Ghostly Businesses

Thought I would post something that is a tad-outside topic for a while, but keenly interesting for some of those out there who are daringly entrepreneurial. Before the ghost month started, I told my biz partners that "Hey this month, I'm going to be very busy you know, and I'll try to leave the office before it gets dark..ok, u guys "jagar" yourselves hor"...my partners assumed that I was being a supplier of those Ghost month gift hampers (red buckets or baskets of provisions). Actually there is a whole ton of business to be done during this entire month. Of course because I'm a superstitious freak, I'm not going to get involved in this, but I might suggest some interesting avenues to earn additional money.

1. folding incense paper (use prisoners to help to fold) and sell them at a profit.

2. offer home delivery of incense paper and all other paraphernalia, especially to old estates

3. merchant associations and heartland merchant associations all want to have some Ghost month event, but all dun have money, so help pull them together (event management).

So actually if you look at it, ghost month is really a month for good fortune leh.

How'zat for some money-making ideas!!

Hiring Older Workers (Part 4)

Sent email and tried calling SNEF a couple of times yesterday in the morning all the way till mid-day. Didn't get a response from them. (haiyaz-sigh, they're not interested in doing my biz)..ok take it elsewhere. Call our Gahmen agency - WDA workforce development agency, (whoa impressive leh), got proper call centre setup, tell them that SNEF didn't call me and all that. Before the day is out I got a call back from WDA officer and received the application forms for the grant. Perhaps I'll ask about the FREE HR COURSE also - its free, why don't want right (the basic Singaporean mentality)?

Hiring Older Workers (part 3)

The move towards making Singapore a "Age Neutral" workplace - is ideal, but also for many it is a requirement to stay alive (not just for the mature worker, but also for the business).

I've sent an email to Singapore National Employers Federation (or SNEF), about the grant scheme to hire older workers. Hope to shed more light on this for all the people who read. Ozone barter - one of my companies will be attempting to apply for this grant if it works out for us. It makes sense as it provides us with the experience of mature workers. So stay tuned to this space.

Up Yours Too!

Hey I'm not talking dirty, I'm actually talking about brand visibility. In Marketing we want brand visibility. So how do we get brand visibility leh??

As the saying goes - say easy, do is hard, marketing on a shoe-string budget is really not easy for Small businesses. Even being in the barter business, we try to get our marketing all on barter, so it doesn't cost us any cash, the coverage is not vast enough, limiting the available reach to our target audience. I believe many small businesses don't even have a budget to do branding and marketing. Ozone Barter is luckier in many aspects, having the strong support of member businesses. Sometimes I must really thank my lucky stars.

Our advertising web banner appeared on NTU's EDM on its Entreprenurship and Innovation Week sent out to over 30K SMEs via ASME's email marketing blasts - it was a happy thing that worked out well for us. Getting SME owners to open the EDM is a different matter altogether (that topic we keep for comments in another post).

Slightly pleased - yes I am indeed. But still unsure about the conversion rate. Well we'll worry about that later too.

Coffee Talks

Ever wondered which coffee sells the best?

Let me tell you - a branded coffee. Any of our daily "CuP of LiFe" or as I sometimes like to call it my elixir, if it were branded, you would be willing to pay for it. Spinelli and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf some of the foreign entrants onto our uncultured (in coffee terms) territory, being a marketplace of -local roast (normally with additives into the grounded coffee), which gives it that local Flava - which on some occasions I am attracted to.

What exactly am I driving at - you might ask, its actually a post about branding. Many local SMEs do not brand themselves because they feel that they have no need to brand themselves, to differentiate themselves from the competitors, and to obliterate the noise and communicate directly with their target audience. They do not see it on most occasions is because traditionally Asians do not go out and BLAB about their business - as it being "the best, the fastest, the brightest" It the product/service sells it sells itself - no need to do all these bells and whistles - the whole exercise is pointless.

Starbucks focuses on creating a community environment when selling coffee. Their main business model is pivoted on the selling of Cafexperience. Drink Coffee - experience the lifestyle. It no longer focuses on t he beverage but the experience drinking the coffee. Although the coffee isn't fantastic (by die-hard caffine addicted white-collars), yet many still are willing to part with that their pretty dollar for a cuppa.

I just had dinner with some non-business people (courtesy of St Margaret's Sec School) and the topic of Starbucks came up. 2 Teenagers totally SWEAR-by starbucks, they claim that Starbucks is the place to be - to see and to be seen. (ouch, oldies like us prefer to see than to be seen, especially in a caffine heightened state of agitation). Apparently, our generation Z prefer starbucks over to Spinelli or Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Probably given its clear and distinct branding. Its promotion of its lifestyle position in the F&B industry

Local counter-part Ya-Kun is what I would imagine as being equivalently successful in establishing a clear brand message to consumers, while the others like Wang Jiao, Ah Mei Cafe, Killiney Kopitiam are sending mixed and distorted signals.

By this observation, it sends shivers down my spine because it becomes apparent to me that by trying to do more or try to do everything, we confuse people, eventually the signal by not being clear, reduces the ability for a brand to stand the test of time. So it sorta means - Brand now or die shortly. From another standpoint - some SMEs don't do it because of finance. Our GAHMEN has noticed this and has undertaken to provide grants to help SMEs brand themselves. Although I am not certain how easy (or difficult) it is to get these grants, but I hope someone who has gotten the grant, can share their experience on their branding.

How to Hire Older Workers part II

After reading the attention grabbing headlines on my Todayonline - that sneaks into my inbox at about 7am, I thought I had to post it up for all to read. The thing that I felt was a bit silly was the "Free HR Course" which comes as the sub-header.

As if a Free HR Course is going to help SMEs hire mature workers?

Its not going to happen. No it's not that we cannot hire mature workers, SMEs can benefit from the experience these older employees can inject into the company - BUT, SMEs are generally unstructured and fairly unsystematic organisations - even if they grow to the size of having 20-50 staff. These mature individuals will have difficulty becoming accustomed to this unruly, unsystematic and random manner of operating a business.

What SMEs need is not a FREE HR COURSE but more help in drawing in these older workers to want to work for them. SMEs not just have a problem hiring mature workers, they have a problem hiring any type of employee - be it young and immature or old and experienced.

Ask any SME business owner "what is their numero uno problem in operating their business" and they would reply - Hiring capable and talented people to work for them.

I'm not sure about the $400K grant, having processed grants (when I was once employeed), sort of spooked me a little. But anyone used this grant before? Hope to hear your comments.

BTW - I'm hiring too. So if there's anyone that's looking for a job, pls email to yiantay@hotmail.com

How to Hire Older Workers - Free HR Course?

WANT TO HIRE OLDER WORKERS? HERE'S HOW

Free HR courses to help small firms hire and retain mature workers

Cheow Xin Yicheowxinyi@mediacorp.com.sg
MORE help is on the way for SMEs looking to hire older workers.
Following the 2005 "Advantage! Scheme" to spur firms to recruit, retrainor re-employ mature workers over 40, smaller businesses can now get helpin implementing their human resource (HR) policies to retain their workersbeyond the retirement age of 62.
Yesterday, the Enterprise Development Centre @ Association of Small &Medium Enterprises, supported by Workforce Development Agency (WDA),offered "Advantage! for SMEs", a new initiative for SMEs that providesfree HR-related courses starting in September.
"We have received feedback from SMEs that they are unsure how they canbenefit from the (Advantage!) scheme as many of them have only a handfulof older workers in their companies," said WDA chief executive Mr Ong YeKung.
"The new initiative is a practical way for SMEs to receive some assistancein implementing re-employment policy, even if they do not apply for thefinancial grant," he said.
Under the earlier scheme, companies can apply for a grant of up to$400,000 to fund efforts in hiring seniors.
The schemes play a role in preparing companies for a new law on re-hiringmature workers that is scheduled to kick in by 2012.

I've got a Writers Blog Block

Its been a short while, but having written so many posts in such a short time, it felt that I needed to continue that momentum and continue writing, but suddenly I felt flat short of stuff to write about (temporarily I hope).

I'll be attending the 11th Infocomm Commerce Conference tomorrow. Here's my pass - to the event, at least this time I remembered to register early.

15-year-old clinches S$17,000 in online sales within a month

This kid did this in one month-impressive, but nothing new. Its as classic as stock trading, as we know about trading - its about timing. As pricing fluctuates, he has to always hit the nail on the head each time to ensure that he is able to make a decent profit. Its good that he knows where he is good at. That's the key, to him performing this successfully. I think this kid grasped the concept of trading very well. He is also quite smart to keep mum about his profit margins. Keep it up kid! Can't wait for you to grow up. (picture from CNA website - visit link to read full article)

Not to Lose sleep over

After writing my post about "I"m Lovin' It", I went over to read Andrew Wee's Blog, who's now in HK probably enjoying himself with his family at HK Disneyland (a place which I'm not the type to enjoy). Anyway, I digress.

He wrote on his blog saying that

"What you need to have a successful business is its ability to operate without you."

Which is very true as well, perhaps this is the idea that entrepreneurs have when they have settled down and have a family and kids and stuff like that. Family commitments and all.

And if I'm already enjoying myself while doing my business - which one of them is related to my ultra numero-uno love of my life - food. I can't help fallilng in love with it all over again.

P.S. Andrew, I'm not trying to justify myself either - hehe..remember go and try the vegetarian food at the Big Buddha - go for the premium set (not the basic). The fried stuff there is good - but remember to drink 24 mei (cooling tea) when u get back to Kowloon or wherever u stay.

I'm Lovin' It

Its 6.30am on a Sunday - why am I up? Basically because I have nothing else better to do than to do my work? Why because I am devoted to my business and simply can't miss a second doing work for it. Sounds loony? Yeah it probably is, and everyday I look at this crazy-nut case and ask - why the heck are we in business, the profit margins are good, but not fantastic, sometimes customers come up with ridiculous reasons for delaying payment (and these are large transnational financial institutions).

Well sometimes we do have a bit of split personality or have an urgent need to be warded at IMH, just because our brains can't sleep, it talks to itself even when we are awake, driving alone in the car, in the shower or on the toilet seat doing our thing (ha ha..)

Our minds never fails to wander - HOW TO IMPROVE MY BUSINESS

Is it just a natural instinct of an entrepreneur or do people that hold jobs do this as well. But I love it, I love every minute and every second of it that I am doing something for one of my businesses. To me it's fun, and its exciting to see what I have created, but as a perfectionist (albeit a toned-down one, due to time opportunity cost).

So I call all other Entrepreneurs to send me your comments - about Your Love Life - with your own biz.

Bold Leaps - SME biz owners resource

Bold Leaps is a magazine that is published by a friend of mine, and insofar, has been trying very hard to get this magazine into places, getting recognition for it as The Publication that is read widely by the SMEs in Singapore. I think that Bold Leaps - after being launched at the start of this year - has reached a milestone. Its nearing its 1st year anniversary and it is still around. Not that I had expected them to disappear, but starting a magazine in Singapore where the market is dominated by gargantuan publishers like SPH and Mediacorp, it makes creating a decent, useful magazine that SMEs can identify with - is not easy.

The name of the magazine is it is aptly called - Bold Leaps really required a bold leap of faith to keep it going. Running my own SME, I know the insurmountable tasks when trying to create something virtually out of nothing.

In the next 5 years to come, I am certain that with the current momentum that Bold Leaps has, and the strong collaborative alliances it has with the various strategic partners I believe that Bold Leaps will be able to leap from one milestone to the next.

If you would like to take a look at this magazine - its available at all leading bookstores, including Kinokuniya.

Sports events gaining popularity and sports culture branding

Singapore is about to have the Inaugural Aviva Ironman 70.3 SingaporeTriathlon on Sept 2. Having corporate sponsorship like Aviva it is set to be one of those sports events with large corporate sponsorships. As a matter of fact, we have just barely started out with Triathalons in Sg not very long ago - now we're talking about IRONMAN. Wow...a close friend of mine (Fishlike Aquatic School) told me that he was part of the OSIM triathalon exhibition - as he coaches and trains people for triathalons, and his response at his booth - for ppl to improve the speed of their swim is tremendous. I really cannot believe it. Not being a sports buff myself it is unbelievable. I really forsee lots of business opportunities out there for such events. Things are being liberalised quite fast for such events to be brought in. Its definitely a good sign of fundamental improvement in the business landscape.

It would be very interesting to see more of these lifestyle type activities - as the Singapore market becomes more developed. I do say I envisage that my company may also someday (hopefully) sponsor some event like this. This will allow all SMEs to leverage on us go get at least some exposure.

its a hard days work - well worth it

I have been griping about the state of my corporate website for Ozone barter, and my biz partner had gone to NTU to give a talk at Nanyang Technopreneur Centre, I think probably on our obviously favourite topic of Barter Trade.

What does this have to do with my corporate website?

Luckily for all of us, I had at the final 11th hour changed it to make it look a tad bit more chio that how it used to be - now it's got a little bit more vibrancy that it used to have. But I'm still not exactly happy with it. I'm pretty much never happy with many things, that's the worst part of being a perfectionist, but the realist also sometimes do balance things out understanding the opportunity cost of time.

Apparently, the new students and some of the students attending the talk had visited our website or were visiting our website at the point when my partner was walking into the room. And since our website had all our POT SHOTS!! They obviously knew who was who.

But seriously, the status of our website has never been so critical as it is now. Our website can no longer be late with updates by even a week - especially with the new things going on at Ozone. It's no slacking now... **Sigh**

Asian Food Channel

http://www.asianfoodchannel.com/index.php - is the home page of AFC

I would need to confess - one of my favourite channels has to be Asian Food Channel (or AFC for short). I would say that this is a fairly newly setup channel. It takes programs from UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, and actually mash it together into one cohesive channel for food loving singaporeans. Actually it's good because we can view re-runs of Singapore foodie programmes. I think as a dedicated foodie, as well as being a foodie with a super keen interest in cooking is definitely a god-send. But I did notice that the ads on this fairly new channel is fairly thin.

What should they be advertising? Of course, it being a food channel, I would like to see more restaurant and F&B ads, finding nice and good makan places is always in tune with my favourite hobby. I enjoy restaurant commercials as much as I enjoy watching Makansutra's Seetoh say Sedap or Shiok in between each slurp of mee goreng or prawn noodles. Why aren't local F&B outlets advertising on AFC - it's like a targetted avenue for them to advertise and they're simply not doing it. I know the smaller ones without the budget can't, but those with the budgets - why aren't they spending at all? Not that I have an investment in the company that produces AFC, but my vested interest is to make sure that my favourite cable channel doesn't get broadcasted on Starhub because of poor advertising response. Hopefully by pointing it out in my blog someone would actually pick it up and go advertise with Starhub (lol).

Business Opportunity Fair

Another weekend has passed, just yesterday, it was also a sunny day, but we spent most of our time indoors and nay was a second wasted while we packed and hauled all our Ozone paraphernalia into my notoriously sickly looking green coloured van - that was waiting for us patiently in the car park. Luckily for me this round for our Business Opportunity Fair, we had all our sales team (much larger this time), to help me load up my van. Although I felt gratitude towards their touching gesture, as usual, I mumbled only short words of thanks, embarassed that I needed their help. As usual, we were not prepared again for this business opportunity fair. Our booth looked strangely bleak. Unlike all the other booths that invested in special tables, bringing their LCD TVs, sound systems, with video clips to boot. "Sigh" again, I'm not fantastically happy.

Not flashy at all, I must say, our booth was really down to earth, and we weren't really selling a product, but rather a service. Perhaps we'll be getting better prepared by each passing event.
Although I was also quite disappointed by the poor showing by the public to this event, I believe we have better leads than the last event, when all our temp sales staff were interested in - were to get contacts that seem remotely possible as a lead. Quality as well as quantity is equally important. I realised that we should work on potential tie-ups for this event in the future. Hopefully, we'll be able to work with some magazines that would benefit from such an event.

What women want

A new member that has just joined my business barter community - and their product, Women's Boosting products, Lingere and its peripherals. And to imagine that the owner of this business is a man! Although I was tickled by it, but it is true that businesses that know how to market correctly to women stand a good market position and profit. Just take his competitors in the market - Eros, Triumph, Waccol just to name a few. Women by nature are fussy (actually some are super fussy) creatures, and fussy creatures do what fussy creatures do - buy the best.

I would say to win a lady's heart is tough, but once you win it - you pretty much keep it for life.

direct mail and flyers

One of our Ozone members had recently launched a printed flyer campaign with door-to-door distribution. I've not seen the flyer yet, but I have always been sceptical about direct mailers, as unsolicited direct mailers normally are good for branding rather than actually having people taking a specific action. But why do people still engage in such activities if it doesn't bring good results? My thoughts is that it is like buying 4D and Toto, the costs are low (on the superficial level), but on the upside the potential is good. That works for people who are in the real estate industry - who actually do not have much budgets for other advertising media. Direct mail should really be reserved for targetted marketing to a specific database. If it's unsolicited - chances are it will be dunked. How do we make it more memorable for people to keep unsolicited direct mailers (or flyers)? Now that's a thought...hold on to that and here are my 2 cents worth:

1. Clear Message Upfront in your face
2. less text, minimal design features - less clutter is more impactful
3. Specific clear action for audience to undertake
4. A method to get their info (for future marketing purposes)
5. Give them something to remember you.

Do give your valued comments - like to hear more about other people's thoughts about direct mail

Is there really a balance?

For all entrepreneurs - they always have one regret, not being able to clone themselves. Although my lawyer and my other friend who is a franchising consultant says that it is possible to do so - just franchise your business. It is not really true that you can "clone" yourself when you get a franchisee. Because they can never really be you. Time is of essence, perhaps that's why not many entrepreneurs blog - its because of time.

Each day there is only 16 effective hours that can be utilised for work, the remainding 8 hours are left to do all the other stuff that (although we don't like to do it) have to be done. Yes that includes driving parents and kids (and pets). Who says being part of a family is easy? Being an entrepreneur and a family person (man or woman) is really really tough. Wow, how did the others before me do it? Maybe all that crap about how they were able to juggle family life, business and everything well - is all faked. Perhaps we'll never know will we?

blogging for profit (part 3)

it is lamentable that Singaporean Entrepreneurs with a small exception of a few do blog. It's good to blog sometimes, because there isn't really another avenue to really crap about stuff that you dislike. This is not my first blog but this is probably one of my first "psychotherapy" blogs. Wonder what I mean by that? It's my avenue to air grievances, problems, gripes and anger with the rest of the world. It is probably one of the few ways to let out - apart from getting the latest Xbox 360 game - Overlord, and doing evil stuff like killing of innocents and stuff like that.

Although I did want to write about this topic, I also realised that the Editor of the Marketing Magazine (my must read and frequent reference), also talked about blogging by corporates and by the business owners and CEOs. Although I agree with her that we all should blog a little bit more, but I do agree that I am not going to blog too much about my company or business, of course not in specifics. As Asians, we tend to be a little closeted in our thinking and afraid that someone might copy our idea and so on - a fear perhaps heighted by lack of insecurity and confidence in our ability to continue to innovate and continue to be creative. It is also a fear that even I am confident to admit to. I verhemently disagreed to having a barter blog - as I am a partner in a company that runs a Business Barter Exchange, in fear that our competitior might find out too much about what we do and how we do it. As blogs are in the public domain, many people can read it, and then perhaps utilise the information to their monetary benefit (which is every business owner's fear).

But am I wrong to feel insecure? Hope to hear comments on this thought.

Marketing Tips - Part 1 of 3 - GetAltitude.com