Business and Money Tips

Dale Carnegie, the author of 1935's best-selling book "How to Win Friends and Influence People", taught us how to fish. Here's how he is able to fish for minutes and catch big catches.  "When I go fishing, I don't think about what I want. I think about what t hey  want.  I don't bait the hook with chocolates and peanuts, I dangle a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and say, "Wouldn't you want to have that?"  So taught Dale Carnegie.   That's the approach you can take when fishing for customers.  Get the prospect to say "Yes" immediately by using the Socratic method of keep on asking questions .   Wouldn't you want to achieve more sales than ever with less work?  How about getting your customers to come back to you over and over again?  Can you win the price war without getting into a price war?  Is it possible to do limitless selling, where the only limits to your sales is your ability to serve your customer

As a trainer and teacher, I know that my clients know more than me. They don't need us to teach them anything. But everyone appreciates someone to tell them something they don't know. Many times it is not new knowledge but a different way of looking at things.  This is what re-frame is about. It's about changing the frame or the way you look at things.  That's what everyone wants.  Here are 7 things that you can easily re-frame: Wealth is not measured by how much you have, but how much you can afford to lose and still not considered poor Sales: Selling is not about making people buy, but teaching people to want to buy from you Purchases is not about seeking the lowest possible price from your vendors but seeking the highest return from what you buy Management is not about managing people but managing time, money and resources Employment is not a entitlement but a service, and the biggest service is yourself.  If your employment is not serving you,

The best managers are not those who are good in delegating work to others, nor are they the leaders that lead their organizations to winning battles.  The best managers are more than that. The best managers make people better than themselves.    They dare to take the challenge to challenge people.  You see most people have a fixed idea of themselves and what they can do.  But the best managers know that unless challenged, people will stay within their comfort limits . How do they do that? Well, the best managers teach people well . Not just teach them to do their job well, but how to become a better person .  Because the best managers know that only when people become better will their jobs become easier.   Other than teaching well, the best managers always take control of the situation .  By this we don't mean the best managers are aggressive or push, but are able to assert and control the situation, especially control any meeting or conversation they have with their tea

Most sales trainers centred on one core teaching: you must understand customers' needs and sell them solutions to their needs.  Many sales training in Singapore and Asia teach people to ask better questions, like probing questions, financial questions, hypothetical questions, follow-up questions and open-ended questions so as to get the sale.   The idea is that if we just dig deep enough, we will find gold. This sounds very good, but does it work in real life?  Do people buy based on needs?   What if customers don't know what they need?  Like before Apple launched iPad in 2010, you cannot get anywhere if you ask questions on what type of tablet they need.   To me, the customer's single greatest need is to figure out exactly what they need.  So a better sales technique is to tell customers what they need.   Sales champions win not by understanding their customers' needs but by knowing customers' needs better than the customers themselves .  So such sa

According to best-selling book "The Challenger Sale" author Matthew Dixon, most salespeople are very hard-working, some are relationship builders and the rest are passive problem solvers.  But few of them are able to out-perform over a sustained period. (You can read a 5-minute summary of his book at here) As we know, pure consultative selling based on relationship building does not work anymore for large sales, complex sales and sales to MNCs. This is because of corporate governance. Other than that, most buyers now little power for the actual decision-making is vested in a committee that does not even want to see the salesperson. Those that were trained in consultative selling often end up providing free service to their prospects as they lose control of the sales situation and the prospect end up buying from another vendor.  The hardworking salespeople do close many sales, but they often get burnt out because they worked too hard

Following yesterday's blog on 'The First Love Language at Work', here are the other 4 Love Languages per Dr Gary Chapman that we use in our management training : Words of Affirmation Quality Time Acts of Service Gifts  Touch Today we shall dwell on Quality Time Quality time is simply giving someone your undivided attention . It is a very obvious expression of love and no one in this world dislikes it. Quality time need not be quantity time, and Ken Blanchand said in the "One Minute Manager" book, all it takes is an EXTRA MINUTE of your time and that's quality time. When your staff talks to you, do you listen with your computer screen on? Focused Attention is another aspect of Quality Time. It is not we have to spend our time together moments gazing into each other's eyes. It means we are doing something together and that we are giving our full attention to each other. Incidentally, the activity that we do is not important. What's im

From Dr Gary Chapman's best selling book "The Five Love Languages", many people tried to apply this relationship love concept in the workplace.  While many have met with success, some have found the ideas too complex to transfer them to the workplace effectively.  At Asia Trainers, we have, since 2006 in management and leadership courses, applied such concepts successfully.    Chapman's 5 Love Languages are as follows: Words of Affirmation Quality Time Acts of Service Gifts  Touch Chapman's book claims that this list of five love languages is exhaustive but we should not use the love languages that they like the most but rather the love languages that their loved ones can receive.  So in the workplace, which love language you use would depend on who you are dealing with.  Today I shall only talk about the first love language: Words of Affirmation .  Come back to our blog at www.andyngtrainer.blogspot.sg for the remaining 5 love languages.  Power o

Often during our sales courses people ask me what's the number one skill of a successful salesperson.  It must be assertiveness. Assertiveness is not to be confused with aggressiveness.  When you push your customer to buy based on your own reason (like you have to hit your target), you are aggressive. But when you push your customer to buy because it is in the customer's interest to buy, you are assertive.   There are 3 steps to be assertive in your selling: Step 1: Teach Here you teach your prospect not just about your product's features and benefits but challenge his assumptions .  You also teach him how to take action base on what he desires. Your teaching must offer an unique perspective and must be a two-way communication .  That means asking questions and listening Step 2: Tailor After the prospect is taught on what is the right way to do things, you tailor what you have to what he desires.  It means that you have to adjust your propos

One of the most crucial job of a sales manager is to ensure that the business has a constant supply of new leads or new clients.  This is because we know that there is a natural attrition rate of 20% every year,  that is, 20% customers going away every year even if we do nothing wrong.   Chasing new business is often thought of by many as something to be done by marketeers and bosses.  In reality, getting new business is easy.  But it is even easier not to get any new business.  This means we get our customers to do the selling for us, or use referrals.   You see, the difference between a promotion and a business is simple - when you have to go out and find yourself another customer, what you have is a ongoing marketing promotion, not a business.  A business is where you buy a customer and then sell them many things over and over again, that is, you have an ongoing income stream. How to have an instant Referral System?  There are 5 elements: Great Product or Service .  Not just

We all work primarily to earn income. Other than that, work fulfils additional needs like give us status, identity, power, approval of others, social interaction and the simple satisfaction of keeping busy.   The problem is that while we work to accomplish our goals, we seldom find value in the process of working itself.  In our training courses like How to Be a Better Manager, How to Be a Great Boss and Effective Selling Skills, many people have come to the point where they question the value of what they have been doing.  They asked if work has deepened their sense of meaning and purpose.   Even for people who work for a cause they believe in, or they are working on their passions, ultimately the same pattern persists.  Although we may work with much more energy and commitment, we look past the actual activity of working to its results.  Although we believe in what we do, we are focused on the results, hitting KPIs and earning a living.  In other words, we do not satisfy our ow

We all have kind hearts, and when we see someone that we care about, we cannot help but help them.  Such compassion is a virtuous quality for having the intention to help people, even though we know that there may not be any rewards for us, direct or indirect. But we know that sometimes our help end up harming people. This is because we make them become over-dependent on us and lose their innate ability to solve their own problems.  Other than that, we often treat the symptoms of their problems and not the root cause, and this may worsen the problem.  So to really help others, we need to show them how to recognize and overcome the root cause of their problem , which is their self-centred ignorance .  This requires us to overcome our own self-centred ignorance.   Then, to inspire people to abandon their habitual self-destructive behaviour, we must be able to communicate with them. And to communicate with them, we must meet them at their own level .  As long as we retain awarenes

As a Trainer Coach specialising in sales, management and executive skills targeting audience from China to Singapore, people often asked us what business are we in.   We are in the Show Business. You see, as a Trainer Coach, we are there not to talk or deliver a program, but to put on a show.  What do we show?  Other than showing our body and learned mind, we also show them our heart and most importantly, our  spirit or passion .   Trainers are there to show people the proven paths, strategies, stratagems and methods to get more done with less. Experts called this Productivity and Work Effectiveness.  We are also there to show the leaders and managers that they too can transform their organizations if they lead and manage effectively. For people in sales, customer service and marketing, we show them the winning ways - how to win over the most difficult customers, crack the sales code and even sell ice to the Eskimos!   For people that just want to make their lives les

"Search Inside Yourself" is the most rewarding training program Google has ever created for its employees.  Now you too can share in this discovery for this Search Inside Yourself method is now available to all in the form of cheap e-books (only S$5 at Google Playstore).  Search Inside Yourself works in 3 easy steps: Attention Training Self-Knowledge and Self-Mastery Creating Useful Mental Habits Attention Training Attention training is the basis of all abilities.  You train your attention so that you can relax and yet be alert at the same time: relaxed so that your mind is calm and clear and alert so that you are alert to that attention .   Self-Knowledge and Self-Mastery Using your trained attention you can observe your thought stream and your emotions with high clarity and from a third-party objectivity.  With this you will not be attached to your own feelings, you will develop a sense of equanimity and with that you will develop self-mastery and self-

Part 1: You and Your Winning Sales System (for course details click here ) Blogger: Today we have on our site a Sales Trainer who has been conducting in-house training for over 343 companies including AIA, SingTel, NTU and Tanzanian Government, let's welcome Andy Ng! Andy: Thanks Blogger, today I'm going to talk about Winning Sales System. What is a Winning Sales System?  Most salespeople have one common problem: they are too dependent on their seniors and sales managers to guide them on how to sell.  But what happens if you are the only salesperson around?  You need a sales system to guide you. Blogger: Can you tell us what are the essential elements of a sales system? Andy: Sure. There are 4 elements of a winning sales system: How to Get Prospects Without Spending a Huge Sum of Money How to Convert Prospects into Clients without having to drop your price How to Get Repeat Business from clients without having to resort to price discounts How to Get Higher S

Talk about Productivity and many equate it to be 'better, faster and cheaper'.  Some think of getting new and advanced machines to replace manpower, others say productivity is about getting the government's Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) money to improve productivity.  (To read more on the latest curbs and abuse of PIC, click here ). Many trainers advocate training your staff while at Asia Trainers we opined that training bosses and managers are more important than training staff.  To the businessman, productivity is about E ver More with Ever Less.  This means getting more output with ever lesser input.  This must be the most apt definition and I shall use this in this article.  To have more output is easy, just lower your selling price and your sales would increase and you will have a quantum leap in productivity.  But without profit margins there is no productivity.  Thus the element of profit or residual value is important.   But how we distribute thi