Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and Chap Goh Meh are all behind us now. No more excuse for being in a holiday mood. Time to get to work. A goal I set for myself is to train 20 teachers for the HABA Learning Program, a programme developed in Germany for children aged 4 to 7 using boardgames as learning tools. If I don't achieve this by Feb 2023, please kick my butt.
What do you aim to achieve within the year?
"The package includes a 7-day tour worth MYR3500, a dinner event worth MYR600, a travel kit worth MYR400 and shopping vouchers worth MYR1500. The total value is MYR6000, but today we are offering this package at MYR2999 only! That's less than half price!" When you are able to convince the potential buyer how much more value he is getting vs how much he would be paying, you position your product as too good a deal to pass on.
What to do with this information:
When you are a buyer, recognise these tricks and don't let them affect you making the right decision. Don't hate marketers. It is their job to help sellers connect to their target audience. As a buyer it is your responsibility to understand the product and whether it fits you.
When you are a seller, this is a trick you can use. No matter how well you market, you must still have a good product if you want to stay in business. Do right by your customers.
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Many small and easy things we do every day convey our professionalism and build trust in people who do business with us. I'm sometimes shocked how some people, even from large reputable organisations, make mistakes with very basic etiquette. Being late for meetings. Forgetting meetings. Not responding to messages / emails. Not following up on something promised. Not doing the required preparation before attending a meeting. None of these are difficult to do. Yet people still lapse. All these erode others' confidence and trust in you. If you can't even get the small things done properly, how can I entrust bigger things to you?
小事做不了，大事做不好
We must always hold ourselves to high standards.
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As the leader of an organisation, one of the worst things you can do is not to terminate an employee when you know you should. It is unpleasant. It can be messy. Sometimes the person you need to fire is generally a nice guy, just that he can't do the job or he doesn't fit the team. Not firing a person can be damaging to your organisation culture. An underperforming or negative employee spreads toxicity to people around him. Terminations must be handle with dignity and integrity. One aspect many leaders forget or avoid is to explain to the rest of the team why this person was terminated. Handling termination is very much about the people who are staying, not just the person leaving. Explain to your team why the decision was made. It is a reiteration of your organisation's values. This and other tips in my book Every Employee an Entrepreneur:
When you become the kind of person whom you need to be, success follows.
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Should you do something that no one has done before? That's how you create new value right? If you are just repeating what everyone else is doing, how do you compete with them?
However we must also spend time to study why others before us have carved the existing path. What are the lessons we can learn from the past before we try to venture off the established trail? There can be tremendous value in learning why things work they way they do now, before we try to be a trailblazer. We want to be a smart trailblazer and not charge blindly, ignoring lessons we could have learnt from others before us.
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I first read the book when I was twelve. Well, I should say I tried reading the book when I was twelve. I never finished it then. I could not appreciate it. I read it again more than 20 years later, and only then the story resonated with me. The message which stays with me the most is how we must stick to our principles, even when the world seems to conspire against us, and even when everything seems futile.
The edition of the book I have is the one pictured here. This is one of my books with the longest gap between buying it and finishing it.
When you ask for help, or even just advice, there is a psychological effect on the person who responds to your call for help. It may be a small thing, but when they help you, subconsciously they are telling themselves that you are a person they like. That is why they are helping you.
Don't be shy!
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I used to feel uncomfortable with the idea of business networking, because I felt I was meeting people with a selfish motive. I was greeti...
