EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Dato’ KK Chua kkchua@propertyinsight.com.my
Banking On Branding The art of exceeding expectations is a complicated one. And, part of this journey of exceeding expectations begins by creating the right branding for not only the products to be sold – but also that of one’s personal branding. In this issue, Entrepreneur Insight had the distinct privilege of securing an exclusive interview with New York Times Bestselling Author and world-leading success mentor Raymond Aaron who shared that one of the secrets of having miracles happen is via getting one’s book out. The secret to elevating one’s presence to achieve exponential success in life and business and to differentiate oneself from the “sea of sameness” lies with writing one’s own book. Around 97% of people in the Western world he says, are not branded and are drowning in this “sea of sameness”. Therefore, he says he cannot emphasise enough the need to climb up onto the island of individuality by getting oneself branded successfully. “Miracles will happen when you tell people you are an Author. People actually find you and something magical happens,” he attests. He points out that all the famous people in the world have come up with their own respective book including Anthony Robbins, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, Sir Richard Branson, historical British politician Sir Winston Churchill and even the 14th Dalai Lama. And, the list reads on and on. Speaking from experience, he had the Eureka moment to come up with his own book on real estate at a low point in his life at the age of 39. Unbeknown to him then – he had actually discovered the key to opening the door of opportunity whereby he was interviewed by every radio and television station in Canada by writing his first book on real estate. He even managed to get a great mortgage by presenting the loan officer with this book that bolstered his branding a few notches higher back then, he shares with a smile. The doors of opportunity brought him further into the presence of greater things when he got the rights later to do two “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. Jack Canfield, the Co-Creator of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, offered him to write the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book together with him. Intuitively sensing that this would give him the ultimate big break for him – since the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and Canfield both represent in themselves “a very high brand” recall; he ultimately got upbranded to them. Looking back, he says it worked like a charm. “Everything in my life improved and my income skyrocketed,” he recalls with a wink - attesting to the power of books in attracting “the goodies of life to those who write them”. Aaron is also a firm believer in properties, investing in many properties and having owned real estate in Canada, the US and the Caribbean to which he advises Investors to have a look at the history of any place by asking a Real Estate Agent or Realtor for its history for the last 30 years to ascertain the property cycle of the area. “You buy when the property market is just coming off the bottom. And, you sell just before it hits the top. And, the rule from the bottom to the top takes about eight years and property roughly almost doubles in this time,” says Aaron adding that the rule is the same for almost every city in the world. Closer to home, Emcee and Entrepreneur extraordinaire Adi Afendi, who also emerged from tough times with a tale similar to Aaron, embarked on this career path at the age of 40. Broke, divorced and depressed, he had a light bulb moment and decided to rekindle his old love for emceeing. To date, he has emceed at key events and met the who’s who of various industries. And, he has set his sights on establishing his very own Adi Afendi Academy for aspiring Emcees in the future whereby fresh graduates and undergraduates can learn the full aspects of protocol management, grooming and marketing. Till the next issue, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
Dato’ KK Chua Editor-In-Chief Entrepreneur Insight
Editor Yvonne Yoong yvonneyoong@propertyinsight.com.my
CREATIVE Creative Director James Kua design@propertyinsight.com.my Senior Designer Megat Khuzamir Designer Nasrul Nasri
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On The Cover
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Dato’ Raymond Yeo of GS Realty Sdn Bhd
Although every reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, neither the publisher, editors, writers nor employees or agents can be held liable for any errors, inaccuracies and/or omissions. The contents of this publication do not constitute investment advice. It is intended only to inform and illustrate. No reader should act on any information contained in this publication without first seeking appropriate professional advice that takes into account their personal circumstances. We shall not be responsible for any loss or damage, whether directly or indirectly, incidentally or consequently arising from or in connection with the contents of this publication and shall not accept any liability in relation thereto. The views by our contributors expressed here are their personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect Property Insight’s views. The publisher does not endorse any company, organisation, person, investment strategy or technique mentioned in this publication unless expressedly stated otherwise. The publisher does not endorse any advertisements or special advertising features in this publication, nor does the publisher endorse any advertiser(s) or their products/services unless expressedly stated to the contrary. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including photocopying and imaging without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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NEWS & EVENTS
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2018 Annual Dinner Celebration Armani Media Group Berhad recently hosted its Annual Dinner at Copper Mansion in Petaling Jaya attended by the who’s who of the property industry and business circle. Armani Media Founder and Managing Director Dato’ KK Chua took the opportunity to present the launch of the company’s latest EI+ apps besides sharing the roll out of plans for this year including the Property Insight Prestigious Developers Awards (PIPDA) 2018 scheduled for June 1. Over 200 guests including A-list developers, prominent celebrities and high flying entrepreneurs attended the 8-course dinner themed “Smart Casual with A Touch of Red”. The first Global Ambassador Malaysia for Women Entrepreneurialship Day (WED) Mi-Ki Choong took to stage with Sunway Group Berhad’s Puan Sri Susan Cheah, Thriven Global Berhad Group Managing Director Ghazie Yeoh Abdullah and Armani Media’s Chua for a live talk session in tribute to Woman’s International Day. The night ended on a high note with an air of camaraderie as guests toasted to a fruitful year.
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NEWS & EVENTS
Launch of The New Oxford Learning 4.0 Immersive Learning Lab Said Business School, University of Oxford recently announced the launch of the new Oxford Leadership 4.0 Immersive Learning Lab for corporations in Malaysia & ASEAN developed in partnership with leading Malaysian training provider K-Pintar.
Term Sheet Signing Between CO3 Social Office and Medini Iskandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd
CO3 Social Office Sdn Bhd (CO3), Malaysia’s leading co-working space recently collaborated with master planner and developer Medini Iskandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd (MIM) to create ‘The World’s Most Liveable Work Space” at CO3’s next location in Medini City. Medini City is represented by the 2,230-acre smart and sustainable Central Business District of Iskandar Puteri, Johor.
The Branding Association of Malaysia’s Celebrates Its 18th Anniversary The Branding Association of Malaysia recently blew out the candles on its already lavish cake of offerings in conjunction with its 18th Anniversary. Branding Gala 2018’s The Red Carpet Affair that was held at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur saw its Nation Builder Tribute going out to fifth Prime Minister YAB Tun Dato’ Sri Haji Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi and YBhg Tan Sri Datuk Sri Tiong Hiew King, Founder of Rimbunan Hijau Group who is also Executive Chairman of Media Chinese International Limited. Last but not least, the third recipient was none other than YBhg Tan Sri Dr Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of AirAsia and AirAsia X.
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Grand CNY Dinner Do Hosted By ACCCIM Attended by over 3,000 Illustrious Guests The Associated Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) celebrated its Chinese New Year Grand Dinner 2018 in style at the Setia City Convention Centre in Shah Alam. The event was attended by over 3,000 guests with a “yee sang” tossing session being held to kick-start the dinner. President of the Association Tan Sri Ter Leong Yap described the dinner as a “reunion” dinner between ACCCIM and the Government in which Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was the guest of honour, as further “strengthening the relationship and new commitment to work together to achieve a more united and prosperous Malaysia”. He highlighted the relationship with China as being at an all-time high that will be further strengthen under his leadership and mentioned that several more Chinese schools were in the pipeline, aside from the very first Chinese university, Xiamen U which has already taken off in 2017.
Mah Sing Group Unveils “UpLive” Its New Employer Proposition For Its Office Space Mah Sing Group Unveils “UpLive”, it’s new employer proposition at its newly renovated headquarters, MS@Work yesterday. “A company’s culture is important in developing employees and retaining their services for many years. We are an employer who cares about the progress of our employees as well as future MSians. “UpLive is the culmination of the values we adopt in all Mah Sing employees and what we look for in talents,” says Mah Sing Group Managing Director Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Leong Hoy Kum. He was present at hand together with his children Jane and Lionel Leong to give a first-hand tour to members of the senior media officials together with his senior management team. The privileged tour saw members of the media experiencing firsthand the office spaces of the senior and middle management team as well as other work spaces. The open spaces features super hero themes while the individual work spaces allowed employees freedom of expression in choosing their respective wallcoverings. A karaoke room, gymnasium and rest area were parts of the highlight of the newly renovated work space.
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COVER STORY
Championing Real Estate Working his way slowly but surely to the proverbial top of his sales game, GS Realty Sdn Bhd’s Dato’ Raymond Yeo’s winning tale epitomises the proverbial story of moving on from rags to astounding riches BY YVONNE YOONG
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The rise to the top is oftentimes fraught with obstacles. However, GS Realty Sdn Bhd’s Dato’ Raymond Yeo considers daily challenges as all in a day’s work. Emerging as the overall Champion at GS Realty’s recently held annual dinner, having raked in millions in last year’s sales in various categories, Dato’ Yeo’s humble and down-to-earth demeanour is admirable, and has won him a legion of fans and admirers even within his network of colleagues. Having worked at the real estate agency for about six years now, Dato’ Yeo, 41, proudly discloses that he is also now a shareholder at GS Realty. “It is an honour to be working for GS realty. Getting awarded as the Worldwide Champion, Team Champion as well as Individual Champion for the company is also another big honour for me,” he shares in an exclusive interview with Property Insight.
“There are more than 2,000 real estate agencies in Malaysia. And at GS Realty, our sales alone have reached a new milestone in the past few years. Our sales are considered number one in the country,” he enthuses further. Yeo reasons that by being ranked as the Number One top sales for the company last year, he is therefore also ranked Number One in terms of international real estate sales for GS Realty. April 2018 |
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COVER STORY
Success Stemming from Smart Working Collaborations Lee shares that much of his success has to do with the ongoing work collaborations with other developers. “For instance, I am collaborating with Matrix Concepts Holdings Berhad Founder and Group Managing Director Dato’ Lee Tian Hock on many projects. Our collaboration with him has been with his development of link houses that cost around RM500,000 – RM600,000 per unit so this does not affect the current market situation. Dato’ Lee is friendly and a philanthropist at heart. “In these last three years alone, my performance has been growing steadily strong. My group commission is around RM12 million while my personal commission has hit RM9 million. Last year alone, my income was about RM10 million. It’s a lot of hard work but, my perseverance paid off” he shares. The charismatic personality says his role is to lead the young adults at the company and help them to earn and achieve a higher income in order for them to be successful in this competitive industry.
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From Rags to Riches
Choosing To Join GS Realty
Equipped with a personal understanding of what it is like to work from the bottom up, having undertaken various jobs previously – including as a cook, selling VCDs and even DVDs, Yeo can relate to the hard life, and hence, is inspired to help his contemporaries and younger colleagues to succeed.
Elaborating further on the power of right choices, Yeo can now look back with a huge smile at how his career turned out for the better, once he joined GS Realty.
“If you’re working for other people, the income can be low. For example, employees earning RM2,000 or RM5,000 per month or those with higher income may not enough have enough salary to use. When I started out from the bottom, I wanted to earn more money to buy a house but it was tough for me, no matter how hard I worked and I had never gotten what I truly wanted. “That is why in this career, my ultimate goal is to have more people make more money. That is why I cannot emphasise enough why making the right choice is very important – and not just hard work alone.”
“I count my blessings having met my mentor, Dato’ Sri Nelson Kee who is the Founder of GS Realty for his guidance. Like a father figure, he taught me everything – from top to bottom without holding back and treated me like a young brother and student. One of my happiest experiences in my life points to the opportunity I had in meeting him to which I would like to express my gratitude as without him, I would not be who I am today. “I would also like to thank Matrix Concepts Holdings Berhad’s Dato’ Lee for giving him the chance to sell his entire development at Matrix in Bandar Sri Sendayan in Seremban. My family and friends have also been instrumental for my success.My aim is to continue to work even harder and to keep learning. The aim is to help more people to succeed in making the Chinese community one that is able to grow and flourish,” he adds.
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COVER STORY
The Distinct Advantage Dato’ Sri Nelson he really has a saying which he is proud to quote. “Don’t ask a hero about their past – but remember to be humble about your beginnings and remember people who have supported and helped you along the way.” In addition to this, he points out that GS Realty has an added unfair advantage in possessing strength in numbers. “Helping developers to sell their property for example developer is made faster here. For example, say a developer has built 1,000 units and wishes to sell all within a year or half a year. The take is very difficult. However, when the developer engages the services of GS Realty, there will be faster performance because we have 500 agents to sell 1,000 units which means the average each agent will be selling is two units. When our selling performance is fast, other developers will allow us to handle the sales of their properties,” he rationalises. Furthermore, GS Realty will not be adversely affected by the current uncertain economic climate because it does not focus on selling properties priced above RM800,000 to RM1 million and above. “Although higher priced properties doesn’t mean they cannot be sold, the sales performance of these units could slow down the sales performance overall given the current uncertain climate. Currently, GS Realty is selling reasonably priced properties so it is easier to close sales,” he explains.
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Growing From Strength To Strength Not satisfied to rest on his laurels, Yeo nevertheless counts his blessings in being “very fortunate” to be part of the international real estate business.
However, crediting a system that is almost “perfect without flaws”, he says working at GS Realty represents a golden opportunity for a successful career even as the job itself is able to bring happiness to one’s family while helping more people to achieve their dreams of a comfortable life.
However, he acknowledges that there are many challenges to be faced in this highly challenging business.
Dispensing advice to those who may consider pursuing a career in real estate, he maintains there is no right or wrong choices.
“My biggest challenge in this business is to communicate and get along with people because our team is too big. Everyone has different ideas. Hence, we have to train them to think collectively and let them know and understand our vision,” he says of his group alone that spans over 1,000 agents.
“Give yourself a chance to come out from your world and explore our world. I hope you will give me a chance to help you. Try out a real estate career for three to five months. If you are not satisfied, you could continue to pursue your dreams. Life is about taking chances,” concludes Yeo.
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MAIN FEATURE
Branding Yourself Right for Big Time Business
New York Times Bestselling Author and world-leading success mentor Raymond Aaron shares his secrets in elevating one’s presence to achieve great success in life and enterprise. Here’s the no holds barred interview BY YVONNE YOONG
If there’s one entrepreneurship lesson that is pertinent – it’s the ability to seize opportunities when they present themselves. So while strolling through the corridors of the hotel I was staying at during a recent sojourn to London on the way to engage in some good old British retail therapy last month - and chancing upon seeing a banner displaying an ongoing seminar being conducted by New York Times Bestselling Author Raymond Aaron - I took the liberty to request for an interview session with him. The world-leading success mentor and organiser of Mastery of Greatness certainly doesn’t mince his words when he shares his strategies on what it takes to be exponentially successful, as is the case when he presented relevant case studies and examples to an eager group attending his seminar. Sharing on the secret of elevation, the internationally renowned speaker imparted nuggets of insights and tips on how to make it big in branding oneself for exponential business success. Touching upon the most powerful strategy he has used to open
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the doors to success in business and life, the key secret he says, is to get out of drowning in the ubiquitous “sea of sameness”. describing himself as an “adventurer” and, being the only person who has authored two “Chicken Soup for The Soul” series” of books and a “For Dummies” Book in addition to his own bestseller “Double Your Income Doing What You Love”, Aaron has, to his credit- been there and done that, and has certainly walked his entrepreneurial talk to a hilt. So much so, that his tried-and-tested methods, has him much in demand as an international speaker and motivator to budding Entrepreneurs and those who wish to make it big in business and life. A firm believer in real estate and in the power of capitalising on the entrepreneurial spirit, the New York Times Top 10 Bestselling Author says that while his life has taken on an accelerated growth trajectory - this wasn’t always the case in his earlier years, when he experienced more than his fair share of failure and challenges.
From Broke To Business Boom and Bounty Having graduated as a physicist but being unhappy in a salaried job, he decided to throw in the towel and started a business but it failed. Not giving up hope, Aaron embarked on another business which also failed and yet another business. “I started 60 over businesses but they all failed so came running back to my physics and maths job as a Consultant Teacher to get a salaried job to pay off my debts. And eventually, I ended up at age 39, completely broke and one hundred thousand dollars in debt. I was depressed and my boss had just fired me and my wife had kicked me out of the marriage. It was just a horrible time in my life,” he relates. However, despite being down with depression, Aaron weathered on. Finally, one day, a Eureka moment came to him in a flash. “And then, I realised that every successful person had written a book and everyone who had struggled, had written a book and so, I decided to write a book. My first book was on real estate and it suddenly propelled me into getting much larger classes. I even started teaching people on real estate,” he says. “I got interviewed on practically every radio and television station in Canada and this spread to the United States and all over the world now. And, I’ve stayed in the United States for 35 years,” he continues, amazed at how the doors of opportunity suddenly swung open for him.
Get Out of The “Sea of Sameness” – Write Your Book! Aaron relates that, in order to set oneself apart from being the same like everyone else, the key to distinguishing and achieving greater visibility lies in writing one’s own book.
“Write a book and then, the goodies of life will come to you. You don’t have to find the subject matter or discover it as it’s inside you. Whatever you love to do – Do you love being a journalist? Do you love writing? Do you travel? Whatever you love, you can write a book on,” he suggests. “And, you make money doing what you love and the book will send money your way. People would want to give you money if you’ve written a book. You will be amazed,” he shares. In fact, after writing his first book on real estate, he relates how after participating on radio and television shows in Canada even when he applied for a mortgage for a property he wanted to buy, he received preferential and better treatment. Instead of coming in to talk to the loans officer and hoping he would get a mortgage based on his credit score and income, Aaron shares that he came in with his real estate book and autographed it for the loan officer. “The whole discussion was on my real estate book and he was so impressed with it that I got lots more mortgages than I thought I would ever get,” recalls Aaron.
Branding Oneself with Books “The book is your legacy, it’s your brand. It will be there. Gone are the days when you can say, ‘I will build it and they will come’. Instead, you have to build and market your book as people want to know that you are available and you have a brand so they need to know who you are. The book sells you,” he enthuses further. The success of that real estate book propelled him forward to write more books.
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MAIN FEATURE
“I’ve written 10 books including “Chicken Soup for the Parent’s Soul. It made it to the New York’s Times Top 10 list. I’ve also written ‘Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul’ that remained on the bestselling non-fiction book in Canada every week for six months. I was in Canada for every week for six months (to promote the book). “And, I wrote a Dummies Book Branding for Small Business for dummies. So far as I know, I’m the only person who has done both a Chicken Soup for The Soul book in Canada and a “for Dummies” book – the two main non-fiction branded book series in the whole world,” he adds.
Attracting The Goodies of Life “I have a lot of credentials and I’ve met many people. I teach them how to write a book to get branded and, in the seminar class that I’m conducting right now, all these people are writing a book to get branded. I’m teaching them how to write a book to get them branded. When they’re branded, all the goodies of life comes to them,” explains the Canadian born Entrepreneur who is based in Toronto. Describing himself as an adventurer, he says that his recent trip to London was for teaching and conducting his course and to serve his many clients there. Aaron’s wide clientele base is spread across Canada, the US, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and all across the world. For now, Aaron is committed to helping people write their book to brand themselves. From there, he helps market and brand the books as he reasons, marketing is a way of communication and communication is what helps them make money with proven marketing strategies that just didn’t happen overnight. He took the steps to get there so he urges people to put in their marketing strategies to get the success they desire.
Judging A Book By Its Cover Having written a series of books including the much-loved “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series encapsulating 101 true stories respectively to “warm the heart and uplift the spirit”, Raymond Aaron opens up to Property Insight share some insights and tips into making it huge in the entrepreneurial and real estate world. Here’s some candid up close and personal takes with the New York Times Bestseller who has been there, done that, and lived to tell his tale. What is it about writing one’s book that has the power to propel one towards success in business and life? I wrote my real estate book when I was 39. Later, I got the rights to do two “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. Jack Canfield, the Co-Creator of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series offered me the right to write and I knew that I would be widely upbranded by writing the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book together with him. And, it’s worked – everything in my life improved. And so, it’s the power of branding. “Chicken Soup for The Soul” has a very high brand and Jack Canfield has a very high brand and I got upbranded to them, and my income skyrocketed. It’s like a franchise such as McDonald’s that gives one the right to own the franchise to own a McDonald’s store. You get the right to own a store and you open it. The owner of McDonald’s gives you the right and you pay for the right. For example, you pay a million dollars and you get a million dollar franchise and it’s the same here – you get the right to write the book just as you get a McDonald’s franchise and you start to run a restaurant. A book helps to make your brand stand out. I’m one of the few mentors for Virgin start-ups by Sir Richard Branson. Virgin funds the money and if I like the business plan, I take them over. I have a few virgin start-ups and the real reason behind this is I’m the first person who published the 10-10-10 programme for books in six weeks. Its about creating authority one book at a time whereby one utilises 10 chapters using 10 hours of one’s time - resulting in the printing of the book in 10 weeks. Now, many people came to my courses on how to brand themselves by writing their book. What is the secret to your success in a nutshell and how can you assist people to achieve this? The secret of success is to get out of “drowning in a sea of sameness”. Around 97% of people in the Western world are not branded. Therefore, 97% of the people are drowning in the “sea of sameness”. And, in order to climb up onto the island of individuality, you absolutely need to be branded. And, you get branded by writing a book. You get branded by winning a Noble Peace Prize. You get branded by winning an Olympic Gold medal. You get branded by being the President of the United States. You have to do something giant. You have to get branded by doing something giant.
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Very few people can win a gold medal or become the President of the United States. However, under my guidance, anybody can write a book. It’s the most shocking branding and money suddenly comes. People’s income sky-rockets. The rate they can charge is dramatically higher. All airline pilots look the same, all the medical doctors look the same, all the acupuncturists look the same and all the leasing agents look the same. Everybody looks the same so one has got to get out of the “sea of sameness”. This is because if I line up 10 dentists and you’ve just moved to a new town and you say, “Choose one of the dentists and you say, ‘I don’t know – they all look the same.’” But if one of them wrote a book on dentistry – suddenly, that’s the one you would choose. Why did you decide to write a book? Because I noticed that everyone who is wealthy had written a book. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, Sir Richard Branson, historical British politician Sir Winston Churchill – everyone successful or famous had written a book. The 14th Dalai Lama, Anthony Robbins - everybody has written a book. Broke people – anyone who struggles - hasn’t written a book. So I said, I’m going to write a book! Having written my first book – suddenly, the many people who wanted to learn real estate from me sky-rocketed. I was 39 back then - and, that’s how I got to my big break at the worst time in my life. Why was the topic of your first book focussed on real estate? I knew a lot about real estate because I had made a lot of money in real estate but I lost it all on my divorce. My wife happened to be a General Contractor. She was the only woman General Contractor in Toronto and, when she had trouble getting contractor gigs, she said to me – “You are my husband, go buy a house and I’ll renovate it. So, I bought a house and she renovated it. I refinanced it – we fell in love with it, and put tenants in it. And, we did this many times. When the next boom, we became multi-milionaires.” Being an Investor yourself, what is the global property outlook currently, and where are the worldwide property hotspots? It’s not true that the entire world at this moment is experiencing a slump in real estate at the moment. Toronto for example, is in a boom and therefore, it’s a bad place to buy. The places in the United States that haven’t picked up yet - that’s the place to buy. Buy low and sell high. You buy when blood is running on the streets. There are places near Toronto that haven’t risen - and that’s where you should buy. You don’t buy when there’s a boom. That’s what broke people do. They buy high and hope to sell higher and, that’s not the rule.
The rule is to buy low and sell high. Broke people break the rule all the time. When it’s a boom, they don’t sell because they want to sell at the very highest. But, the rule is to buy low, and sell high. The rule is buy low and sell high so rich people sell way before the market hits the peak and they don’t mind losing the extra money that goes up because they’ve sold high and they’ve won. But broke people, the moment it goes up, they hope to wait until the very peak of the boom. But then they miss it, and they raise prices down. Being greedy is what broke people do and they get wiped out because then, they have to raise the price down. The secret is to buy low and sell high. But, broke people think the secret is buy low and sell at the highest. Or, they think the rule is to buy high and hope to sell higher. And, neither of those are true. Your thoughs on people looking into investing into Bitcoins? Bitcoins are really high now and people are rushing to buy them. However, they don’t know anything at all about Bitcoins and they are rushing in at the peak. Right now, it’s priced at about USD15,000 – and maybe, it would grow higher. Maybe it will go lower. We don’t know. But, in real estate, I can tell because I understand real estate and I understand its relationship directly. I understand its relationship to rental income and interest rates but I don’t understand Bitcoins. All the broke people right now don’t understand anything related to Bitcoins and yet they are rushing in to buy so what’s worst - is that no knowledge is a dangerous thing. Broke people may have no knowledge about it but rush into buying Bitcoins because they hear it’s going up – and it’s going up forever. It’s USD15,000 today, and some people say it will go up to USD75,000 so they want to get in. What’s your Take On Crypto Currency? Well, Warren Buffet is not investing in Crypto Currency because he doesn’t understand it. I’m not investing because I don’t understand it. Every piece of real estate I own today is mortgage free because I understand it. Any tips for Property Investors? All you have to do is to look at the history of any place so you can ask a Real Estate Agent or Realtor for its history for the last 30 years. If you look at it, you can see a cycle. Real estate goes up and down, and upwards again. You buy when the property market is just coming off the bottom. And, you sell just before it hits the top. And, the rule from the bottom to the top takes about eight years and property roughly almost doubles in this time. And, it’s the same for almost every city in the world. So, I don’t think this rule will change. I have many properties right now - not only in Canada but I’ve owned real estate in Canada, the US and the Caribbean. April 2018 |
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FEATURE
Malaysia Dominates Awards @ Prestigious Asia Young Designer Summit 2017/18 The newly-crowned Asia Young Designers of the Year 2017/18 Ng Wai How (Architecture Category) and Shahmeena Labeeb (Interior Designer Category) proved that they truly had the power to shape tomorrow in their hands, winning them USD5,000 each at the esteemed regional Asia Young Designer Summit 2017/18. The annual summit which attracted over 500 talented design students, judges, industry experts and lecturers is an established platform to nurture the next generation of design talents to help them increase knowledge by way of intermingling with a community of renowned industry professionals and peers across Asia.
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The Asia Young Designer Summit is the climax of the annual Asia Young Designer Award whereby regional winners from 13 Asian countries namely Bangladesh, China and the region of China including Hong Kong and Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, gather for an intensive learning programme. The programme includes study tours as well as sharing and coaching sessions by renowned industry professionals even as the students compete in a regional-level finale for the highly sought-after “Asia Young Designer of the Year” title. This year, the students were inspired by their visit to the Malaysian Institute of Architects’ (PAM) headquarters which achieved the Platinum Rating status under the Green Building Index (GBI); the iconic Malaysian landmark Petronas Twin Towers, the repurposed APW creative industrial space as well as other places of interest in Malaysia. Aimed at nurturing the next generation of design talents, the summit also witnessed various expert speakers expounding on topics supporting the theme of “You for Tomorrow”.
Among those who took to stage were Ar. Amit Gupta and Ar. Britta Knobel Gupta - internationally-acclaimed architects and Founding Partners of Studio Symbiosis (India); Chu Chih-Kang, Founder and Design Director of Chu Chih-Kang Space Design (Taiwan, region of China) who incorporates Chinese cultural elements with deep cultural connotations in his commercial designs and Dr. Kamran Afshar Naderi, Branch Manager of Artelia Italia Company (Iran) who is a renowned university Professor and Co-Founder of architecture magazine Memar. Nicholas Ho, award-winning Deputy Managing Director of multidisciplinary architectural practice hpa (Hong Kong, Region of China) and Rene Tan, Founder & Director of RT+Q Architects (Singapore) and 2016 recipient of ‘Designer of the Year’ at the President’s Design Awards were the other illustrious speakers at the summit who added colour and vibrancy by virtue of their impressive presentations. For more info, log on to https://www.asiayoungdesigneraward.com/
April 2018 |
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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH
Emcee & Entrepreneur Entraordinaire
A series of challenges in life has caused Adi Afendi to embrace a change in career and rise to the call of being an Entrepreneur in his own right BY YVONNE YOONG Many find it difficult to embrace change, especially at a later stage in life when challenges are thrust upon them. Thus, it takes mammoth courage and willpower to weather through the storms of life calling for a change. Some resist riding out the waves of adversity while others take challenges in their stride. Adi Afendi is one such person. Although everything was earlier rosy in his life - with career, family and friends falling into place, fate took a twist and threw a curveball of challenges at him in his late 30s. A series of unfortunate events suddenly came into play - leading to a lost in his career, marriage and his father, all in quick succession. He almost fell into an abyss but with the support of positive people around him who showered him with much-needed care, support and love, he bounced back in 2013. At the age of 40 back then, he decided to forge a new career out of his passion and gift of the gab and became a Master of Ceremonies and Protocol Consultant. He later registered his business under the name Adi Afendi Management - buoyed by the optimism he has always possessed in the area of public speaking as evident in his secondary school years spent studying at the English College Johor Bahru in the late 80s, and later at St. John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur in 1991. In 1993, Adi took on a professional degree course at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi. While studying, he continued to emcee at various events for the faculty and even took part in international debate tournaments representing the university in various countries. In 1996, a year before his graduation, he was invited by the university’s Chancellory to emcee at the annual convocation ceremony - the firsttime a student was asked to do so at UKM. The protocol and structure involved during the emcee session intrigued him. After graduation, he pursued his career and built a family. He also continued to emcee at small events including weddings for relatives and friends. In 2009, he left his professional career to join the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA). Back then, the MIA was in the throes of hosting the World Congress of Accountants (WCOA) in 2010 whereby accountants from all over the world would converge in Kuala Lumpur to discuss matters affecting the industry and the economy. He volunteered as one of the Emcees for WCOA and was sent for training at the Department of Ceremonials (Jabatan Istiadat) of the Prime Minister’s Department to learn about all facets of protocol involving royalties, VVIPs and foreign dignitaries - leading up to the event in October 2010. This further bolstered his fascination for protocol and structure.
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In 2013, due to a series of personal life circumstances, he then decided to quit his employment altogether and pursue a career as a full-time Master of Ceremonies and Protocol Consultant and register his company under the business name of Adi Afendi Management. That has been a record five years now. Having emceed at events since the early 90s back in UKM but only as a side activity - taking off from after graduation where he emceed for various small events, he says his role model was his late father - also a talented public speaker who encouraged him to keep the art of pantun repertoire alive at Malay weddings. The turning point for Adi was when he took on the role of an Emcee for the WCOA in 2010. This was when he was employed by the MIA which was the host of the event. The decision to become a full-time emcee was made in 2013 when he began to treat this vocation as an entrepreneurial business by providing emcee services for corporations and individuals. Realising that most Emcees start their career in this line earlier on in life and would have already achieved some form of prominence by the time they reached 40, Adi was aware that starting out relatively late, he really needed to go into full gear. He also realised that he had to plan ahead as he didn’t envision having that much time to spend with his daughter by the time she goes to university. Armed with a strategy in mind, he realised that to in order to get ahead, he needed to differentiate himself from other Emcees in the market by positioning and branding himself right.
2017-29th SEA Games KL2017 Sepak Takraw 2016-HyppTV Hosting
Joining an international networking organisation of likeminded people with the sole purpose of helping each other find business for nothing in return, Adi got connected to TM’s HyppTV (now known as UnifiTV) in 2014. As destiny would have it, he became a TV host for a current affairs talk show called Persepsi which ran for 87 consecutive weeks. Upon the show’s hiatus, he became a TV presenter for the English business news that ended up creating more visibility for him and opened more doors of opportunity. He also took part in a spot of acting - first for HyppTV’s serial docudrama called Graduan Bawa Teksi as one of the regular cast members and then as a guest Actor for Astro Ria’s drama Dia Bidadariku alongside Erra Fazira, Hisyam Hamid and Tisha Shamsir Alam - directed by screen legend Aziz M. Osman. He also recently received an offer to play a role in a local blockbuster movie slated for release next year. In 2013, he was the Emcee at the Putrajaya International Islamic Arts and Culture Festival and the International Islamic Forum. In 2014, he Emceed at the KL Converge event organised by Multimedia and Communications Ministry. In 2017, he was Emcee at the International Cooperatives Alliance Global Conference organised by ANGKASA. And the list goes on.
Adi also found himself emceeing at property-related events such as the annual Havoc Hartanah convention since 2015; Sime Darby Property Lifestyle Collection in 2016; #JomCariRumah convention since 2016; The Iskandar Malaysia Accolades 2016/2017 Forum and Awards Night; and many more. The most recent property event was the 27th National Real Estate Convention 2018 organised by the Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia (RISM). To improve himself further, Adi took up Mandarin lessons in 2017 with the hopes of being able to offer services in that language, particularly given the economic direction of this country in the foreseeable future. Emceeing at high-profile events and being able to speak an additional language has lent Adi an added degree of prominence that hasy set him apart from the competitors. “To stand out and make it in business, one needs to stand out,” affirms Adi knowingly.
2017-Dengue 360 International Conference
Interestingly, his first job as a full-time Entrepreneur kicked-off at the Hiburan Seni Budaya event hosted by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL). The weekly event, showcasing various Malaysian cultural performances held at Lanai (the courtyard of the Coliseum Theatre along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) to entertain the crowd and tourist ran for a year. Earning a token sum of RM500 per night, it formed a launchpad for Adi. Although he found it difficult at first, given his personal commitments at the time, he weathered and stuck through the stint which helped him hone his skills and build his profile. He later on continued to collaborate with the event company which organised this for several years. From there, things started to snowball pretty fast. Soon, Adi was emceeing at international performances held at Istana Budaya in Kuala Lumpur including international sporting events such as the “MBA Jump Smash Badminton International Junior Age Group Championship 2013”, the “Malaysian Invitational Ice Hockey Tournament 2014” and the “Winter Guard International Malaysia Championship 2015” besides emceeing at other international conferences and seminars. He was also given the honour to emcee at events where the Guests of Honour inclyded the Sultan of Selangor as well as members of the royal families of Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah and Johor. He has also emceed for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and several other Cabinet Ministers. Adi was also given the opportunity to emcee a number of highprofile Malay, Chinese and Indian wedding receptions. And, in 2017, he was given the biggest honour of his career to date when he was invited to be one of the emcees for the 29th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games Kuala Lumpur 2017.
April 2018 |
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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH
Having gained both knowledge and practical experience in protocol management, Adi conducts workshops in that area and has done so for the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia, Petronas and Saudi Arabian petroleum giant Sabic International, among others. Many Milestones Adi Afendi is also active in community activities. For the Komuniti Bebas Denggi programme undertaken by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, not only did he get to emcee the official launch - he was also heavily involved going down to communities and help educate them about dengue. He was the unofficial ambassador of sorts. The best parts of his job says Adi, is the amazing opportunity emceeing has granted him to meet various people. “At the 2013 International Islamic Forum, I had the opportunity to shake hands and share a light moment with former Prime Minister TunDr Mahathir Mohamed who was the keynote speaker at the event,” he shares. “I also had the rare opportunity to personally meet Tunku Zatashah, Princess of Selangor during the Selangor Symphony Orchestra Inaugural Concert 2015 Media Conference where she is patron of the orchestra,” he enthuses. When asked to rate his success as an Entrepreneur, Adi confesses that he is still learning the finer ropes of the trade, adding that it would be presumptuous of him to say that he is at the pinnacle of success but still has a long way to go. He shares that while not many may view emceeing as a business or enterprise - out of the hundreds of Emcees and Deejays in Malaysia, only a very small handful of them are actually doing this full-time as a main source of income. Most are doing it on a part-time basis while holding regular 9 to 5 jobs elsewhere. Adi sees himself as an Entrepreneur and he considers his services of an Emcee just as any other Small and MediumSized Enterprise (SME). He has registered his business as an enterprise with the Registrar of Businesses. As a business owner, he says there is still has much to learn, especially on the aspects of marketing and business planning. Dispensing advice to Entrepreneurs, he says that “Perseverance is key. Never give up. One must always rise to the challenge and face the odds. The road to being a successful Entrepreneur is one fraught with obstacles, but only the strong will end up victorious,” he says. He also adds that one must surround onself with positive people, people who will help one along the way and keep a distance from negative people who will only dampen one’s spirit.
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2017-QEM Convention
2017-CIMB Talent Trail
“Thirdly, always keep a positive outlook on things, no matter how bleak the situation. Fourthly, mix around with the right kind of people. Befriend those who can help you achieve your goals. Don’t be scared to make friends with people of high society as well as top corporate figures. But never expect a free ride. “You must earn the jobs based on your merits and strengths, not purely on the basis of friendship which might lead to cronyism. Next, always get out of your comfort zone. Challenge yourselves and go to the next level,” he advises while adding that one must invest in knowledge and learn from others to constantly be on top of one’s game. Walking his talk and taking the bull by the horns, Adi has signed up with a private tutor to learn Mandarin in the hopes of emceeing in this language one day. Not satisfied to rest on his laurels, Adi has marked out other goals including aiming to emcee at the Miss Universe Malaysia organised by the Miss Universe Malaysia Organisation and the Malaysian Annual Real Estate Convention organised by the Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents or even collaborating with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture in promoting this beautiful country – and he is still working towards realising these goals. “Success is an ongoing process. However, I am profoundly grateful to where I am now at,” he reflects. Adi has come up on top of his game by standing out from the competition - refusing from day one to remain as an ordinary Emcee at shopping mall roadshows, corporate dinners and family days. He constantly ups his game by taking on more and more challenges events such as those involving royalties where absolutely nothing must go wrong. In the spirit of constant learning, he attends events and observes how other top Emcees do their jobs. He will emulate the good styles and techniques and make them his own while also attending marketing workshops to learn how to market himself. He would pick up new skills which will add value to his services like playing a musical instrument and learning to sing in another language.
Being prepared is another unique selling proposition for Adi. Taking nothing for granted, he will take the time to practice what he has to say. Although he has emceed hundreds of events, the next emcee job is always a brand new one for him. “I still gets butterflies in my stomach before I go up on stage. A lot can go wrong even with experienced Emcees,” he says with a smile, explaining why he would always practice even the night before though he may have done similar events in the past. Before stepping on the stage, he would give himself a quick once-over, then start with a prayer, take a deep breath and dive right in. And, prior to the event proper, Adi would first furnish the clients with a list of information he requires such as the event rundown, exact names of Guests of Honour and VVIPs, and a bit of a write-up about the event. Arriving at the venue early is a must, says Adi. Like a ritual, he will walk the stage and “own it” as it will be his domain for the next few hours. Adi would also make sure the microphones are in good working order and he would silently practice his speech to him again to boost his confidence level. Adi says he has two of role models whom he holds with the highest degree of respect and regards. “One is Dato’ Mahadzir Lokman and the other is Ezzah Aziz Fawzy. Both are Masters in the industry and I have admired both of them for years. Their poise, grace and professionalism in emceeing events are legendary. “The way they command the audience’s attention and their abilities to elevate the events to a higher level are inspirational. I aspire to be at their level one day in the very near future.” His emceeing skill is also being passed down to his daughter whom he had given the opportunity to co-emcee with him occasionally. She was also the emcee for Sri Aman in Musical Colours 2018 @ PJ, the biggest, most extravagant musical concert organised by a secondary school in the district if not the state of Selangor shares the avid traveller who has also earned himself a diploma in photography from the Nikonian Academy. Adi has several emcee jobs lined up for himself in the coming months, though nothing major so far. He is also currently
2017-Mrs International World Crowning Party and Launch
focusing on building his acting career as a means to create more visibility for his emcee business. Commenting on his future plans, he hopes to establish his very own Adi Afendi Academy for aspiring Emcees, particularly fresh graduates and undergraduates where they can learn the full aspects of protocol management, grooming and marketing. In the near future too, he hopes to build a community of Emcees whereby he will provide in-house training for them to increase their value and help market them to various clients. He plans to also guide the members of the community in various administrative and legal aspects of the business such as billing, taxation and handling of possible disputes.
Highlights of Adi’s Emceeing Career Like every other business, there are highlights to his career as an Emcee. Adi has no shortage of them as seen listed here:• In 1996, the first highlight of his career, albeit not professionally yet, was in emceeing at the 24th UKM Convocation Ceremony. It was his first event involving royalty where the Chancellor of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was the Yang Di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan. • In 2014, Adi got to explore the funny side to himself and crack jokes when emceeing aat Dry Comedy: Where Is The Water? Stand Up Comedy Show with Harith Iskander 2014. • In 2014, he had the honour of emceeing the KL Converge! 2014 organised by the Ministry of Multimedia and Communications Malaysia, where he got to meet celebrated people from the global film industry including renowned movie director Roger Christian and legendary composer Steve Sidwell. • In 2015, he was invited by the Royal Surveyors Institution of Malaysia (RSIM) to emcee at its 54th Royal Institution of Surveyors Annual Dinner 2015. It was his first event as a professional emcee involving royalty where the Guest of Honour was the Sultan of Selangor. • In 2016, Adi was engaged to emcee at the Orando Holdings Sdn Bhd Handover Ceremony to Dato’ Lee Chong Wei 2016 where he got to personally meet the Badminton Champion after his return from the Olympics. • In 2017, Adi was one among only 20 Emcees in Malaysia who were given the honor to be the Masters of Ceremonies at the 29th South East Asian (SEA) Games Kuala Lumpur. Adi was given the additional honour of emceeing at the first medals presentation ceremony during the SEA Games where Malaysia won the Gold Medal presented by the Minister of Youth and Sports. This series of occurences were a triple honour for Adi. April 2018 |
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STRATEGY
The Top 10 Ps for Business Success In today’s challenging business environment, starting a business would be easy, but growing a sustainable business that will make a difference is not easy. The 10 Ultimate Business Strategies by Asia’s No. 1 Business Coach, Ernie Chen outlines a simple and easy framework for you to grow your business exponentially. Here are the 10 ultimate business strategies that will help you grow your business:
1. PEOPLE
3. PHILOSOPHY
If you think people are your greatest assets, you are wrong. For today’s new practice, only GREAT PEOPLE are assets. In order to build a great and sustainable business, you must never lower and negotiate on the quality standards for the required competency and character of the people that you work with. Only great people are assets to your business. And by that, great people are by definition, highly competent people with good character.
Companies without a vision will never know where they are heading. Thus, having a vision is crucial for every company to achieve and do great things to change the world. Forget about the vision focused business philosophy as the new business philosophy is about making a difference. People today are looking to be part of companies that can help make a difference in the world - not just having a big vision and achieving great success. So, develop your ideas that are big enough and believe that they can change the world!
2. PROCESS Instead of reengineering your business process, why not SIMPLIFY your business process? As any business grows bigger, processes are required to exude better control on resources and business operations. Processes are put in place to speed up business operations with effectiveness and efficiency not to complicate things. As for business owners, you must understand your business operations more than anyone. Never let anyone advice you without understanding your business objectives and directions, and never let consultants “con” and “insult” you to complicate your business further so that they can get more business from you.
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4. PERSONALITY Today, it is no longer about being loud in the market in order to build brand awareness. It’s about being clear and focused in terms of your business personality. The focus is not to have customers for the sake of building a loud business - but to create followers and raving fans of your business brand. So don’t try to be something you are not and stay true to your Brand DNA, define the voice for your brand personality and be consistent with your brand identifiers.
5. POSITIONING
6. PROMISE The challenge for companies today goes beyond just delivering the promise for that first time in order to secure customers’ business. The real challenge today is to ensure that you are able to deliver consistent and continuous memorable experiential brand promises each and every single time. Do not overpromise and under-deliver. Always underpromise and overdeliver. Talk is cheap. Doing is better. Delivering consistently and continuously wins it all.
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IF YOU THINK YOU WORK HARD, WORK HARDER!
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Differentiate or die is no longer relevant because what you differentiate today can be imitated tomorrow by potential competitors. However, differentiating with a purpose can keep your business focused because it reflects your business brand values on the purpose for the existence of your business brand. So, do not differentiate for the sake of differentiating. Know your unique differentiating value in order to serve with purpose for a Blue Ocean opportunity.
Ernie Chen
7. PRODUCT Many marketing experts have said that a product must be market-driven and needs to be what the customer wants. However, businesses today are banking in on creating products that will disrupt existing business models by providing an open market place platform. Even though every product has been created, you just need to find a market-driven product, and discover a simple way to disrupt the way it is being done.
8. PRICING While the old practice focuses on revenue maximisation pricing, today’s new practice is about profit maximisation pricing. The best way to gain a good profit is to ensure that the cost of doing business is reduced significantly by eliminating non-revenue generating business units. Another strategy is to price your products and services below the market rate to dominate a niche and win market share.
9. PLACE Don’t just find the strategic place to market your products you must also leverage on various distribution channels to ensure that the market reach is far reaching and focused. We live in a borderless world today. You can conduct your business anywhere as long as your products and services can reach your customers anytime, anywhere.
10. PROMOTIONS With the rise of the Internet and social media marketing, a total integrated marketing communication campaign can be implemented to better promote a business or product brand. You do not need a million dollar budget to achieve a million dollar brand awareness campaign. You just need to know how to leverage on the right promotional strategies in order to create a win-win partnership.
Ernie Chen
is better known as Asia’s No.1 Business Coach and Author of The 10 Ultimate Business Strategies book. He is presently the President/ Group CEO of the PORTMAN Education Group, ATCEN Education Group & outLOUD Entertianment & Media Communication Group. He can be reached at ernie@portman.edu.my April 2018 |
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STRATEGY
Think Before You Jump Into The Stormy Sea of Entrepreneurship
It was the time of the year you looked forward to the most. Every year, your boss will hand an envelope to you and all your colleagues. It contains a letter you have waited for all year long in full anticipation that will state your salary increment and bonus. You have worked hard all year long, given your best and now is the time you hope that your efforts will be rewarded. However this year, you were in for a surprise. The printed figure on the letter fell way below your expectations. You wonder if you had accidentally opened your colleague’s letter instead. You doublechecked and your name and staff ID were both accurate. You were stunned for a brief moment. For the first time in your working career, you received no increment despite the
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increased workload. You decide to meet Robert, a friend you have always looked up to who offered you an opportunity to start a business with him. He is a seasoned and successful Entrepreneur and you know you can trust him. He has shared everything you want to know about the business. You told him you had no experience in being an Entrepreneur and he was fine with it. The new business venture involves importing automobile parts to be distributed to car companies in Malaysia. It is very similar to what you have been doing in importing car seats and distributing them. So, your plan to start your own business came sooner than you expected. Although you have always
wanted to save RM100,000 in cash before you would take action, now, with Robert’s financial leverage, sharing the cost has given you courage. You think that you no longer need to depend on your boss’ decision for your salary increment or bonus and now, you can determine what you make each month.
3) Give your best-ever performance in the final few months so you will be remembered positively and will be missed. This includes participating in all company activities so you are seen in a positive light even as you regularly build your personal branding.
Driven by the earlier disappointment and excitement of this new venture, you resigned and started to serve your notice in your current company. You were just happy and excited. When you informed Robert, he was shocked. He wished that you had waited a little longer.
4) Have at least twelve months of cash savings that is sufficient to support your current lifestyle. Be prepared for unexpected expenses too.
“Bro, why did you tender your resignation so quickly? Our business is still very new and the trading business is not a business you need to be physically present as yet. It involves a lot of communication and can be done after your regular work hours. I have prepared this checklist for you before I would have asked you quit as time is on our side. There are still quite a few major clients I wish to close first so you could receive a comfortable salary. You have a family so I had to make sure your welfare is well taken care of before you take the leap.” You then realise that you have made a mistake and a costly one at that as you acted based on emotions - both frustration and excitement. Robert had a detailed plan prepared for you before you were supposed to resign. It is a check list that summarised what he wanted you to carry out that included:-
5) Be ready to work late nights and over weekends when you still have your full time job so as to ensure that you prepare yourself to actually be working late nights and weekends because starting a business requires such commitment. 6) Prepare your family members for a lifestyle change and potentially theirs too. It is best to still have your full time job so even if they are unhappy, you will still have your full time income. 7) Be willing to do things you have not done before or are not comfortable in doing including public speaking, cold calling and promoting products in public areas. Finally, Robert wanted you to know exactly why you wanted to start this business and if you would commit to making the business a success before he supports you in submitting your resignation.
1) Enhance your relationship with your colleagues and especially your bosses, including the cleaning crew because they all can and should send you clients when you are running your own business.
Did you have a friend like Robert? A friend like Robert could be hard to come by. Nevertheless, it is best we prepare ourselves well for our big leap into the stormy sea of entrepreneurship.
2) Ensure everyone receives your business card and are added as your friends on Facebook to sustain the relationship that has already been built. Leaving a company does not mean ending a relationship. If there is no conflict of interest, do the same with your company’s partners and suppliers and extend your relationship with them beyond your current job.
The way we make an exit could leave a long lasting impression. Make it a positive and memorable one for those whom you are leaving and for yourself. Never underestimate or disregard the past relationships built. Maintain them well so that one fine day, you will be thankful that your past will come in handy for the future.
About The Contributor
Marcus Teoh
is the Author of “Now or Never – Start A Business with Only RM199” MPH Bookstore’s Top Ten Bestseller for 20 weeks and Best Business Nominee for Year 2017 alongside books by Richard Branson, Jack Ma, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Tony Robbins. He teaches on how to use Facebook to market businesses without budget at his workshops. Email him at marcus@marcusteoh.com FB/Instagram: marcusteohmy
April 2018 |
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STRATEGY
“Going from RM0 to RM500,000 Within A Few Months :How Having The Right Partner Affects Your Business Growth” “Finding a business partner is just another part of entrepreneurship. The more value you can sell to the other person, the more likely they will reciprocate that value back” In this line of work, we are met with many “dream sellers” in life. You will be surprised by the amount of promising futures that each one of these hustlers will sell you. Have I been sold futures worth galaxies away? Probably yes, but more often than not, I would be the one heading out to recruit the latest talent into my team of extraordinary personnel. However, as businesses grow, new ventures will cause new partnerships to be formed. That is when you, as a business owner, will be on the lookout for not only an employee, but someone who can go through thick and thin together with you.
Starting A New Venture
It was just two months into our opereations when my previous Augmented Reality start-up got acquired by our current group, Marke 360. Being a group with strong ties within the Information Technology (IT) industry here, we have been crunching out projects after projects - trying to fulfil the various demands of the industry. Handling regional projects is no easy task as the company I was responsible for had to design all kinds of experiential marketing technology materials for our clients. It was through all of these assignments that the Founders of the group realised that there was an amazing wealth of opportunities present - with the digital transformation of the old industry players. This therefore allowed the Founders to decide on the formation of a new subsidiary that would focus solely on digital businesses. According to a recent article in The Star, “Malaysia’s E-Commerce industry is now a RM24.6 Billion Business”. This just shows how astonishingly Malaysia is trying to push towards a digital era. The next problem was, how are we going to obtain a piece of that oversized digital pie?
Aiming for RM500,000 Revenue per Month
It was logical to invite Wesley, one of the best in this industry field to be our new partner. He is our latest strategic partner who comes in with a plethora of skills and experience from his decade-old experience dealing with retail sales for awardwinning IT companies. His many years of inside know-how enables him to properly understand the kind of actions that needs to be taken.
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From here onward, our first digital business venture named Techaway.co was created. Techaway.co is an e-commerce site that focuses on providing IT-based products aimed at consumers - selling items mainly ranging from laptops, gadgets, mobile phones and so on. Having Wesley onboard was crucial as his knowledge facilitates critical activities within the new group in terms of recruiting a proper team and guiding these new blood into waging a war none of us has ever faced. A few months later, through various collaborations and involvement with marketplaces like 11Street and Lazada, Techaway.co managed to break its first RM500,000 revenue in a month. The numbers continued to grow and pretty soon, our brand-new venture achieved new milestones we never dreamt before was possible.
Importance of Having The Right Partner
Our new group would not have achieved such quick results if we had not found the correct partner to run the business with. All this boils down to key elements that are crucial for success:1) Sincere Communication:The ability to communicate freely and not harbour feelings of distrust is very important. I have witnessed certain sensitive issues involving money that when brought up, a typical human would shudder and even hide crucial information from the partners. Problems swept under the carpet will only escalate to a point of no return and, you will be surprised by how your business can crumble due to your partner’s secrecy.
2) Trust:To wholly trust one another and believe that we can achieve a common goal together is a daily motivator for our team. All of us deal with a tonne of problematic scenarios so constant, that our only strength of salvation comes within the pillared walls of support from the team. 3) Always Keep Your Mind Open:Coming from a traditional industry, Wesley has typically been dealing with businesses which are non-digital related. By joining our team of highly advanced technical builders, he was highly receptive towards any new innovative marketing ideas that we proposed to him on a frequent basis. This openness enables a business to constantly innovate its strategies that makes the competition irrelevant in the long run. 4) Experience Is Greater Than Qualifications:This is not a plea for students to quit their Degrees and launch their startups right away - but a reminder that any work experience in relevant industries will always be crucial as the number of walls you have to bang along the way is minimised. You do not have to be a full-time employee to understand a certain industry. Some part-time work undertaken - being a promoter, working as a freelance service provider, studying and taking extra courses online - will always gain one invaluable knowledge - no matter how menial a certain job might be.
About The Contributor
Wesley did not even pass his school examinations and went straight ahead to strive to work as a responsible worker within the industry. This is how even at such a young age, he already had 10 years’ of working experience under his belt which was the most crucial part in forming our new venture. 5) Complement Each Other:The last key point that will generate success within a business is how your team heavily complements one another in terms of skills or experience. Wesley is great in sales while I am capable of running marketing strategies. My technical partner codes great websites while the execution team will not hesitate to put in many extra long hours working throughout the night. All our efforts combined with a solid vision from our group’s Founders will lead us towards a path of never giving up in striving for success.
Towards A Strong Digital Era and Beyond
No one can ever achieve anything significant alone. All of the greatest companies in the world originally had a team of strong and determined people with a common objective in mind to succeed. Finding someone who does not work as hard as you, will only be a colleague. Finding someone who will only provide money with little effort, is merely an Investor. Finding someone who will go to the ends of the world with you and never give up on pushing ahead and looking forward, is whom we call a Partner.
Jason Low
is the Founder of Malaysia’s first Augmented Reality merchandise and is currently a Partner and Director of an integrated marketing agency that focuses on making brands exciting through on-ground and online strategies. Email him at jason.low@marke360.co
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STRATEGY
Leveraging on Digital Leadership for Businesses In this age and time, businesses will do well to look beyond traditional modes of operations to embrace the e-commerce side of things to spur on greater revenue
In my current role with BPP Professional Education, I have the privileged opportunity to be able to visit many corporate firms and industry leaders in South East Asia to provide our solutions to them in the area of professional training and development. Traditionally, we focused a lot on the areas of accounting, finance and business. However, as recently as three years ago, I have seen a massive surge of interest in the areas of leadership, training and development especially relating to the topic of big data, of which data analysis is of particular interest.
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It is no surprise that big data is the current flavor, and will remain so for quite some time to come. Jack Ma once said that “data is the new oil�. The reasoning revolves around the premise that being able to effectively collect and analyse data will be the key to businesses in the future.
When we provide big data analysis training to organisations, we always stress that while the technical part of the training is important, what is equally important is that there has to be a consistent management support for the implementation of the things the staff has learnt.
Captains of industries and companies that I have met have all expressed a burning desire to transform themselves digitally, but I have always stressed that this directive has to come from the top. Leaders of companies have to take the lead in the area digital transformation. Leaders have to drive the digital transformation; leaders have to take the lead.
This is where the digital leadership is being tested. If for example, a staff has come up with a good idea after the training and he or she thinks could be very well suited to the current setup, the leadership team has to be open and supportive of these ideas rather than taking the old school approach of being risk averse and resistant to change.
It may sound like a simple statement and may sound the obvious but in so far that I have seen and witnessed, it is easier said than done. Far too many organisations leave this digital transformation to the (Information Technology) IT department, and expect the IT department to provide the steering or navigation for the company at hand.
Communication is of utmost importance. Not all ideas will make the cut, some may fail and some may just be the disruptive force to create the competitive advantage that the organisation is looking for so as long as there is an open and lively communication, potential roadblocks will be eliminated.
Interestingly, digital leadership cannot, and will not be effectively pushed by the IT department alone. The entire leadership team of the organisation will have to be actively involved, and be part of the transformation. Strategic objectives and goals should be set by the leadership team, with the IT department providing technical advice. Only with such a combination will there be a positive impetus to drive through the process of digital transformation.
In the current business world, organisation that are quick to adopt and adapt rapidly to digital changes and trends will have the upper hand, and will disrupt companies without this culture of adapting to changes. Ultimately, the key is to ensure that there is a sound digital leadership, with the right cultures and environment is the digital transformation.
As with all changes, the leadership has to be able to provide an initial sandbox environment, whereby experimentation and failure are encouraged as part of the learning curve. The goals, objectives, risks investments and benefits have to be clearly defined and agreed by all the stakeholders concerned.
About The Contributor
Raikk Chan
is Head of Asia Pacific for the BPP Education Group, UK and concurrently serves as Education Advisor to Bakewise Academy, a vocational training institute in Malaysia. His passion is in education policy, planning and development. The BPP APAC business experienced a 400% growth in 3 years after he joined. Email him at raikkchan@bpp.com
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STRATEGY
Keep Tweaking To Keep Winning Change The Surroundings And Change Their Behaviour A few years ago, I started to get worried about my employees at Leaderonomics. I noticed less of them interacting with each other as many opted to work from home (we practice flexi-work policies!). I recall on many occasions, late in evening, only Hui Ming (our Co-Founder) and I were seen in the office. Part of the problem was that we had grown so fast, doubling our number of employees in a few months - hence, causing significant space congestion. But, my bigger concern was similar to that shared by Google—a lot of the great ideas and initiatives is a direct result of casual discussions amongst employees. Google believes that casual employee conversations are responsible for innovations such as Gmail and Street View. Like me, they believe it is critical to ensure employees are at the office interacting together with each other daily. Working at home was great for work-life balance but did nothing to help with ideation and creativity. However, I faced a significant problem. It had become habitual for my employees to work from home. I could mandate that people work from the office but this would have resulted in very unhappy employees (as evidenced from Yahoo where Marissa Meyer’s mandating of all employees to be at the office created numerous issues and tension). So, knowing fully well that mandating a change would result in negativity, we decided to tweak the environment instead. We built a new office that felt like home. Just like home, everyone had to remove their shoes before coming into the office. We even had grass on parts of the floor to ensure a homely feel. The result — without any mandate, was that employees started making the office their home. They stayed late, had numerous casual conversations with each other as if they were part of a family and frequently stayed overnight at the office interacting and ideating.
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There was no policy change nor was there any mandate. Just a small tweaking of the environment which drove a change in behaviour. How is this possible? I recently read a great book by brothers Chip and Dan Health entitled “Switch”. The brothers constantly heard people cry out that “change is hard” and “people hate change.” But interestingly to them, if change was hard, they wondered why people joyously embrace change daily – like getting married, having kids or getting a new phone. On the other hand, they wondered why some trivial changes - like submitting an expense report on time, was met with fierce resistance. Their research concluded that our brain has two “systems” made up of a rational and an emotional system respectively. When these two systems are in alignment, change comes easily whilst not being in alignment, change can be gruelling. So, how does one reach this alignment? According to these brothers, one of the ways to achieve this alignment is to “shape a path”. They believe that if we change the environment so that a new path is created, most people will follow the new path. In their book for example, they provide an example of a history teacher Bart Millar who was frustrated by two students who frequently come late and were constantly disrupting the class. Most teachers would have assumed that these two students were “bad apples” and kicked them out of the class. But Bart assumed otherwise. He believed that the reason they were late and disruptive was due to the environment. Cool students sit at the back of the class and have a delusion that their disruptive behaviour makes them class “protagonists”. So, he decided to “tweak the environment”. He bought a cool couch and put it in the front of the classroom. The first students to the class daily could sit on the coach (and slouch!). Guess who immediately started coming early to class? His two disruptive students came early each day and “volunteered” to sit in the front of the class. As Entrepreneurs, if we want to see changes in the behaviour of our employees, maybe the solution is to “tweak”. to see a change.
People Are Not The Problem Research clearly shows that people are generally not the root of problems. Situations are. Most of the time, we attack a problem by assuming it is a people problem. According to famous Stanford psychologist Lee Ross, people are frequently blinded to the power of situations and instead, attribute what he terms as “fundamental attribution error” to people. His research concludes that we tend to attribute people’s behaviour to “the way they are” instead of “the situation they are in”, which is the most probable issue. Almost 20 years ago, I was running an organisation which was a joint venture between a global Multinational Corporation (MNC) and a local Governmental company. The culture of the organisation was role modelled after the local organisation, where there was minimal growth, and the environment, facilitated low productivity. Employees were constantly taking smoke breaks and were totally unmotivated to improve or support business growth. In fact, when we had new work come in, most of the employees got extremely upset. As I walked into this new company, it would have been easy for me to look around and blame the people. Being from a global MNC, it was clear that the quality of the people was the main cause of the poor performance of the company. But instead of taking out my “chopping block” and starting to “bring in better people”, we decided to “tweak the situation”. What if Lee Ross was right and the real issue was not the people but the situation? We started our “transformation” programme by doing the oddest thing – we built a fence. As this JV was the situation in the midst of the local company’s operation, the culture of the low productivity local partner became the dominant culture of this new JV Company too. By building a fence, we tweaked the environment in the hopes of creating a new high performance culture. In a matter of weeks, we saw surprising results. Smoking breaks became less frequent as it became very inconvenient to smoke inside this new fenced entity. We started driving new initiatives and people seemed to respond. Within two years, we became one of the most productive organisations in the world in that industry. The fence had done wonders! ‘Tweaking the environment” is about making the right behaviours - a little bit easier and the wrong behaviours - a little bit harder.
About The Contributor
Peter Gollwitzer argues that most people preload decisions with no conscious deliberation. When people pre-decide, they “pass the control of their behaviour on to the environment.” So, how do leaders design an environment in which undesired behaviours are made not only harder but impossible? In 1992, there were 2,154 murders in New York City and 626,182 serious crimes committed there. Within five years, New York City murders had dropped almost 70% and serious crimes dropped by 50%. I happened to be working and living in the city at that period and witnessed its transformation from a dangerous city into one of the safest cities. How did crime just drop within a short period to an all-time low? The simple answer:- By tweaking the environment. The team at New York City focused only on eliminating petty crime and fixing all the broken windows and graffiti in the city. They worked tirelessly to clean up all the graffiti at the subways. With the subways looking cleaner and petty crime being reduced, it created an impression that crime was not part of the environment of the city. Soon, bigger crime disappeared. As company owners, instead of solely blaming our people, we should think, “How can I set up a situation that brings out the good in these people? When the situation changes, behaviour changes.” According to the Heath brothers’, “tweaking the environment” can be as simple as moving your alarm clock to the other side of your bed so that you won’t be able to hit the snooze button easily. To encourage yourself to exercise in the morning, instead of wishing to be healthy, try laying out your gym clothes at night so that it is the first thing you see when you get up. Simple tweaks may yield significant returns not only for business leaders but also individuals.
Final Thoughts Big problem, small solution. Big problems are rarely solved with complex solutions. More often, they are solved by a sequence of small solutions. Just like New York City solved its massive crime problems by smaller interventions, “tweaking your environment” may be a far superior solution than implementing big drastic change. So, “keep tweaking” and keep winning.
Roshan Thiran
is the Founder and Group CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise. He looks forward to seeing Asian businesses discard work towards becoming world-class innovative companies. Email him at roshan.thiran@gmail.com
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FINANCE STRATEGY
LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS Knowing Your Needs And Wants
When you live within your means, you are spending money based on the money you have. At the same time, you are putting aside money as savings to meet your financial goals. It is so easy to overspend. Products are constantly marketed on television and billboards as well as in magazines and newspapers. It ultimately depends on you to be strong-willed to resist all these forms of temptation. You can do so by understanding what influences your spending and what your needs and wants are.
Now, what is a “want”? A “want” is something you would like to have that is not absolutely necessary. Jewellery is a “want” because you do not really have to wear it for survival. In today’s world for example, a mobile phone with basic features is a “must-have” for communicating with other people. However, one that has Bluetooth music player speaker, high mega-pixel camera and other high-tech attachments is a “niceto-have” mobile phone.
What is a “need”? A “need” is something you must have, that you cannot do without. An example of a need is food. You need to eat to live. Otherwise, you would not survive for long.
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Knowing the difference between a “need” and a “want” will make a significant impact on your spending behavior and ultimately, your financial future. The decisions that you make with regard to what you need or want will affect your budget and monthly spending.
Spending Wisely When you want to buy something, ask yourself – “Is this something that I need? Can I afford the money to buy it?” Your personal budget and cash flow will help you answer this question. Check to see if you have previously allocated to spend on this item or have already overspent your cash for that month. If it is a “want”, consider not buying it or spending less for something similar so that you can put more money into your savings. When you do this, you are spending wisely and living within your means. Making sensible purchasing choices and spending wisely will prevent you from creating financial difficulties for yourself and others. Handling your personal finances in a responsible manner is easy if you just learn to say “no” to purchases you cannot afford.
Delayed Gratification Do you remember your childhood days when you wanted an icecream and your mother said that you could have it later after you finish your homework? Do you remember asking your father if he could buy you a new bicycle and he said that you could have it later if you did well in your exams? In both situations, your parents were teaching you about delayed gratification. Throughout your adult life, there will always be someone who will try to influence you into spending your money.
About The Contributor
If it is not your friend asking you to go out to dinner, it will be the sales promoter at the hypermarket asking you to buy products. Take the time to think whether it is necessary to spend the money and if it is something you can afford within your budget. Remember, when you say “no” to spending money now (by delaying gratification), you are one step closer towards achieving your financial dreams. In life, there are always alternatives to choose from. Look into different substitutes for your “needs” and “wants”. Change your perception, if necessary. Instead of buying a car, using public transportation might be a good alternative to moving around the city. You will save money and furthermore, contribute positively to the environment.
Conclusion Most people think having a lot of money is the answer to ending poverty. You may have earned RM100,000 per month but the problem is you could have spent RM101,000. And this would simply mean you have a negative cash flow of RM1,000. Therefore, making more money is not solving the problem but living within your means will help you to plan for a better financial life. So the next time, before you decide to spend, ask yourself whether this is “a need” or just another “want” or “desire” to add on to the next month’s bill.
Dr Desmond Chong Kok Fei
is a Trainer with Agensi Kaunseling & Pengurusan Kredit (AKPK) with over 25 years experience in marketing and management.
April 2018 |
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FINANCE STRATEGY
3 Basic Steps Towards Responsible Financial Management Prior to taking any daring action to satisfy your craving to be bold by participating in any extreme outdoor activities, it is always imperative that you make sure your back is covered so that should an unfortunate event occur, you will be able to minimise the blow of these incidents. Likewise, before we venture into any business or seek to validate our new ambitious entrepreneurial idea that may help to improve society standards, it is also normal that one should think about having some safety net in place. While many will think of this as an unwelcome distraction or stumbling block that will delay their plan, on the contrary, this should be dealt with as the first step to realising any dream.
Despite the well-accepted fact that everybody faces unique circumstances, generally speaking, each of us should really do the following:-
it is needed. With the adequate backing of an emergency fund, things will not go too wrong as you will have a buffer zone to support you through the rough tide. It is advisable not to invest any of your savings until you have accumulated this buffer fund.
• Establish an emergency fund; • Ensure sufficient insurance coverage is in place for your dependants in the event of death or at the onset of critical illness; • Ensure you and your partner have wills on how your estate should be distributed in the event of death.
As a business owner, you will help yourself by establishing a buffer fund for your own personal use, and one for your business. Make it a habit to set aside a portion of your revenue in a separate account as a liquid buffer fund. This should be separated from your current account and, depending on the burn-rate of your business, you will have to prepare enough buffer fund to ensure your business can sustain for the next couple of months should your revenue experience sudden disruption. On a personal note, from your take-home salary, set aside a portion for your own personal buffer fund that should cover about at least three months of your personal expenses.
Emergency Fund Do you agree that no matter how many weather reports or forecasts we refer to on any particular day, the weather may still end up behaving differently? That is probably why it is a good idea to always have an umbrella with us. Even our cars have got an additional spare tyre in the booth compartment because life has a way of throwing some unexpected events or challenges our way. Of course sometimes, these unexpected “shock waves” are the result of our own doing. Therefore, it is always good to be ready when these events enter unexpectedly. As a general rule of thumb, you should set aside some money or follow a disciplined effort to build up an emergency fund (or buffer fund) that is equivalent to at least six months of your income (given the current economic condition, or if you want to be safer and secure, you may want to horde 9-12 months’ worth of emergency funds, and more if you have a young family). Emergency funds do not always have to be related to an accident resulting in the need of being hospitalised. Many times, we associate an emergency fund to these events. There are many forms of emergencies or unexpected events such as normal sickness, retrenchment, dental issue or plainly, times such as when one is out of job after resigning and yet to land a new offer. This emergency fund should be kept either in deposit or a money market account which will give ease of liquidity when
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Insurance Coverage Just sit down and imagine that you have stopped breathing yesterday. How much is needed to settle your debts today? Debts that most of us have - for instance, mortgage, credit card and the business loan which you might have signed on as a Director guarantee to the bank, hire purchase loan, or even the study loanthat is not fully repaid yet, etc. How will your dependants continue to survive with those challenges and financial hurdles? Things will be worse if you are the sole breadwinner in the family or if a big portion of your household income is brought home by you. If you were to become ill in the long term, how much of your current income or savings can continue to support your family and your business - and, for how long? Just ensure that you will at least have this amount of life insurance coverage in place. Also, ensure that you have a basic medical insurance in place,so that your emergency fund and hard-earned savings will not be wiped out overnight by hefty hospital bills. As for your business, you also have to have it covered. Fire insurance is a very basic insurance cover for your office building or your furniture, renovation, etc. Fidelity guarantee insurance
can help you to mitigate employee infidelity risk by providing indemnity to the employer against loss of money or property as a result of acts of fraud or dishonesty of any employees such as forgery, embezzlement, larceny or fraudulent conversion. You may seek the help of a licensed Financial Advisor to plan a personalised insurance solution for you in order for you to integrate plans from different companies to cater to your unique needs. There are many types of insurance products some are good for you while others may be good for the one who sells you the products. Be sure to know what you are signing up for and read the fine print. If you can work with someone who is independent and not tied to a product provider, chances are, your best interest is likely to be more protected.
At Least, Write A Will A will is a legal document outlining who is to benefit from your property and possessions (your estate) after your death. There are a number of ways to make a will but, to be on the safe side, it is advisable that you ask a licensed Financial Advisor on how your will should be drafted in order to cater to your unique situation and wishes. It is important to have a will in place because if you were to die ‘intestate’ (i.e. without having made a will), there is a danger that your assets will not end up in the hands of those whom you would have wished to have them, not to mention that it will take a relatively longer time for the court to issue a clearance order. Depending on your circumstances, you may wish to include guardianship arrangements in your will so that, in the event that your children are left parentless, there will still be someone to take care of them. Here, you obviously need to get the agreement of the people you intend to name as guardian(s) beforehand. A business owner will also have to do this right in order to avoid disruption to his or her business legacy. There are many cases and success stories whereby the Founder has already bid farewell to the world since a long time ago but the company
About The Contributor
is still in business. Therefore, succession planning is a very important puzzle to the whole picture if you have a real longterm vision for your business. The three areas mentioned above may look like something unimportant to most people or appear to be “simple” - yet this does not mean we should underestimate its importance. Although it is widely regarded that entrepreneurship is a risktaking venture and an Entrepreneur should have a risk-taking attitude, it does not mean we should not conduct our due diligence and take on risks unnecessarily. Your personal situation will have a direct impact on your involvement in your business and the success or failure of your business venture will determine the viability of your personal success as they both are interlinked. Taking action to plan for the above three areas may conflict with your other life priorities such as achieving your other life goals. However, by building up this financial cushion (and taking the concerted effort to maintain it), you will protect yourself and your business when things go the wrong way and allow yourself to be in a better position to work out alternatives so that you will be able to focus on the next step and what is important with peace of mind.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article has been obtained from public sources believed to be reliable and the opinions, analysis, forecast, projections and expectations (together “Opinions”) contained in this presentation are based on such information and are expressions of belief only. This article should not be construed as, an offer document or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any investment. Readers are advised to consult professional advice before deciding or making any decision to invest as investment is a long-term process and past superior performance is not indicative of future performance.
Kevin K.M. Neoh
is a licensed Financial Planner by Securities Commission and Bank Negara Malaysia. He is a member of VKA Wealth Planners, Malaysia’s fast growing home-grown Financial Planning Firm. Kevin can be contacted at KevinNeoh@vka.com.my
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