Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Brand is a symbol, name, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service or business. A business without a brand is like a headless body with no identity.

It is the title; subject who tells the audience, clients and passer-bys what this business, product or service is about. Without a good brand, it will send a wrong signal to the clients affecting the revenue and profit of the business.

If done properly, the business will have brand equity, equity, intangible asset, trademark and many others. It symbolized the quality assurance, reputable, creditable business offering products and services which the customers will trust without a doubt.

It is what separates and distinguish between successful wealthy big businesses versus small scale businesses that do not know how to optimize and leverage on their brand.

Making money is simple, making tons of money is difficult and it boils down to the brand, business strategies and how it intends to sell itself to the market. There’s lots of considerations, but start business off with the right footing, brand yourself, your business, products and services first.

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Battle is the contest of strength and merits of individuals in a hostile engagement in any environment.

It is not simply a fight, instead it consist of many other factors and hopes pin onto that single or group battle of participants where dreams, hopes, dignity, reputation and pride are on the line.

Emerging victorious from a battle with valour is the pride of the winner representing not only himself, and also the coach, people who believe in the contestant/fighter, the same race and even the country he is representing.

When a contestant is selected, he no longer represents himself but represents all the people and is wearing the national flat in a battle. Living the dream and living up to the nation’s reputation, pushing themselves forward at times even if they themselves want to surrender at times.

That is when moral support, motivation, cheers works on the contestant who represents their dreams to push on and fight harder than before the results are announced.

In the technology era, there is no longer the physical battle. Instead it has all switched to the use of media, wanting to emerge as the winner in respective fields to be acknowledge as the global champion without engaging in fights which is also known as politics.

There are two concurrent wars happening in every single country on earth, the war of politics and government fighting on two fronts but using the same soldiers.

The top cabinet ministers are the politicians wanting to establish themselves as the good person helping other nations in need thus they go for bilateral ties and treaties with respective nations with mutual beneficial terms.

On the other hand, the same cabinet ministers are fighting their own battle with the civilians who are their boss and may pass the rights to run the country to another political group if they fail to satisfy their needs which are employment and ensuring everyone gets paid.

This is what I myself view as a losing battle, one person cannot fight on two fronts, moreover they don’t even understand what the external nations wants with their own country and there they are trying to win on both sides and are sinking on both ships with each leg stuck in a ship each, sinking along with them.

What kind of battle are you up against with? Who are your competitors? Are you representing yourself or your parents or even your own organization? What is it that you seek? Before you even have the desire for battle, what is the purpose?

Battle is the same in business, fighting everyday for profits, sales, clients, and with the objective in mind to win and emerge victorious thus growing rich, affluent into big companies and businesses.

Are you rich or in the process of making it? How do you plan to strategically move yourself up there and where are your alliances? Identify all these to increase your odds of success.

If you don’t plan, you plan to fail.

Failure is not a option but a chance to do self-reflection.

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Provocateurs are people who are employed by an entity to act as a undercover and to entice, provoke another person, group or business to commit wrong and rash actions.

It is a strategic and intelligent move by taking advantage of the weakest link.

It is a silent killer in politics everywhere, from home, schools to office politics and even businesses, such people are always around, and how often are you able to spot and identify such people?

They are under-cover agents or spies wanting to frame an individual or a group to achieve their personal gains and benefit from a chaotic situation. An example is the most talked about demonstration in Thailand.

Live ammunition were used in the demonstration, with many eye witnesses saying that soldiers using it while others remarks saying there were people who were from neither the demonstrators or the military force who were using live rounds, instead it was from people who were firing at innocent people form rooftops.

Remarks came from a former cabinet minister Suranand Vejjajiva now a respected political commentator as reported in Straits Time Newspapers.

Unknown gunmen were taking advantage of the hostility between the red shirt demonstrators and the opposition military force compromising of police and army.

From my humble opinion, instead of focusing on the violence, lost of lives, both parties, the red shirt demonstrators and the military police and army should join hands and come to a mutual agreement to save lives.

By having a agreement which is to weed out, capture those gunmen and soldiers caught using live ammunition and bring such provocateurs to justice who are trying to make matters worse by taking advantage of the situation.

While there’s chaos, agreement should be focus on peaceful demonstration and reducing the numbers of lives lost due to such gunmen.  To learn how to handle such issues, just stay tuned to get yourself updated on the news from Channel News Asia.

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Slandering happens almost everywhere and anywhere. It is a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or a report against somebody usually towards either a politician, celebrity or a business owner or their companies.

It is a wrong intention of business strategic move in attempt to de-throne a existing person/business’s intangible good will which is reputation, creditability and branding. It has being time tested again and again that slandering does not work against reputable politicians especially well know figures and celebrities who commands a strong support from their supporters.

By accusing somebody of a misdeed, the accuser is putting himself/herself at risk of being black-listed, one who can badmouth someone, can also do the same to their own company and leak secrets. Moreover, once the defamation has taken place, the impact and damage done is immediately being thrown back to that person.

Accuser must come up with facts and rock solid evidence to back up whatever he/she said against somebody or a business. Without facts, most of the time, the accused emerge victorious when law suits are being carried out and the accuser learn his/her mistake the hard way by paying the compensation for slandering someone or the business, the lawyer fees, lost of own reputation, creditability on the long term.

Most importantly, all these leads to one thing, lost of business clients which translate to lose of business revenue permanently and that will make potential clients think twice if they want to engage the services of someone who was taken to court for slandering.

Think twice the next time if you want to speak, first go through your mind if you are speaking to somebody who is a celebrity, business owner or politician and even to rich affluent friends. Do not get into unnecessary trouble.

What you cannot enforce, do not command. – Sophocles

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Eliminate is to get rid, omit or remove from further consideration or competition. It is to be void or expel and when it becomes serious such as to eradicate and kill the enemy.

Elimination is what keeps the Asian nations running and function perfectly like a well oiled engine with a system that never breaks down not even once.

In the game of elimination, where it is embraced and practiced by Asian countries, it is a similar to the game show “Survivor” from the USA or “Ninja Warrior” from Japan. The strongest contender wins the game and is crowned the champion at least for that very moment and during the process.

Failure is not an option nor do we Asians encourage one another, it may look bad on the surface, but in fact this elimination culture in Asians is what keeps us going and striving for the better and to surpass the previous champions and winners previously.

Once you fail in any segment of the game show, you are eliminated instantly either by the rules or via votes. For you to come back again, you need to wait for the next show to win back your honor, something which the Japanese perfected in their quest for supremacy thus it climb back up from the fall of the WWII to be the leader in technology.

China is another highly and extremely competitive country, where the strongest and fittest survives. On the surface it may look cruel to abandon our peers and move forward, but this trait and style of practice is essential in the quest for supremacy. Why so, because in order to be the supreme leader in whatever you do, there is no room for weaklings, thus elimination is the way business is conducted thus the difference in business ethics between China and USA.

Singapore on the other hand is a cosmopolitan country with such a rich mixture of nationalities from all over the country that it is no longer works on neither encouragement nor elimination. Instead Singapore is purely and solely based on Black and White, everything has to be spelled out for on the paper in the law. With neither sides near us, the weak minded people will naturally open themselves to lots of problems like being over dependant on the country which is what most of the Asians are doing and is not restricted to only Singapore but also to our neighboring countries.

Being an island with no common share identities with other nations, we need to identify ourselves, like our forefathers in history which we learn, we should take up entrepreneurship, look at the Chinatown back than, it was buzzing with activities and businesses, so much so that it causing problems but that is a positive problem. Look at the current Singapore and ask yourself what is the difference, and if you bright enough with see what I see, you are somewhere there already.

I may not be somebody now, but with time, you will see what I am made off. Either you join me now and we work together and build trust, or in future I select candidates and partners to work with. You decide for yourselves. Look at Bill Gates and his investors, those who invested in them when they were back than a nobody is already benefiting lots from their first investment to date. Vision and foresight is what keeps an entrepreneur moving despite all odds moving against the tide emerging as the champion, the supreme leader.

Success is not a process, it is war, and in war, you need to eliminate your enemies and step on their corpses, with the killing intent and aura to scare off any potential competitors. Constantly improve and work with like minded people to succeed together. Refer to Chinese Three Kingdoms if you need more information.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

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Encourage is to promote, advance and foster the spirit of confidence and inspire with courage. In different countries lies different culture and practice.

Encouragement culture doesn’t works in Asian countries but it works very well in western countries. Encouragement is one of the attributes leading to the success and glory of their nations.

Failure is not a way out for western nations but it is a way out for Asians especially in poorer nations thus entrepreneurship isn’t practiced in such nations.

In the show “America Gladiators” the contestants who dropped off from the hand bike where they use purely hand power to push themselves forward, but should they failure to cling onto, they are still not out of the game and can climb their way back up into the game and continue.

Having watched this game show for quite some time, it displays and gradually becoming clearer to me that different countries shows are based on their own style.

Patriotism, encouragement and just a tiny little bit of propaganda which not many people would notice in everything that they do. It is so natural to them that they do it naturally like a auto-run program which manifest by themselves. The most obvious style which they do things is that they never fail to showcase their national flag on any shows or events and competition.

Being proud of themselves, mutual encouragement and helping one another is how they do things there contributing to their successes and glory. It is something that we must learn but not necessary a need to learn, just know it and apply but don’t focus heavily on such style or culture. I will tell you why in the next blog entry with the title Eliminate.

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Supremacy is a philosophy that one is superior to others, so dominate, control or rule those who do not.

It is to be of the highest in rank or authority; paramount; sovereign; chief.

Every nation has something which they regard themselves as the chief, be it food, people, language, unique resources and even military might.

USA is the current chief in military ability due to Nuclear power, but not the highest, because it is sharing the number one position with Russia, because before USA it was Russia whereby Rome was one of the first few countries to win numerous battles in war thus of the success and rich heritage around the world with the little bits and pieces of heritage left behind.

Before Russian (Rome civilization), it was the Greek history of ancient Greece civilization which inspired Rome. Than later comes Adolf Hitler who than made Germany a supreme country back than.

Back to the subject proper, supremacy can be found in France too for its nuclear abilities thus the reason why USA will not do anything against European nations which are on par with them. Thus USA can easily declare war with Iran and other small countries, due to military abilities.

It is the supremacy here that is the primary reason for having war. The fear of the next rise in another supreme country in terms of military abilities especially in terrorist which is Iran as well as another country which is in loggerheads with USA is China, the communist country, self-sufficient and need not even rely on USA for nearly everything if I am not wrong.

Look at the way USA is trying to discuss, persuade these countries and imposing sanctions on bilateral ties, it’s all about business, profits, having a smaller competitor is way better than allowing a fellow competitor to surpass you putting yourself at more risk. It’s all purely business and politics, using treaty to ensure that they can profit from other respective countries.

Looking beyond military, Japan was also one a ‘supremacy country’ in military during WWI but thanks to alliances of fellow European nations, Japan is back to its own humble beginnings due to treaty agreements signed in WWII. But that has not stopped Japan’s supremacy; in fact it is a blessing in disguise. Japan is the most high tech countries in the globe, thanks to the war treaty, they shifted their focus to the financial sector thus it is the second strongest country with China catching up closely behind at third due to currency reasons.

Egypt is has it’s own supremacy too and that is in the preservation of bodies, mummification and pyramid structure which is still a mystery to date on why it is able to help preserve mummies back then.

To succeed with a big bang and buzz allowing neighbouring nations or competitors to acknowledgement requires skill, supreme skills, ability and unchallenged niche.

Shao Lin Shi in China is another supreme in the martial arts, whereby it integrates all different forms of martial arts into the present Shao Lin Martial arts with the help of the marital arts masters in the records of history.  Bruce Lee is another chief in martial arts, being the first yellow skin to be honored by Hollywood.

India is another country, without wanting to copy Hollywood, it come up with Bollywood to feature their own films and industry over taking Hollywood in terms of movie production per year showcasing their own supremacy without following and instead start by leading and opening a new trail.

Supremacy is the way to go, if you don’t know what is your strengths, follow another person who knows their strengths and work closely with those people, and one day you will be considered as one of the co-founders of whatever is going to be the next supreme industry be it business, military, technology, science or others.

“Be the best at what you can do and constantly upgrade yourself to be the supreme leader of your niche” – That’s what I would say and tell to anybody who decides to take on entrepreneurship. Be the leaders and not the followers.

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Arrogance is to be overbearing to the extent that people around them disapprove of their behavior or actions. It is the offensive display of superiority or self-importance without any humility.

Arrogant behavior is when people who are confident starts to show off and think that nobody is having more results, profits and potential than their peers and not thinking that someday there will be somebody who is better than them in everything appearing in front of them.

Such people assume that they are superior towards others, by being insolently proud. If you know of such people, they will only hang around people who are weaker than themselves playing the big brother looking after their smaller siblings while taking instructions from their senior brother behind the scene who is in-charge of him. The senior lets him have all the face, ego and pride, a perfect example, gangsters, loan-sharks who hang around together.

In times of trouble, than you will see each of them running for their own lives and survival in the event of a bigger group of gangsters seek revenge on the weak, particular going after a smaller group of individuals.  In Singapore, you will never ever see gangsters on equal strengths pit off against one another in a fight, it is only in Hong Kong, Japan and other countries than will you see them in the newspapers when titans fight one another.

People who are arrogant simply just display the sign of actually being a coward who depends on a group of people to solve their own personal grievances via revenge. They socialize only among themselves, and is contented with the false protection they enjoy.

Police are the military titans who are not arrogant like gangsters; in fact they just observed them like the big brother, only coming into the picture when they start to stir trouble and problems making the police job difficult.  This is a standard observation from news press all over the world; they just sit by the side and observe which has more benefits than otherwise.

In business sense and perspective, it is easier and preferred to allow your competitors whom you know at the back of your hand to survive, knowing their strengths and weakness by hard than to silence all the competitors they know and give rooms to new competitors that they now have to work hard and gathering evidence against a newly formed group making their job more difficult. Rather than killing all opposition, why not just let them survive, and only show their power when such gangs get out of hand.

The competitors can sort of like be each others allies in one way or another, given the sufficient space to live, they will not clash, than the gangsters who the police know at the back of their hands will help the police reduce their workload by stopping any newly formed gangs from increasing their territory thus in a way, that’s how the society works.

Know who your allies are and who your enemies are. Mutual cooperation is needed even if there’s a conflict of interest for survival.

“War/Business is not risky, being unprepared for war/business is risky” – Robert T.Kiyosaki.

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Fast is a word used to describe anything that is moving, functioning or have a quick; swift; rapid results.

It is also to firmly fix into a place that is not easily moved, to achieve a permanent lasting or unchangeable results.

Look at our daily activities where fast efficiency is strongly emphasis, who are the people who are really encouraging the order to be efficient, and who gains from being efficient? Take a look at any employment, businesses, and ask yourself that question.

What benefit did you yourself get when you are efficient at work? The project is delivered on time, the company makes the profit, which in turn increases the clients’ trust in the company who takes the credit, and get more projects in future. Do you have a instant pay rise for each successful project or assignment which you have completed at work? The answer is straight forward, NO WAY will you ever get fast pay increment for the profits you help the company and your employer makes.

In the employment world, employees are getting paid only less than ten percent of the total value of the profits they help deliver to the company and the business. From CEOs helping close billions worth of projects, their reward at year end, only a few millions around one to five million at most, which is less than one percent of the profit the CEO help the company made.

Such is the world of employment whereby if you want to earn fast money, simplest way is to work in an employment and get paid peanuts, thus job is always said to be in a Just Over Broke living on monthly salary.

Fast is not a good practice to begin with. We all seriously want to have a slow setting, look at the service line in particular the food and beverage industry. Do the high class restaurants and hotels rush the customers to finish the food fast or do small scale low class restaurants and coffee shops encourage this behavior? Providing quality service and comfort is the factor allowing businesses to make profits, not fast efficiency which will have negative impact on the business.

Even in the any food preparation for a dinner, in particular large scale dinner for a company event or wedding, it takes time again to do preparations for it. Weeks of planning, food tasting, budgeting, fine tuning the choice of dishes and ensuring quality so to deliver the final product on the day of the event which takes time and again, it must be done slowly to allow customer satisfaction.

In business, the person who takes the first mover advantage is usually the biggest winner even if other competitors jump into the arena, but the difference is, the former is prepared for the battle whereas the latter is totally unprepared and caught off guard by the sudden increase in demand for the certain business which brings in profits, without understanding anything, they throw in lots of investments, just to be on the bandwagon and the results are fatal.

Look at the Luohan Fish and Bubble Tea business which has died down in Singapore and is no longer as profitable as it once used to be. All these are fast business overnight but as fast as they come, the leave equally as fast too.

In health and medical science, there is again another clear example of being slow works better than fast.

The western preference of instant drugs and medications versus traditional Chinese Medicine via acupuncture practice which requires time to heal the patient with long period of time of session which is slow as compared to fast remedy of western drugs and medication which cannot heal but rather only delay the situation from getting any worse and it comes with side effects as well that caused a lot of problems surfacing with time.

With 5,000 years history of TCM (traditionally Chinese medicine using natural herbs) practice in China, western drugs and medication which is less than hundreds of years, there is absolutely no way that drugs in the form of medication made up of chemicals will do the body any good. In fact herbs and TCM via herbs and herb therapy can really heal a person from the root of the problem, but not drugs which just remove the tip of the ice berg only. Drugs only became popular at WWII when there were heavy casualties which are the only catalyst to fast remedy.

The only reason modern medical science is making way much more money and profits is because they are fast, and helps people who do not mind wasting more money paying for temporary solution which leads to side effects of another symptoms and health complications costing you more money.

If you are looking for permanent remedy to the root of the problem, seek TCM, likewise if you seek to accumulate wealth, be an entrepreneur, that starts from the mind and getting into the right thinking first before anything else.

If you want to make money, you go fast. If you want to make profits and accumulate wealth, you do it slow and that leads to entrepreneurship.

True the TRUE?? You decide.

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Businessmen all may employ some strategies that lead to the success which they are enjoying today. But when you look at real entrepreneurs, most of the successful entrepreneurs don’t really have any strategies to being with.

In fact some entrepreneurs will even tell you that it’s their passion in which they do thus they just do it. This is a natural progression in any life cycle, growing up and evolves into newer, better self. The more I read books, the more I realize how much I don’t know. The more I read about successful businesses, the more I realize their success today is fueled purely by their passion, determination and hard work.

When they understand what they are doing, identifying and doing something which nobody has even look nor find it possible, is a perfect invisible strategy that can’t be learned. Passion can’t be learned but it can be identified easily.

Strategies are only used if you are the new kid on the block; try to fight for a slice of the pie from the market. Not many succeeded this way, but those who succeeded, either pour huge amounts of capital branding, value and high standards of customer service in order to succeed.

So if you aren’t a guy that will plan nor use strategies, the next best possible ways to succeed is to ask yourself what your passion are. I’ve identified my own and I’m working towards my own passion currently with the right timing of helping my mentor.

Passion will be your ultimate fuel to succeed even if everyone Is against you. The more opposition you are up against, the sweeter your last laugh will be when you are standing on the top having opened a new trail and declared it as yours owning the rights to it.

There is a slogan by Energizer “Never say die” which shares the same meaning as “Never Quit” quitters never wins. Which is why the forerunners always have the first mover advantage because they will never accept “No” as answer until a solution has being created.

There are many people who tried to climb the ranks to being rich by employing strategies, but if you use underhand strategies, it will someday come back to you. The best strategy to succeed is as simple as not having any strategy so nobody can copy you nor understand what you’re trying to create until you have create both the product, services and training for people who sees the value and than competitors will start surfacing trying to grab a slice.

Before they can even grab one, the impact is already felt, the first person that started it has already build an empire of brand, reputation which isn’t simple to usurp to throne.

Quitters never win. Winners never quit. That to me and to all others is and will be best strategy fueled by passion.

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