Blog entries

Strategies For Small Lists

Even if you have a small database, you can still have more than one mailing list. A mailing list is a group of subscribers who want information about specific topics. Your database may total 500 persons where 70% want to hear from you when you have promotion and 50% want to know when your blog gets updated. Subscriber preferences vary and often overlap. In this example, sending promotions to your entire list risks having a 30% opt-out because you weren't listening.

Since your [...]

Singapore Budget 2008

are wealth with the community, and promote further growth of the country.

Business Tax Reliefs

After reducing the corporate tax rates last year to 18% from the earlier 20%, there was no new tax cut in this year's budget. However, a number of new tax incentives and relief measures were be given in the areas of innovation through R&D, liberalization of tax exemption for SMEs, allowance for cost of fixtures & fittings, tax credits on foreign sourced income, including [...]

Controlling Business Expenses

1) Plan
Control of expenses is crucial. This is how businesses spend their money that makes them more or less profitable than others. And when you're operating on a shoestring budget, as most businesses are, then planning becomes very important.

2) Measure
Key measure of expense is how much money it generates. Measure each and every business's expenditure by its contribution to profit and to sales.
Then focus your limited resources on the areas of greate [...]

How People Respond To Email Marketing

Respect Of Privacy
3. Opinions, not the Hard Sell
4. Control & Alternatives

Relevant Information

Traditional sales people are adamant that selling will always be a numbers game and that all you need to tame the ‘law of averages’ is resilience. Good sales people don’t allow rejections to stress them up. They thrive on the learning experiences being turned away brings. They do get worried when th [...]

Listening Skills: He Says, She Says, What Do You Say?

One of Many Keys: Ask yourself the question - What did the person say? (Not what does he/she mean?) The first question is descriptive or factual in the sense of telling you, the listener, something. The second question which you the listener asks, has to do with interpretation. When you listen, be careful about interpreting because you are supposed to be listening to what is being said. Seek for the meaning or the interpretation from the speaker not your own voice in your head [...]

What's Your Key to Individual Success?

The most important single factor in individual success is COMMITMENT.

Because before you can start working on anything, you must first be committed to it, so you can dedicate your time, energy and resources to it. Commitment ignites action and it is demonstrated by a combination of two activities, which can be applied within the chapter.

The first activity is called supporting. Genuine support develops a commitment in the minds and hearts of your fellow members. [...]

Getting More Referrals By Quality Dance Cards

Communicating your personal business vision to others is very important. What makes you unique? If you are a Insurance Advisor, the products that you sell are almost the same as another Insurance Advisor, what is it about you that makes you stand out? If the other party is unable to articulate who you are to someone else, it is very likely that he will be unable to send you a quality lead. The reverse is also true. So if you want to get the high value business leads that you are ye [...]

The Cost of Marketing

60% of the 282 people I've met are eager to explore the possibilities of how e-mail marketing can give their business a boost. Unfortunately, 80% of this group thinks that it's all at the push of a button. Till today, only 20% of my clients actively engage their audiences in e-mail marketing on a regular basis. The others are still waiting for the miracle.

Marketing is extremely broad. The first investment you have to make is time. Here are some of the thing [...]

Creating Value in BNI Rendezvous

Dasha

Why BNI ?
There are many benefits stated down at BNI website why BNI but I guess we all have to figure it out for ourselves at the end of the day. Why is BNI for me and why do I recommend BNI to others? In my business I have tried many marketing / selling methods and I failed in many of them. As years went by and I read some books and learned from smarter people. I realized that in fact there are some strategies that work better than other if they match well your product/ser [...]

How not to waste money on your CRM*

Dasha

Our SBS CRM is very simple and basic and it mainly caters to very small business owners, sole proprietors or even agents. It is also very affordable. Yet it is money not well spent if our CRM is not used properly and that applies to any CRM out there.

The more clients use our CRM system the more I can see what kind of problems they are facing and it all comes down to the same thing - it doesn't produce what is expected if the users are not fully and properly using the tool (unle [...]

Brand Ambassadors

Dasha

They spread the goodwill of the brand and create positive experience for all who get in touch with the brand.
Brand ambassadors happen. They happen as a result of lots of great things aligning - great products and services, great listening, great brand attributes and more.
Brand advocates are people who feel a connection and love for a brand.
Brand advocates like to talk passionately about the brand and share their belief with others frequently.
Brand advocates cre [...]

Communicating by Email and SMS

Today you’ll find almost any message—including those that are difficult, awkward, and constitute acts of courage such as apologies, complaints, negotiations, rejections, even break-ups—delivered over SMS or email, and along with them a host of unintended, unwarranted issues.

Readers assign meaning to everything that people type. This response, coupled with a lack of nonverbal cues, poses a serious challenge for email writers.

[...]

Saying 'No'

Can you imagine if you said ‘yes’ to everything? You’d be overloaded with requests and assignments that you didn’t want to begin with. There is nothing more painful that taking on work that will compromise the quality of your work, your market value and deadlines.

Most of us fear that through saying ‘no’, we may offend, hurt or feel rejected by others. However, by putting your foot down and drawing the line, you are telling people that your time is pre [...]

Action Strategies for Powerful Referrals

Dasha

You need to decide who your ideal customer is, and who you actually want referred to your business. Once you decide who you want to do your business with, they will appear.

Make sure you filter through your existing customers and sort out who are the customers you want and who are the not-so-ideal ones. Make sure you know how much each and every one of your customers has cost you.

Decide how much you are willing to invest to “buy” your new customers.

BNI Rendezvous: More Than Just Business

When I came on board, I took on the role of Visitor Host. That meant getting to the meeting location waaay before other members and visitors arrived. That meant waking up at *gasp* 530AM!

But the role really helped me to be more disciplined and to be more responsible. Having to play host and meet people really broke me out of my shell. My experience as a Visitor Host helped me to become a better client liason in my work. I was relating much better with my prospects and clients.

We Can All Be Enlightened Millionaires

Dasha

Who is an enlightened millionaire?
A person who earns his/her millions by focusing on adding value to as many as possible, as much as possible. Enlightened millionaires know that they must create wealth where everyone wins by creating win-win situations.

How to achieve it?
Start with aligning 3 things in your life:

1. Desire - You've got to want it.

2. Belief - You've got to believe that you can make money - lots of it.

3. Self-acceptance - You've [...]

We're In The People Business!

What does it take to be in the people business? First of all, you've gotta have passion. Observing Dasha work with people is a great way to get a degree in networking, which is typically a dance with other people.

Read Willie's abstract of negotiation , a good resource of dealing with difficult situations and to top it off, talk to Desmond and Julia to see just how great their listening skills are. Hey, I could talk about everyone in Rendezvous here but I don't wanna stray from [...]

Outsource Your Accounting

Why? Because accounting is a useful tool for decision-making in the business world.

However, do you know understand the difference between Accounting & Bookkeeping?

Accounting is a four stage process of recording, classifying, summarizing and interpreting financial statements as shown below:

[...]

The Art of Negotiation

willieyeo

Power is the ability to convince people to accept your ideas. Negotiation is a form of convincing. Power is ability. Ability is the result of practice and application. Think about these things carefully and let them sink in.

After you have, remember this one: If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. Sound tough? That's right--that's how negotiating to win can be.

But as an art, there are nuances and finely honed techniques and rules to be aware of. Here [...]

What Makes a Graphic Designer Tick?

So, what is graphic design? Is it interior design? Product design?

Graphic design is one of the schools of design. It is about visual communications applied through mediums like logos, brochures, packaging, banners and website interfaces.

Graphic designers create, choose, and organize typography (fonts), images, and the so-called “white space” around them—to communicate a message. A good design informs, persuades, organizes, stimulates, locates, ide [...]