There Is A Will, There Is A Meeting

Day 39 (2) - 961 days to go

God helps those who help themselves.

Well, I like the above title as well as I have completed full days of marathon back-to-back meeting. I am not sure what is the world record for meeting in a day or 3 days. My two colleagues and I just completed 23 meetings in 3 days, two of us even had one extra personal meeting that made up 24 meetings in totals.

In order for any event to be successful, there must be many things done right. Sometimes, luck also plays a very critical role. Three of us are from product development division and we made a trip to Singapore to meet up with existing and potential users and intermediaries of the products listed in my company, BMD. Before we reach Singapore, we managed to arrange 17 meetings. However, we end up having 23 meetings. Key success factors are:

1. Never give up. We try to arrange more meeting until the very last minutes via handphone and email.

2. Try our luck. We drop by counterparts' office without informing them and we were lucky enough to be able to meet them.

3. God helps us. By chance we met an ex colleague who is working in a futures company that we have interest to meet and he did help us to arrange for meetings.

4. Friend helps us - We managed to fix a few meetings after getting some information from friends or they actually help us to even fix a meeting. Helps gained from our business partners, brokers, and ex colleagues.

5. Good Luck - It was beyond my imagination that I was able to fix 17 meetings without really changing any appointment time slot at all.

6. Think out of the box - I enjoyed this the most. We simply drop by an office, go to the meeting place earlier, try to combine two meetings (from the same company) into one, change meeting time in order to arrange for more meetings.

7. Just do it - To attend meeting on an hourly basis and from one office to another one seems difficult if not improbable. However, we just make arrangement and completed with minor delay for a few meetings only.

8. There is a will, there is a way - we try to arrange meeting via different channels and networks which include cold call, get help from colleagues and friends, referral, and so on. God even help us by meeting another lead while walking.

Great event never happens by chance but by own will and God will. First thing first, God helps those who help themselves. This is the lesson I learned again in the past three days.

Credit Cards Blue Ocean Strategy

Day 39 (1) - 961 days to go

I went to Singapore on 6 June 2011 and as such did not update my blog from day 36 to 38. The reason is that the Meritus Mandarin Hotel at Orchard Road wanted to charge me SGD30 per day or SGD10 per 4 hours. I think most likely I will not go back to the same hotel as free internet access should be a standard service provided by hotel now. Too bad, because of SGD10, this hotel will be losing my business.....maybe permanently despite the fact that the location is good and the staff provide good customer services.

Recently I just applied for Citibank credit card as a result of a CC agent called me up and explained to me various benefits offered by Citibank CC. Initially I do not have any intention to apply as government just imposed a RM50 tax on each CC. However, I applied for it after know some of the benefits offered by this bank.

20 years ago, CC holders of Citibank card are proud owners of CC as it was not easy to get a Citibank CC and as such perceived to be of higher social status. However, over time, when more and more banks issued CC that offered many similar benefits, Citibank cards do not command similar social status anymore and actually start to lose market share to other foreign banks such as SCB and HSBC. When more and more local banks offered CC to card holders and the entry level is lower, Citibank lost even more market share.

However, I noticed that Citibank has been more aggressive to fight back by offering more benefits to card holders and hence attracted more better quality card holders like me who want to have special member privileges not offered by most other credit cards. For instance, Citibank cardholders are offered free use of Plaza Premium Lounge at KLIA. some other CC do offer similar privileges but limit to a few time per year, for instance. HSBC CC members will earn 5x bonus points if used in overseas. CIMB and Direct Access Cards give 15% discount for duty free purchase made in certain duty free shop in KLIA.

In sum, the trick is to offer some unique benefits to a niche market i.e. create its own Blue Ocean strategy as there is no more price war for CC since everyone is offering CC for free. There is always a niche market in all industry. The trick is whether you notice or able to create one before it is taken by your competitor.

The Power of Leverage - selling book

Day 35 - 965 days to go

One of the most lucrative but also the lowest pay jobs relative to efforts put in is writing a book. For authors, you know how much effort or hundreds of hours you put in before a book is completed. However, it is normally sold for a few hours worth of your hourly rate. Then why so many people still want to be an author?

Well, the answer is leverage in terms of buying power. Authors do not aim to sell a few or even hundreds of books. They want to write a best seller that can sell ten of thousands if not million. That is the power of leverage which is much more powerful than multi level marketing for many other types of physical products especially foods and other consumable products that have limited shelf life. Writing a book is better than creating a new tool or product as the same author can write another book and sell to the same group of buyers again and again. You see people buy hundreds of books but have you seen anybody buy some other products again and again and add up to hundreds? A classic example is Chicken Soup for the Soul series....maybe is the all time best seller by now.

Therefore, food for thought business is more lucrative than food for the stomach. I always buy "outdated" book which was author 2 - 3 years back but remain relevant to me and for current application, at 60 to 80% discount. I don't think anyone wants to buy "out-dated or expired" foods at all. Furthermore, books can be sold from or to any part of the world.

The main benefit derived from selling a book is that it will make the author very famous and become an expert in the fields he authored. This branding and publicity can bring him million of dollars when people engage him to be a speaker for his field, co-author another book, invited to be in a forum, guest speaker for university or other similar occasion, and many more.

Therefore, despite not want to buy books so frequently, I bought 14 books and cost me more than RM300 despite all are "outdated" books. Unless I become a professional author or speaker, I don't think I need to buy books when they are freshly delivered from the printing machine now. We should be a smart consumer even for buying books, right?

4 Stars Chinese Language Society

Day 34 - 966 days to go

Today I spent almost the whole day from 6:30am to almost 11pm with my girl as she is one of the organizing committee members for the performance jointly organized by 4 Chinese Language Society from 4 high schools. Fun to attend such a function as I left high school more than 2 decades already.

Well, I would say the event is quite well organized despite some minor technical hiccup. One of the best values they learned is teamwork. It is not easy to have good teamwork from one organization, let alone from four. I am so glad that my girl is involved in such a good community that show high level of teamwork and respect. Of course, I can tell that they have a lot of fun organizing the event. I believe the new committee members learned a great deal managing the event, so did the returning committee members as it involved leadership skill and people management technique now as senior committee members.

Such an event is like a mini bootcamp or practical training to prepare these group of high school students to work in the real world when they graduate some time in the future. By taking part in club activities, they will be able to develop their organization, leadership, interpersonal, communication and other types of soft skills. I am sure they will be better prepared to face real world challenges compared to those who have never taken part in similar events.

Meeting Arrangement

Day 33 - 967 days to go

I have been trying to fix at least 5 meetings a day in Singapore - 2 each for morning and afternoon sessions and one during lunch. The tricky part is that in order for all these meetings take a time slot each without overlapping or changing one to another slot, requires a bit of luck. I am lucky to have all meetings fix without changing any and the best thing is when the last meeting confirmation mail comes in, it proposes to fit the last spot that I have. I really cannot believe my eyes and share that happiness with the counterpart. She is happy for me too by saying "We hit a jackpot." Yup, we both hit a jackpot indeed.

This is a classic example as I just told my student intern to give her best and focus on what she needs to deliver, good results will be the most likely outcome. I told her this as she always worried about if she can do a good job on task assigned to her. Instead of wasting time to worry about whether can do a good job, we may as well focus on doing the work. How to do a good job? I always say :"Today's performance is yesterday's preparation." Therefore, constantly improve and prepare ourselves for the opportunity to come, is the best strategy.

When I started arranging for the 3 days meeting, I thought about the possible overlapping of meeting time slot taken by more than one party. However, I just focus on making the arrangement and put them into time slot one by one. The last one confirmed actually filled the last available spot that I have. It may be my lucky day but my proven that my philosophy is right, Just do it, like the Nike tagline.

Din Tai Fung Restaurant

32 days - 968 days to go

This afternoon, my wife and I went to have lunch at Din Tai Fung located at the 6th floor in Pavilion shopping mall. Of course, the must have "steamed dumplings" is one of our choices.

Frankly, I am a bit puzzled why DinTaiFung was selected as one of the top ten restaurants in the world by the "New York Times". Well, I would say the dumpling is not bad but it should not make DTF to be selected as one of the top 10 in the world. The speed of serving customer orders is also commendable. The few dishes we ordered are quite tasty. In terms of price, I would say is quite reasonable for a fine dinning despite restaurant.

What I like the most from this first time experience is that their waiters and waitress are very friendly and polite. In addition, I found that most of the waiters and waitresses speak Mandarin, not sure if many of their customers are also from Taiwan and China or people who stayed there before like students and businessman.

Of course the variety and uniqueness of foods should be the major selling point. Many of the dishes are not sold in other restaurant in this area i.e. maybe they can claim they are the most authentic Taiwanese restaurant. In other words, if you want to have Taiwanese foods, this is the first choice.

Well, I can only say the success of a restaurant are mainly as a results of the following factors:

1. Tasty and unique dishes
2. Friendly and polite staff
3. Good location
4. Reasonable price
5. Publicity or reputation

Publicity and reputation is very important especially with internet, it will make or break a company overnight. For example, authorities in many countries are now monitoring some food products that may contain a Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), an ingredient that may have potential harmful effects on health.

Network

Day 31 - 969 days to go

I have been working tirelessly to arrange meetings in Singapore for the last three days with potential options traders and customers. Another main purpose is to identify and get market maker for the Options contract (OKLI) that I am going to relaunch.

I have been trying different channels to arrange for the meeting which include:

1. Contacts from my peer from the commodity department (I am in charge of the non commodity derivatives, product development)
2. Contacts from my immediate supervisor who is a Singaporean
3. My own contacts in Singapore
4. My friends' contact in Singapore
5. Contacts information in the website
6. Malaysia and Singapore intermediaries' contacts
7. CME's (our company's partner) contacts

This is a classic example of Network = Net worth when you need to use your network to achieve a goal.

Therefore, if you are not building your network, so is your net worth. This is especially true for building wealth in the online world - internet marketing as one of the most critical success factors is "how big is your mailing list".