail.com CUSTOMERS AS RAVING FANS Date: 12 March 2015 Thursday 2 to 5.30 pm Fee: $149 each (special fee, others $198) Venue: The Plaza 02-348, 7500A Beac

You see, 99.9% of businesses are organized in this way: get the product or service and work out how best to sell them. At Asia Trainers, we coach our clients on a different platform: Sell what you have in a very  different context , like Ya Kun Kaya Toast. Many bosses train their people on a 'as needed basis', if they find that they are lacking in negotiation skills, they will send fhem to a  Sales Negotiaton Success  course.  Smart bosses train their people on a 'get ready' basis.  They over-train their people, and yet they know that they are making good money from training, because of PIC 60% cash back from the government. To find out how to make 27% ROI on your training, read this  article . Many sales courses today focus a lot on motivational aspects, they teach people how to get high and do the impossible.  At Asia Trainers, we get our participants to  not go high but go low: go to the lowest common factor and see how you can add value to your

Note: PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) from IRAS gives companies 60% cash (maximum $60,000 yearly) when they invest in training and equipment. To get the most from the government under PIC claims and yet don't cheat them and break the law, all companies can do the following 7 things: (to get your free iPhone 6 + worth $1,488 without paying, read this ) Get a designated person in your company to be the PIC Leader, who will oversee all PIC claims.  This is because there is no such thing as auto pilot, more at here Learn from trainers how to maximise the PIC claims.  An example of a good course is here Go for cash payout instead of tax deduction , as this will give you more cash flow, allowing to invest more in PIC activities and claim even more in return Invest in PIC claimable equipment , like an automated door instead of a fancy door Invest in training , especially those t raining that increases your profits directly , in particular sales training .   Invest i

Many people in business like to work on things even when they are well known to be not working. Today let me share with you the 5 most common practices that don't work. Avoid them and you won't be having any chance of disappointments: Auto-Pilot .  The myth people have is that pilots, once they put the plane on auto-pilot, have basically nothing to do during their flight hours. Nothing is further than the truth: even with the plane on auto-pilot, pilots have to go through their flight navigation plans, make notes on where they have passed and plan for landing and watch out for tubulences.  In short, they have to be on the alert and work all the time even when the plane is on auto-pilot.  Same for business.  Even if your business is as big as Apple, Facebook or Alibaba, you the CEO still have to clock in many hours of work everyday for there is simply no auto-pilot in life Threat of Termination works.  This threat only works with those that find it difficult to look for j

Are you a good boss?  Given a chance, would your employees want to work for you?  Most importantly, are you able to make people better than themselves, or make people better for just yourself?   Make no mistake: the best bosses could also be bad bosses at times.  The key to being a good boss is  how to Be the best, and learn from the Worst .  Taken from our all-time best-seller new course  How to Be a Great Boss  and books from Robert I Sutton, there are 5 things that you have to do: Don't Crush the Bird .  Managing people is like holding a bird in your hand.  If you hold it too tightly, you'll kill it. But if you let loose, you'll lose it.  Indeed managers that are too aggressive will damage relationships and managers that are too passive and not assertive enough will get people climb over their heads.  Like salt in a dish, too much will overwhelm the dish; too little is similarly distracting; but just the right amount of salt will leave an unforgettable experienc