In Feb 2008, I wrote about the stock market being “ripe for the picking” as it heads down to 2005 levels with S&P500 Index falling below 1,300. The 3 major indexes have been going up and down over the last 6 months since I wrote and the S&P500 hit a low in July. Last night, the S&P500 Index went down 38points again to 1236, a level we have not seen in a long time.

One of the greatest advise I learned in investing is, “Be Greedy when others are Fearful, be Fearful when others are Greedy!”. Obviously in a Bear market like this, fear is in the market causing people to dump stocks. This would be a great time to be greedy and go in and pick up some stocks at bargain basement prices. However, you still have to tread carefully as the market may not be at rock bottom yet!

In fact, the level you see above, is equal to levels in 2005 and may be a good time to get into the market with some good selected stocks.

As I write, all the 3 major index futures are going down, signalling that the actual index may actually fall further when the market opens. In any case, get ready some free cash to capitalise on this coming opportunity because such opportunities does not happen all the time. In fact, a recession happens once maybe in every 7 to 10, so don’t miss this one…

The issue is not whether to buy but what to buy. Finding the right stocks to buy is always an issue, even during a recession like that. Keep in mind that you are not trading but really value investing, so look out for value stocks trading below its intrinsic values. I guess a blog article is going to be way to short to go into a description of how to choose value stocks… but make sure you find some good books and get some good advise. A great book I can recommend is “How to make money in Stocks” by William O’Neil.

Happy Investing and beat the Bear Market!

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I was out for lunch at the Simpang Bedok Food Center a few days ago when I spotted this big sign put up by a local drink seller. I find it rather inspiring to see even local food seller capitalising on the recent Silver Medal performance of the Singapore Table Tennis Team. It was Singapore’s first Silver Medal after 48 years and certainly a cause for celebration!

Sure, they don’t use any high tech marketing techniques but a simple hand written sign will do the job equally well… certainly better than no promotion at all. What’s more, the sign is written in both English and Chinese. OK the English wasn’t that great (”Celebrate Offer”???) but what the heck, I’m sure it works!

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A few articles ago in “Presenting your way to Success!“, I shared about the importance of being able to present well in order to be successful in life. Presentation is all about communicating your message across in a convincing way. I also broke down the steps to identify the 3 major types of presentation and also the 3 P’s (Prepare, Practice, Present) and 4 P’s (People, Place, Point, Purpose) of presentation so that it becomes an easy system to prepare your next presentation.

Like most people used to say, “Knowing it is easy, but what do I prepare?” Well, let’s see how we can put it across in a simple, systematic way.

One of the major mistakes I’ve witnessed is the lack of a proper Agenda. Many presenters just jump straight into the topic, assuming that the audience knows exactly what he is talking about. Over the years, I’ve come to learn the importance of leading the audience gradually into the key points of your presentation, and the easiest way to do this is to have a proper agenda.

What should an Agenda look like? Very broadly, an Agenda should have 3 major parts :

1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion

What this amounts to is that we keep emphasizing and re-emphasizing our point until it gets into the head of the audience. Of course, it helps if your topic is something the audience is interested in in the first place. If they are not, it becomes your job to make it interesting for them. I hear it all the time… “This is such a boring audience!” The truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as a boring audience, there are only boring speakers!

Ok, so now that we know our Agenda comprises 3 main parts, what do we tell them in each of these parts. Well, the answer is really quite simple. In the “Introduction”, you tell them what you are going to tell them. This will then lead you to the “Body”, where you just tell them what you said you would tell them. Finally in the “Conclusion”, you just tell them what you have just told them! Simple enough? This triple emphasis technique works everywhere with a little variation.

In the next article, let’s look at how we can achieve these 3 steps.

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Well, I have been really busy of late and have not posted alot of information in the last few weeks. However, recently, I came across a video which is really cool. It’s about marketing and how you can do it better to outhink, outperform and outclass your competitors.

Here’s the link to the video… a must watch for all sales and marketing people

http://www.brand-mastery.com/freevideo/

Enjoy it!

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Whether you are running your own company or just a sales employee, we’re all familiar with the fact that we have to increase our sales almost every year, just to keep our business alive or to keep our jobs.

However, many people depend a “miracle” to increase their sales. This could be a new account, a new project or some new lucky unforecasted sales just dropping in. A few will work alot harder, not focusing in any particular area, and yet others will focusing on increasing their own sales skills, hoping to become a more effective sales person.

While all these will work to some extent, most people forget that sales is a numbers game. The more potential customers you see, the higher the potential of increasing your sales. However, number of customers is just one aspect of the numbers game. there are really a few major areas. Let’s take a look at some of these.

Sales Revenue is a function of all or some of the following :

1. The number of sales calls or customers you see per day (or per month or per year) - A
2. Your average hit rate or conversion rate - B
3. Your average size per order - C

Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example. Assuming your sales revenue is affected by all of the above. Then lets assume that you make on average 3 sales calls a day, have a closing rate of 25% and an average order size of $5k. What does this work out to  as far as sales revenue is concerned? Well 3 sales call per day works out to 15 sales calls per week (5 working days per week and 20 working days per month) and 60 customers seen per month. Out of the 60 customers you close 25% which means 15 sales orders averaging $5k each. This works out to $75k per month or sales. And if you consider that in a year, there are 12 months, this will work out to $900,000 per year of orders.

Now let’s assume that you were able to incrementally increase all three areas of the above, by working harder to increase the number of sales calls and taking up some sales courses to increase your hit rate and average sales per order. Now let’s assume that you worked a little harder each day by getting up a little earlier and staying at work a little later and was able to increase your average sales call per day to 4. Also the selling skills course you took and put into practise increased your hit rate from 25% to 30%. You also learnt some upselling tactics which enabled you to increase your average order size from $5k to $5.5k. What would the sales revenue per year increase to?

Doing the usual mathematics, 4 sales call per day works out to 20 calls per week and 80 calls per month. You closed 30% of the orders and this works out to 24 orders. At $5.5k per order, your monthly revenue would now be $132,000 and your yearly sales revenue will now be $1.584M, a 76% increase!

Don’t you think that is impressive? Well that’s not all… assuming you were getting a1% commission in the past. With a sales of $900k, your yearly commission would be $9,000. However, just imagine if you were able to convince your bosses that if you were to be able to exceed $1M in sales, they should increase your sales commission by 10% to 1.1%. Now with your new sales revenue at $1.584M, your sales commission will be a hefty $17,424… an increase of almost 94% or close to double!

So there you see it. Working harder in a particular area or improving your sales skills may improve one of these areas but not all of it. However, if you were to just work on incrementally increasing all areas just by a small margin, the power of compounding works for you and allow you to almost double your sales commission.

The good news is that in the hypothetical example above, we only use 3 areas of influence on your final sales revenue. Depending on the nature of your work, you should be able to come up with at least 5 areas of potential improvement where you can work on.

Looking at it this way, doubling your sales isn’t all that tough, is it?

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Recently, I came across this interesting article which kind of starts to stir my thoughts about the economy, our ways of doing business etc… etc… The world economy goes around in interesting circles and to the uninitiated, this can be rather confusing. The writer of this article, Dr Jagdish Bhagwati, puts it across in simple language and while it may be over simplified, it sure makes for some interesting thinking. Read it and enjoy!

Written by Dr Jagdish Bhagwati an economist - share your thoughtShare

The Japanese save a lot. They do not spend much.
Also Japan exports far more than it imports.
Has an annual trade surplus of over $100 billion, yet Japanese economy is considered weak, even collapsing.
Americans spend, save little.
Also US import more than it exports.
Has an annual trade deficit of over $400 billion.
Yet, the American economy is considered strong and trusted to get stronger.
But where from do Americans get money to spend?
They borrow from Japan, China, and even India.
Virtually others save for the US to spend.
Global savings are mostly invested in US, in dollars.
India itself keeps its foreign currency assets of over $50 billions in US securities.
China has sunk over $160 billion in US securities.
Japan’s stakes in US securities is in trillions.

Result:
The US has taken over $5 trillion from the world.
So, as the world saves for the US, Americans spend freely.
Today, to keep the US consumption going, that is for the US economy to work, the countries have to remit $180 billion every quarter that is $2 billion a day to the US!
Otherwise the US economy would go for a sick.
So will the global economy.
The result will be no different if US consumers begin consuming less.
A Chinese economist asked a neat question.
Who has invested more, US in China, or China in US?
The US has invested in China less than half of what China has invested in US.
The same is the case with India. We have invested in US over $50 billion.
But the US has invested less than $20 billion in India.
Why the world is after US?
The secret lies in the American spending, that they hardly save.
In fact they use their credit cards to spend their future income.
That the US spends is what makes it attractive to export to the US.
So US imports more than what it exports year after year.

The result:
The world is dependent on US consumption for its growth.
By its deepening culture of consumption, the US has habituated the world to feed on US consumption.
But as the US needs money to finance its consumption, the world provides the money.
It’s like a shopkeeper providing the money to a customer so that the customer keeps buying from his shop. The customer will not buy; the shop won’t have business, unless the shopkeeper funds him.
The US is like the lucky customer.
And the world is like the helpless shopkeeper financier.
Who is America’s biggest shopkeeper financer?
Japan of course.
Yet it’s Japan which is regarded as weak.
Modern economists complain that Japanese do not spend, so they do not Grow.
To force the Japanese to spend, the Japanese government exerted itself.
Reduced the savings rates, even charged the savers Even then the Japanese did not spend (habits don’t change, even with taxes, do they?).
Their traditional postal savings alone is over $1.2 trillions, about three times the Indian GDP.
Thus, savings, far from being the strength of Japan, has become its pain.
Hence, what is the lesson?
A nation cannot grow unless the people spend, not save. Not just spend, but borrow and spend.

Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, the famous Indian-born economist in the US, told that don’t wastefully save.
Start spending, on imported cars and, seriously, even on cosmetics! This will put all nations on a growth curve.
‘Saving is sin, and spending is virtue.’
Before you follow this neo economics, get some fools to save so that you can borrow from them and spend.
This is what US has successfully done in last few decades.

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Get Rich Fast schemes always sell, don’t they? People have always been taken in by such “Get Rich” schemes on the market, but how much of these are really true? In my opinion, almost none, I am afraid. There are only a few ways to really get rich fast and here they are :

1. Strike it Rich! - OK, this is not only limited to lottery. It could include Jackpot machines, Casinos etc… and one word describe this way of getting rich; “Gambling”! It’s a once in a lifetime chance and even if you make it, chances are you’re going to lose it and you probably cannot repeat it. Statistics show that people who get rich quick through gambling seldom are able to hold their wealth for more than 5 years.
2. Marry into Riches - Find someone rich and marry him or her. Self explanatory.
3. Stumble onto Riches - This one is just pure luck. You can walk on the streets and pick up a million dollars. Or you could have a rich relative die and decided to leave all his riches to you, but the probabilities are really really slim, so don’t bet on it.

So, other than the above, the only way to become rich is to work hard and smart at it. Here, I’d like to share an article in the local papers recently about all these courses advertised in the papers about “making fast money”!

Companies and individuals are charging up to S$4k and more for some of these get rich classes. Most of these are trading classes, focusing on Options, Forex and more recently Eminis. They tout the high leverage and ease of making money but as with all things, high rewards always comes with high risk.

Some of these promise low investments, as low as US$500.

Personally, I have attended some of these course. While they are not all bad courses, and you do learn a lot cramped into the 2,3 or 4 days the courses are held. Some spend alot of time focusing on just one major strategy without teaching you the rest. Getting into the market with one strategy is certainly no way to make it big.

For example, one of the course I took focus on only Options Gapping strategy.

On strategy these courses use to make you part with your hard earned money is that they set a time limit for signing up at a special discount. They will tell you that if you sign up today, you get a 30% discount and if you walk out, and come back, you’ll have to pay the full price. Well, I’ve learned that this is just nothing but a hard sell sales strategy. If you call them a week later, believe me, they’ll still offer you the same price. Afterall, their costs are fixed, so why not have additional revenue… There was even a course that sells the fact that you will get this and that as free gifts if you are the first ten to sign up. Then I realised that everyone gets them.

Are there good courses out there that do not make such wild “Get Rich Fast” and other unscrupulous claims? Yes, I am sure there are! In fact, I’ve personally experienced some of them. Some time later, I may write a review of these courses I took, just so others may get a good feel of what to expect when they want to sign up. Meanwhile, keep a tight hold on your hard earned cash… they are hard to come by, so invest and spend them wisely!

Cheers!

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Recently, when surfing the web for some inspiring information, I came across this website which features a talk by one of my favorite speakers, Anthony Robbins. Anthony Robbins is the father of the life-coaching industry and his teachings using NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming - Although he changes it a little and calls it Neuro Associative Conditioning) have changed the life of millions of people all over the world.

I would like to share this video with you and in this live recording, Tony Robbins shares his view on how we can change our life for the better by understanding the 6 human needs. Listen and be inspired.

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In my previous article on “Presenting your way to Success!”, I wrote about preparation and the various stages involved in the process. Well, your presentation doesn’t end when the preparation is finished. You need to practice and present it. As I mentioned in my last post, the last stage of presenting it is the most crucial. The delivery is where all the preparation pays off!

In this short post, before I go into the delivery concepts, I want to post, what many regard as one of the world’s greatest speeches, to inspire you. This speech titled, “I have a dream!” was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on the 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington to thousands!

Here is a list of the top 25 speeches of the century :

Here is the speech. Listen to the it and be inspired!

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It’s been often said that public speaking is the number one fear of most people, even more so than death! However, we all know that it is a skill worth polishing up because it’s the single most important skill which will bring you to the top of the corporate ladder. Have you ever met someone outrageously successful without this ability to speak well in public? I bet not.So if you intend to be successful, this would possibly be the most important skill to learn. But where do you start?

Well, most of us get our first taste of public speaking quite early in our working life, either doing some form of training, sales or product presentation. And this would be a great place to start polishing your speaking skills because this is possibly one of the easiest areas of public speaking. Why? Because you usually have a captive audience and the objectives of the presentation are usually very clear. In fact, knowing your audience and the objectives of the presentation is the most important first step to making a great presentation. Many of us start presenting from a set of “canned” powerpoint slides without first finding out who the audience is, what they want to hear and what you are trying to achieve.

Here are some simple steps to identifying these.I’ve made them easy to remember by starting most of them with the letter “P”.

The first thing to remember is that there are 3 steps to a great presentation. They are as follows :

1. Prepare
2. Practice
3. Presentation

Obviously, of the 3 steps, the Presentation phase is the most important. There are obviously people who can do a great presenation with minimal preparation and practice. However, we know that the majority of us are also not in this category and as such, the first two steps of Preparation and Practice are equally important. So, where do we start the preparation?

The first step to preparation is to know the 4 P’s of presentation. These are as follows :

1. People - Know who you are presenting to. This is important because different people have different expectations. For example, presenting a new product to a group of engineers is different to presenting a new product to the senior management of a company. For the engineers, they are interested in technical specifications, features and benefits while the senior management will probably be looking at Return-on-Investments, profitability etc…
2. Place - Knowing the place where the presentation takes place will help you prepare the right kind of Audio-visual aids. Why prepare powerpoint slides when the room you are presenting at does not have a projector?
3. Point - The point of the presentation keeps you in focus. Too often, we stray from the point of the presentation or meeting as the participants starts to ask questions. So, if the point of the presentation is to introduce a new product to the audience, keep at it.
4. Purpose - This answers what you would like to achieve at the end of the presentation. Would you like the audience to walk away with new knowledge, or do you want them to go back to their purchase department to immediately put up a purchase requisition for your product?

What’s important about knowing the 4 P’s of the presentation? Knowing the 4 P’s allow you to prepare the right presentation aids to be effective so that you can achieve your purpose at the end of the presentation.

Now that you know your 4 P’s, what kind of presentation should you prepare. In essence, all presentation can be divided into 3 major types as follows :

1. Persuade or Convince - This is the typical sales pitch designed to persuade or convince an audience with the ultimate objective of wanting them to take a particular action. In a typical sales pitch, you want your audience to be so convinced that they will part with their money for your product. If you were convincing an audience in an election speech, you would want them to vote for you. In some cases, a presentation to convince may not necessarily lead to an action. If you are presenting your company’s performance to the board of directors, you may just want to convince them that you are doing a good job, without them having to take any particular action.
2. Inform or Teach - Another common presentation type is when you are trying to impart knowledge ie to teach or inform. In theory, there are only one group of people who should really be doing a presentaton to inform or teach… Teachers! Many times, we may be doing a product training thinking that this is a presentation to inform or teach but in commercial product presentation, there is a big part of convincing and persuading built into every product training. The Product people have to convince the trainees to sell their product!
3. Ceremonial - Many times, you come across a presentation which does not seem to achieve any of the first two. For example, if you were the guest-of-honour at the opening of the public library. You have to deliver a speech or a presentation which is purely ceremonial in nature. You’re not necessarily convincing anyone or persuading them to action. Neither are you teaching or informing them of anything in particular.Such would be an example of a Ceremonial Presentation type.

An easy way to remember the 3 different types of presentation is with the acronym, P-I-C representing Persuade/Convince, Inform/Teach and Ceremonial.

Once you have decided on the above, you are ready to prepare your presentation in a way to that will achieve your purpose with maximum impact!

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