Creating Value for Customers is similar to pursuing a girlfriend?

Imagine, a guy tells a lady of his love why he needs her. What would he say?

"I can't live without you, babe!" - Huge mistake.

 Are you adding value to your customer?

How about this? 

         Free Life time Service, I provide.

"Won't you need a reliable person provide for family? You love children. You love trust and warmth in family. I can fulfill that. I offer that for FREE in your lifetime." (goose pimples, here - haha)

 - BETTER proposal? You are trying to add value to your customer - or future wife.

 

 

How are you creating value for your customers?

Are you really creating value for your customers, or merely claiming to?  Its not about YOU but the customer.

You can’t add value to the customer until you truly understand your customer

As Barry Farber says in State of the Art Selling, “You cannot relate to a man in business without understanding his business.  A man in the oil business wants you to understand the oil business, and what a drilling rig is, and what upstream and downstream means, and what crude and refined is, and what’s OPEC and domestic, and who his competitors are, and his recent history – has it been good or bad and why.  Too many salespeople don’t know anything about business, let alone the client’s business.”

EXAMPLE: If you want to sell a car, ask if the prospective customer need or want one in the first place.

Does Sultan of Brunei need or want another Sports Car? Blue, maybe? 

 

Know Your Customers

The first step in becoming a true Value-Adder is to Know your Customers.  Remember, value is a perception, the customer’s perception. So don’t assume you already know what’s important to your customers, or how they define value.  

 

The Process of getting to know your customer

Step 1: Do the research

    

 Pic 02: Research on your prospective

Do the work. Start by doing some research on the market in general.  Look for industry studies, reports, and articles that provide insight into your customers, their competitors and what’s important to them.  This may take some time and effort, but you will find that the return far outweighs the effort. 

Step 2: Start a meaningful dialog

Most business professionals love to talk about their business. Unfortunately sellers fail at listening.  Worse, they fail to engage customers.

 
 Pic 03: Listen!

When you get them to talk about their business, their goals and their frustrations, you’ll find all the information you need to add actual value.  So, before your next meeting, vow not to talk about yourself, or your product or service.  Instead, ask some simple questions that will help you understand the customer’s business model, how his world is changing, what is working and not working, and where you can help.  That simple adjustment just might mean the difference between yes and no. 

Step 3: Ask the RIGHT questions

It’s unlikely that you could create value without asking the right questions.  You want to ask your customers the right questions to you can learn more about them and determine how you can best add value.

Pic 04: Questions to understand customers better.

Your Personal Value Add

Research suggests that a big part of the value equation is you, the salesperson.  You and I can sell the same product or service, and even work for the same company, but our solutions and ultimately our “value-add” will likely be very different.  Each of us brings to the table different competencies, attitudes and behaviors.

The Payoff
The payoff for becoming a true value-adder is real and substantial.  For starters it makes for an easier sale.  Customers look forward to your visit.  They already want to do business with you. They seek you out. 

 Yep, you got your lifetime customer- wife, I suppose. Add value!


Another payoff from value creation is that you rarely ever have to worry about price. That is, so long as you keep the focus on the customer’s definition of price.  Tom Reilly, author of Value Added Selling Techniques, said, “If you define value in customer terms, they pay for it with a higher selling price. Conversely, if you define value in your terms, you pay for it with a bigger discount.”


Disclaimer note: In social life, this is more than commercial transaction. The above is merely to illustrate how to add value to improve sales persuasion. In social circle and love, a Spanish proverb states, "Love is mad, if not, then it is not love."

Well, she marries you because she doesn't know why! Good on ya.

Comment anonymously below your thoughts on how to secure sales. 

To your Profitable Future, Today

Cheers.

"I am not a salesperson." Really?

- related to working professionals who are in a hurry to increase their income. 

In my earlier article (CLICK HERE) , I mention the importance to strategically position yourself to opportunistically generate more income including passive income.

To succeed Billionaires advised that you need this critical quality . Click HERE

Why should I be a salesperson? Too many Chartered Accountants are inward company focused. This is high risk approach as they are not increasing their personal value to company and not increasing their own income. HUGE MISTAKE!

However, many will say the above title . Let me debunk this myth and show you that you are truly expert salesperson.

Common objection- “I am not a salesperson!”

This is an objection I can personally relate to, as I have never been in sales. Yet, I personally witnessed many professionals and ordinary people become top sales people because of ONE Quality. It is the same quality that you practice everyday, unknowingly.

 
Pic 01: Are you a salesperson with Friends, Families, Business Contacts and Social Contacts (FFBC)? 


I’m not a salesperson
“Terrific! I’m not looking for salespeople! I’ve never been in sales before. I’m simply looking for passionate people, who when they love something they’ll share. We make recommendations every day for things that we love, though we never get paid for it.

 

 Pic 02: Job interview, what do you say?

When you go for job interviews, do you sell your skills? How do you project yourself? Likely you mention your experience, personal qualities on industriousness and perhaps qualifications.





Pic 03: Want to go movie?

    



When you want to convince friends to a movie, don't you sell the attributes of movie? The director, storyline, actors or the appeal of special effects. I am a Star Wars gig, I cannot stop telling you what the next movie is going to be. Will I be paid a commission?

Pic 04: Do I need to explain above?

When you see a potential marriage mate, don't you sell yourself? You put your best behaviour - being a gentleman, kind, thoughtful.

Pic 05: Where is the best Roast Duck in town? 

3 days ago, a long time friend asked me to recommend a good restaurant. I did. You know what? He went with 17 friends to the place. Was I paid a commission by the restaurant? Yet I am a salesperson. 

Really, we are salespeople everyday except for one important missing ingredient. We are not paid commission when we promote a restaurant, movie, company or shopping website. That is really unfair.

I nearly fell off my chair when I discovered in USA Stock Exchange a company that encourages you to recommend their biotechnology and for it, the company has todate paid out US12.6billion! That is TWELVE Petronas Twin Towers & KLCC Mall. 

------

--

Pic 06: Can you imagine, a world leading biotechnology that already paid out TWELVE Petronas Towers and KLCC worth of commissions? There are more to come.

   
Yes, there is money on the table. Do you want to be paid by recommending its world leading biotechnology?  Or continue to be unpaid salesperson for other organisations? Well, the choice is really for us to think about, doesn't it.

So are you a salesperson? Of course you are! 

Just need to direct your salesperson habit to profitable passive income. Anyone buying IPhone X?

Pic 07: Why are you not buying IPhone X? You gotta to be mad not to.get this baby...(state selling points why your friends must buy it) 

There you go again...sales person talk.

Feel free to comment or inquire how you can generate multiple sources of income.

Two Billionaires agree on ONE Critical Quality to Succeed in Business

- related to readers who want Better Income level

Over 60% of Chartered Accountants ventured into businesses either as CEO or self-employed. Why? Because for the same amount of time you put in as a 9-5 job, you earned much more.

What is the KEY to intensifying my income?

But what are the essential qualities to success? ONE actually needed.

World's Richest No. 1 and No. 2 billionaires agree on this.

I am so excited. Will I be successful business-baby?

It all boils down to our attitude rather than aptitude. 

Ask yourself,

Do I look forward to go to work the next day? No?

Do I have sufficient rest and family time with my current job commitments? Not enough?

Are my expenses rising faster than my income? Worries?

Well, if you are answering that I could do better, seek more opportunities in business income.

Most employees are 'trapped' in full time job. They can't venture out as quitting job now is just too risky in this weak economic environment.  This is incorrect approach. To venture out, one has to educate oneself to find which business is best suited that can increase income without huge financial investment commitment.

There is an ACCA Graduate who climbed her way to Managing Partner in a mid sized audit firm in Johor. She was successful with high income but unsuccessful with too little time spent with her 2 children. Wanting to change, she educate herself in biotechnology sector. Despite her colleagues prediction that she will be the last person on earth to succeed in this high growth sector, she persisted.

Today, she already earned over cumulative sum of RM4,300,000. Without need to initially resign, she went for training and do the business simultaneously with her full time job.

Difficult? Of course!

Worth it? Definitely.

Her business monthly passive income is generating five figures while she has time for family and with love ones. That's right, she is earning passive income without active work.

How does she do that? That is related to the article I wrote, on how to position yourself in business that generate the most income. Click here to view it.

Open your mind and eyes. You will see abundant opportunities. Remember, Tony Gaskin observed:

But in business, Chartered Accountants lament,

• I am not a good sales-person, 
• I don't know how to talk, 
• don't know how to meet and negotiate with people.

You will be surprised that is far from the truth. Well, that will be for another article, doesn't it?

Stay tune.


But, let us get one thing clear first. What is the critical quality to succeed in business as Billionairres Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so clearly emphasise. Please see article below. 

Tell me, what you think.

World's Richest men on same bed

Two titans of business took a tour of a mattress factory and seemed to be having the time of their lives. And that merry jaunt during Berkshire Hathaway’s BRK.A, -0.53%  annual shareholders weekend in May is not unrelated to why they’re both billionaires. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates chat and laugh, as they loll about the Buffett-owned Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha, Nebraska.

“My real vocational goal was to be a mattress tester,” Buffett told Gates in the video posted online. “I thought that would be a terrific job.” (Instead, he bought the company.) When asked if he could remember buying his first mattress, the Oracle of Omaha answered, “Well, I didn’t do much of the purchasing in our family. I can’t recall ever buying anything, actually.”

But Buffett and Gates agreed on one thing that drove their success. They did something they enjoyed: Buffett — investing and finding good deals (rather than shopping) and Gates — building computers and software. “Building Microsoft was incredibly fun and because we were right about software we had the wind at our back,” the co-founder of Microsoft MSFT, +0.27%  said.

The chairman of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway said it’s critical to choose a profession or vocation that you love. “Being successful in almost anything means having a passion for it,” Buffett said. “If you see someone with even reasonable intelligence and a terrific passion for what they do, and get people around them to march even when those people can’t see over the top of the next hill.”

It’s something that other successful entrepreneurs always look for in potential investors. Case in point: Max Gunawan, founder of a San Francisco-based Lumio, an LED lighting company, appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2014 to seek investment after raising $578,000 on Kickstarter. He asked billionaire Mark Cuban and the other sharks for $250,000 for an 8% equity stake in his business.

The sharks loved the product, but they were also impressed that Gunawan spent four months camped out at his factory in China perfecting the product. They knew he believed in his lights. All five sharks offered him a deal and he accepted $350,000 for a 10% equity in Lumio from investor and panelist Robert Herjavec. Lumio is now sold in high-end stores all over the world.

 

Can you do business like Billionaire-President of USA Donald? 

Not everyone agrees with the passion approach to finding success. As Cal Newport wrote in his book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.” “If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers.”



  
“But he didn’t follow this simple advice,” Newport wrote of Apple’s AAPL, -0.59%  co-founder who died in 2011. “Apple Computer was decidedly not born out of passion, but instead was the result of a lucky break — a “small-time” scheme that unexpectedly took off. I don’t doubt that Jobs eventually grew passionate about his work.” (Or perhaps his passion was finding solutions to problems.)
Back in Nebraska Furniture, Gates and Buffett stumbled upon another money-making trick in retail. It’s easy to get in, but hard to get out. “How do we get out of here?” Gates asked. “Well, we don’t want you to get out of here. It’s well designed in that respect,” Buffett replied. “It’s like a casino,” Gates said. “Let me get oriented now,” Buffett replied. “The truth is I don’t know where we are.”

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/billionaire-bffs-warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-went-mattress-shopping.html

Stock Market Goes to the Moon - Should you invest in Stock Market?

Consistently, I encourage Chartered Accountants to be more entrepreneurial. Go beyond budgetting, forecasting, compliance accounting, tax submission work. To add value to company, hence your own income potential is to look for new investments.

 

Dow Jones in USA is at record high, over 23,000 index points. Yet, billionaire Warren Buffett with estimated worth USD73billion predicted it will go up another 4,000%. Insane?

 

Well, you need to look from his perspective in USA open and transparent level playing field economy. USA is home to over 70% of world's Largest companies like Walmart, Dell, Amazon, Home Depot, Reeboks and the list goes on.

Should you invest in stocks? Emphatically YES! But timing and required capital is needed.

Where to find businesses to build your capital?

What are the strongest qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Look out in my next article.

To your Profitable Future, 
Marcus

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Warren Buffett Predicting Dow 1,000,000 May Not Be So Insane

 

It would be hard to argue against anything Warren Buffett espouses on investing and markets. The legendary investor always has some sage advice and wisdom to pass along. Recently he said he thought the Dow industrials would reach 1 million in value in about 100 years. The Dow is at about 22,000 now.

Seems wild and outrageous, but on a compound basis it's really not farfetched, and actually might be too low! This prediction assumes about a 4.7% annualized rate of return, yet the industrials can probably do somewhat better than that.

"Whenever I hear people talk pessimistically about this country, I think they're out of their mind," Buffett said Tuesday in New York at a party celebrating the 100^th anniversary of Forbes magazine.
He pointed out the Dow was at 81 a century ago. It was first created in the late 1890s to represent a basket of 30 big American companies.

He noted that since Forbes created its first list of the 400 richest Americans in 1982 -- Buffett was worth just $250 million then -- some 1,500 different people have been included.

All with one thing in common.

"You don't see any short sellers," he said, according to Reuters.

Over 100 years, there are so many obstacles to overcome, but his point here is to stay with the markets, as they will rise over time. And while not many of us reading this today will be around if this comes true, milestones (even wild ones) are fun to discuss and wrangle over.

If there is one person whom we could believe in, it would probably be Warren Buffett. Let's take away from this his enthusiasm for investing in U.S. businesses, the finest and best in the world. Let's hope the generations that follow heed the advice to invest and stay invested, as these markets are tremendous wealth creators -- if you stay the course, like Buffett.

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/story/14317048/1/dow-1-million-in-100-years-maybe-buffett-s-forecast-isn-t-so-crazy.html

Why Business Positioning is Critical to success?

Thoughts from Grant Cardone (on who is he, please click here) ,

 

I can promise you that will not get rich by skipping your daily latte. Look, if you don't have income then there is no money to save. Don't let anyone give you the idea that you need to skip your Starbucks coffee and save $3 a day and that will somehow turn into a fortune.



You can skip your $5 Starbucks every day and save $10,000 over the next five years, but if you think $10,000 is going to change your life, you're not just broke, you're being silly. Of course you should spend less than you earn, but if you make $50,000 a year with a couple of kids, what money is there left over to save?


If you are serious about getting rich, you need to get your mind focused on income. Increase your income enough and you will be able to save something substantial.

Thoughts about Business Positioning. 

Are you in the right place, right time? Able to capitalise it? Your energy and time is a commodity. Anyone and everyone has them. It is how you use it by strategically positioning yourself to capitalize on emerging opportunity.

How much do you think a Coke sells in :


Position One: School?




Position Two: Restaurant?

 



Exactly identical commodity drink, but different position. Possibly a can of coke is RM2.00 in school but RM18.00++ in high end restaurant.

It is not how hard you work that counts, but where you divert your energy. Choosing the right platform is critical to success.

Thus, the golden question is are you increasing your income using the right platform?

You don't need to go far or wait 10 years to find out the answers (the hard way). Look at your seniors, have they got time and financial comfort? Tough to find such ones.

Can you increase your income from your current position? Many accounting professionals do freelance accounting work or GrabCar. Well, that is a start.

But you need to be extremely good in something that adds value to people. What kind of industries are very suitable? A lot. If you open your eyes.

Well, that could be another article.

TOP 5 Ways to attain Wealth

Who is Grant Cardone? He was a drug addict that rehabilitated at 25 years old. Like average youth, wasted his time and life on non-essential activities.



Pic 01: Bestseller Book

Fast forward, today at 58, he has net worth over USD350 million. Well, there must be something to learn.

According to him, here are FIVE Top Ways:

1. Invest in you
Successful people invest time, energy, and money in improving themselves. A man told me once, "The best way you can help people in need is to not be someone in need." Help yourself out so you are in a position to help someone else out. This means investing in yourself to become great at something.

I invested in sales training when I was 25. That made my income-producing ability skyrocket. Investing in yourself is the best investment you can make.

Use this trick to get rich, says self-made millionaire   

2. Find a job in the right vehicle
The rich are able to get in with the right company where there is opportunity for growth. My VP of sales Jarrod Glandt started working for me over seven years ago for $2,500 a month. He wasn't making anything but he was in the right vehicle. He grew his skill set and was able to multiply his monthly income many times over because he knew I was looking to expand.

Too many people just look for a job. You need a job, but you need the right vehicle. All companies live from this thing called revenue. Get commissions rather than just a salary and you will finally be in control of how much you earn.

 Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz greets employees and others at one of the company’s locations in Charleston, S.C., June 19, 2015.

3. Get great at what you do
Commit to being great, not just average. Any industry can be a painful profession for average and bottom performers, but massively rewarding for those that are great. Those that live, breathe, and eat their profession, those that are obsessed, become great.

I have never met a great who wasn't all in and completely consumed by their trade. Have you?
The fact is, if you aren't great, you are average. The rich get great.

 

Invest in marketing and communication skills.

4. Get multiple, connected income streams flowing
You won't get rich without multiple flows of income. That starts with the income you currently have. Increase that income and start adding multiple flows.

You want what are called symbiotic flows. Do not just add disconnected flows. Instead, find other ways you can add income to the job you already have. My video guy does advertising for me — and after proving himself, he started making advertisements for those connected to me. He didn't start a doughnut shop.

Too many people go from one flow to a second flow, resulting in two flows that do nothing. Your flows should always be connected.

"Saving $100,000 shows that you have an ability to make money and keep it. Most people can't do either."

5. Hit $100K, then invest the rest
First, try to save $100,000. Why? You need to prove to yourself that you can go out and get money. If you only have $10,000 saved, your only priority should be increasing your income so that you can save more.

Saving $100,000 shows that you have an ability to make money and then to keep it. Most people can't do either of those things.
 
Once you can earn and save, then you can start building wealth. I'd recommend multi-family real estate if you are conservative like me. I never looked to get rich quick, but I did look to get rich.

Source: Grant Cordon, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/05/self-made-millionaire-here-are-5-ways-to-get-rich.html.

-------------- End of Article-------------- 

While it is important to work hard, it is even more important to find the right vehicle to position yourself to make multiple source of income.

To be successful, we need to be focused on our priorities. Are we willing:

•  to make sacrifices?
•  to learn new skills including non-accounting knowledge?
•  to come out of our comfort zone? Which later you will find out not so comfortable after coming out.
•  to develop new habits? 

I know of real estate agents who invest in properties following their key clients who are expert in the area. Fast forward 20 years, they have wealth.

Wealth is different from riches. Well, that would be another day, another topic.

Tell me what you think, putting your opinions below.

Appreciate, professionalism in your language used. No profanities, prejudices or political sensitive remarks please.