Just finished reading Anita Roddick’s Business As Unusual. Part-autobiography, part-business book, all of a great read. Pick up this book if you can.
Roddick who?
If you don’t know Roddick, you must know her business. Continue reading »
Just hot off the heels of being interviewed for a local men’s magazine, I’ve had the good fortune to be interviewed by GRADUAN, an annual magazine produced by Biz Connexion Sdn Bhd.
This magazine is distributed free to 30,000 final year Malaysian students at overseas universities and provides job matches for many prestigious companies such as Shell, Bank Negara, HSBC, Genting Resorts and more.
The interview will be published in GRADUAN 2006 so do look out for it! 
Dr Ralph F. Wilson has been around for more than decade and he always dispenses great, practical advice for amateurs and veterans of the Internet.
If you go to his website, you’ll see that he has some 2,300 web pages of information! That’s not a typo or a joke. I told you he has been around the Net for some time now.
Among his accomplishments, Dr Wilson is a winner of the Tenagra Award for Internet Marketing Excellence for his contribution towards internet marketing and he has also been named “among the best-known publishers and consultants who preach the responsible use of e-mail for marketing” by the New York Times.
In this article below, Dr Wilson explains more about the five common errors of e-commerce, especially for newbies.
If you are thinking of setting up an e-commerce website, I urge you to read this fantastic article.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/art/ecomm/5ecom-errors.htm
If your website isn’t getting as much attention or not getting you the business you need, maybe it is time to look at how it is designed.
Whether you want to believe it or not, design matters.
That’s why you love the sleekness of Mac, Sony, Nike products. They have chic and elegance which stands them well above their competitors. That’s why you will spend more buying a Japanese or Korean product instead of something that’s Made-in-China. You just didn’t know it then but the shape, the packaging, the colours drew you instinctively to reach out and own it!
And design, when it comes to the web (vis-a-vis websites), is important too. Because today’s culture is highly visual. We look first and evaluations are made on the first impression.
To explain more, we’ll let the below article tell you more why design matters.
Continue reading »
Are you staying in touch with your customers and prospects?
If you aren’t, you should be!
How many businesses have lost hundreds of ringgit in business if only they remembered to keep in touch! That’s why bigger businesses use CRM software (that’s Customer Relationship Management) to stay in touch with their prospects and customers.
But as small businesses, we don’t need a piece of software to help us do that. If you have CRM, then fine. But if you don’t, all it takes is to remember to touch base with your customers and prospects.
Yes, keep in touch with people who have bought from you and people whom you think would buy from you, maybe not now but sometime soon.
“But they rejected my product outright the last time I spoke to them!” You wail.
Like Trump says, it’s nothing personal. It’s just business.
You see, when your prospects rejected or refused to buy your product or service last year, it does not mean they hate your guts or had no use for your product/service forever.
Things, situation, people change. And if you keep in touch with them, sincerely*, there’s no doubt that when they are ready to buy, they will think of you.
Because you kept popping up in their minds. Why? Because you bothered to keep in touch. You wanted to keep in touch. You sent a hello once in a while through email. You enquired after them without pushing them to buy (we all know how we hate pushy, aggressive sales people who don’t take “no” for an answer) and you did not create pressure for them.
And if you did keep in touch sincerely, they will see you as a friend and relax when they meet you or see your email. And that’s how you win a sale and start a business relationship.
As is known, people do business with people they like. No point in benefitting your enemy is there?
So if you had someone say “No, not interested” in your face today, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Take it as permission to stay in touch and be a friend. I can guarantee you that when he or she is ready to buy, you’ll be the first in their minds.
* When I say sincerely, I mean that you should take the pressure of selling off yourself too. Once you let go of the notion of selling, and just aim to be yourself, open, engaging and friendly, it shows. Especially in your body language and the way you speak. Nothing is more unctuous than faked sincerity.