Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Just like the leadership picture above, “The leader always sets the trail for others to follow”

In the recent ongoing Thailand flooding news, Yingluck Shinawatra the new Prime Minister of Thailand is immediately being placed in a position to be tested for her leadership and ability to take Thailand and move forward.

Being faced with the sudden flooding over increase rainfall and poor water dam management system, lack of governor support from Bangkok, she shares the same fate of any politician across the globe and suffered a recent drop in satisfaction in the country survey with her as the Prime Minister.

Looking back at how she became elected, most critics would clearly comment that it was her brother Thaksin Shinawatra who has elevated her status over close ties due to family bonding. Just as Yingluck was elected into the office, she had a minister office meeting with Thaksin on the video conference to advise the cabinet ministers on the exact steps and instructions on how to run the country prior to the flooding, so as to enforce a pillar of support drilling down into the cabinet ministers who are all guys to listen to Yingluck, as she can’t shake away the gossips of her being the puppet of her brother.

As to why Yingluck won, it’s clear to anybody who’s got concerned and knows the importance of network, connections to those individuals who has both power and ability to run a country where some ministers still trust Thaksin and not Yingluck.

Abhisit Vejjajiva the former Prime Minister on the other hand got to power by primarily having merchants and investors support on his side to climb up to that position, but it isn’t long before the truth is revealed as he also has got news reports of bribing or favoring investors more over country’s political laws at the expense of the poor.

Abhist got kicked out from the cabinet due to the almost similar method that he used on Thaksin, which is to favor the rich investors for support, but what he failed to do is to win the support of the poor too, a move that Thaksin did extremely well, at least when it comes to the Red Shirts.

If you were to follow closely to how Thailand’s change of leadership over the last few years where news surface and reasons contributing to their downfall. There’s a couple of reasons to why strong leadership is critical towards a success of a nation.

Strong leadership is important for the following reasons:

1. To lead and improve the living conditions of the masses (majority)

This is evident during Thaskin era when he was still the Prime Minister, having the support of both the Red and Yellow shirt party.

Red shirt support comes in the form of the poverty majority, whereas Yellow shirt comes in the form of silent support from the Thailand King who maintain a neutral position when Abhist was trying to topple Thaksin down, thus the Yellow shirt didn’t make much noise when he was at the top following the loyalty to the King.

2. To go against the views of the ill-informed (poor mindset individuals) who are making the wrong decisions to push forward against the tide to make reforms for the better future.

As much as Yellow shirt dislike Thaksin, could be due to wrong information, disagreements in how the country is being run, thus the strong opposition, but time has proven Thaksin to be clean and still holds influential support in terms of bilateral ties. Yingluck appointed a former Thaksin entrusted minister to fixed the strain ties between Cambodia and Thailand over the historical temple parked directly on the border of both countries and got the matter fixed.

Unlike before when Abhist was still in office, Thailand and Cambodia was like kids fighting each other just to win for the pride of their own ego just to prove their point in not backing down despite repeated agreements to cease-fire to return peace to the civilians living near the temple.

That said, connections is extremely important, as Countries and Businesses alike, they only work with people they like. Period.

3. Win the support of the majority to have a large bargaining chip to  to reach a mutually beneficial agreement on both sides internally within a country.

Thaksin has won over the hearts of many people, at least within the red shirts, the poor, middle class and even the high social status individuals including the ministers over proven track record of delivering results and profits for the benefit of the country.

The only thing he didn’t do is to cut all ties from his personal business when he is in office as a Prime Minister, thus causing the backlash and giving his political competitors an opportunity to use it against him placing himself on the chopping board.

4. To win the support of external players (foreign countries support for aid in times of need)

When Thaksin flew global and went into self-exile, many countries were willing to lend him a helping hand, it is solely because of his knowledge and experience in running a country and producing consistent profits and most importantly (proven results), strong support from home country despite his lack of physical absence, his popularity is still consistent and didn’t drop, but rise on the other hand. Something that other countries’ Ministers cannot achieve.

5. To balance and neutralize the poisonous intoxicated thinking of the poor over time in proving that the leadership roles taken by the Prime Minister is correct and ultimately win the support of the very people who are initially against him/her.

The most difficult part of leadership is also at times having to force down a bitter pill down the throat of the supporters for their own good even if they don’t see it that way. While Yingluck has just assume office in the cabinet, she has got more obstacles standing in her way than the other earlier prime ministers.

Only time will tell if she is up to the role as prime minister.

In terms of business, running a company is also like running a country, just that the roles and responsibility is somewhat smaller due to financial asset and the impact it has on the country.

But like any leader, the person running the company must have strong leadership skills and many different resources, network and flexible enough to solve problems when they do surface and making sure the problems do not repeat itself again in future.

Singapore did a good job in this aspect avoiding the most financial woes of US, and Europe as she learn her lessons not to be overdependent on foreign nations.But as much as Singapore is trying to avoid the effects of foreign woes, it will still be affected due to long term positive working relations that will affect the economy.

United States of Amercia (USA) on the other hand is still suffering the losses in financial market since the downfall of Lehman Brothers and without a huge bank occupying the leadership role, the side effects of a no leader situation is clear, where unemployment is high, made worse following most recently rogue trader with a $2.3 billion of trade loss adding to the unemployment woes.

In terms of Europe, it is primarily due to uncooperative to nation as Geek lets the people decide their own fate to accept foreign financial aid or not on condition they tighten their budget and make changes beneficial to foreign countries that will be painful to Geek civilians at least in the immediately short term.

It is clear that being at the top isn’t a simple task and is constantly under pressure to delivery, thus strong leadership skills is crucial if success at the top is what each and everyone of us are looking for.

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I believe majority of the successful individuals out there are always looking for the checklist and formula but over the years, i realize from over the years of searching for the answer, it is actually very simple, yet most people would avoid it at all cost. There are just some times when you give it your best but still fail to meet the grade.

To succeed, is to first learn to fail, not only faster, but numerous more times than what the majority have not gone.

By doing so, it is actually doing ourselves a service, to take a shortcut and fast-forward towards success, and avoid banging into the same walls and repeat the mistakes which new business owners, and start-ups will face.

Failures is the success package that is only being wrapped up with newspapers instead of beautiful gift wrapping paper.

Success with failures alone is not sufficient, the individual must be able to learn, reflect, and ensure there’s no repeat of the same mistakes, thus increasing the probability of success.

You’ll need to have quality gift being as the main ingredient that will guarantee your success, that is experience, and an eagle’s eye for details. The ability to identify potential trouble makers even before they show any signs by simply testing them, and making observations.

There are a few list of factors that which I’ve realized that success really does require third party or external help in order to process the gift to be of value to be appreciated by the recipient.

The help is not physical help, but rather in a form of experience, exposure, being placed in a difficult situation, and building a portfolio leveraging on a stronger brand initially until the personal branding and reputation is recognized by the related industry players before coming out on your own.

As i gradually am being tasked to help the company filter and identify quality service providers to increase the efficiency of the business, I realized something that I never once know nor even read in any books, but did watch and picked up in movies.

“It is not who you are that matters, it is who you represents that matters!”

By representing the business, the trust, creditability and financial ability are than being placed on the business representative, thus a nobody can instantly become a somebody due to a company employed individual, than when the company’s name is mentioned, the trust is immediately shifted to me, the representative, than a person becomes of value.

That is something that will never happen in a hardcore one-man-show type of entrepreneur example, and they will take a longer time to succeed, as they build on the trust, reputation from nothing.

It takes at least three to five years to build and grow reputation for a already successful business to be even successful, whereas it takes close to ten years for a individual to be successful, as a person build everything up from nothing.

Learning to leverage on a strong company with proper branding, credentials is an important skill, you don’t need to work for the business to leverage as joint venture or having them as your client works equally well if not better. So if you have nothing, start finding a company whom will offer you that positive leverage.

Exposure to more competitive market, under pressure to deliver results, combined with limited resources will really stretch an individual in a positive way towards success. Something that I currently am being placed in such a situation, or risk losing the job confirmation, at least that’s the way i am reading the danger signs from the instructions given to me to carry out the work.

Being exposed to competition is similar to the process of creating a gem, that requires high pressure in confined space to create a raw gem stone, following which, requires precise polishing that requires a skilled and trained individual to do so.

Limited resources forces a person to put on their thinking cap, thinking out of the box, and use any closest possible solution to address the problem first. During this process, it is a gradual appreciation and change in the way individuals do things, in terms of principles and perspective change towards the better and gets a person to see things from another perspective and get their brain run faster than ever.

With exposure to different landscape and business practices to meet expectations and delivery dates, it forces a person to level up and change gear to move faster or risk elimination. This is something that being a self-employed one-man-show entrepreneur, can never experience due to no competition except for themselves and against the naysayers hoping that they will fail faster so all their friends can celebrate failure together.

Being thrown in different situations will really help shape a person, their experience to be a better person and an informed decision maker. It is required to create the gift to be of value in order to be appreciated. This gift is what most if not all people will admit without any disagreements and that is experience, as it helps provide them from harm’s way.

There are both positive and negative experience, to be successful, it means to learn how to convert every single negative experience and failure in a positive learning experience to face the same problems at attempt to fix the issues at it’s root cause instead of running and avoiding it. That’s the ultimate difference in the successful and the failures.

Failure is not a option. it is a necessity before you can succeed.

Exposure, experience with the proper leverage under pressure with no alternative choice will help propel oneself or a business towards success.

When you feel helpless, than will you grow faster at the next opportunity to grow, thus learning to real truth to make full use of any opportunity that comes to us, thus the success succeed because they understand this perfectly and capitalize on it better then their competitors.

Cherish what you have and milk every single drop out of it.

In a nut-shell: The only competitive advantage a successful business have over their competitors is to be one-step faster than their competitors.

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It’s being two full months since I have worked in this new company, left with only one more month before I know if I will be confirmed or not.

Working in a MNC level company is yet, especially when it is small and everybody in the company are taking multiple roles, projects etc. There’s no exception for me despite me being new, since I am hired to do exactly what i know best, that is to help push the company website to page one.

But there are many obstacles that are required to clean up, especially when it means clearing up and simplifying the previously complicated working procedures from previous web-designers, programers and those that had already left the company just so to make themselves look good.

It was only just a few days back that I finally learn what i am hired for, as the interview while is a breeze, but the probation period helped to-date help me better understand why big companies wants to have their own in-house employees knowing what’s going on, so they can take immediate action and react quickly.

But on the other side, I found that there are more to it than it meets the eye. As it is impossible to 100 percent implement the full changes that I need need to limited resources, lack of mutual understanding due to differences in knowledge and position.

Having to do search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), social media optimization (SMO), display advertising, press-release articles marketing, electronic brochure ad copy design, fixing website errors, video advertising, that’s a lot of work, but it’s fun and educational at the same time, having to learn to juggle between the multiple roles and focus on the higher priority tasks first.

While I’m trying to help the company cut cost, yet company is pushing for sales, growing revenue, coming up with text copies for upcoming ads, scheduling, and pre-plan ad copies with text and theme before handing over to the web-designers to draft the ad copies.

To top things off, I only learn the full extent of my area of responsibility when I had the xml sitemap crawled the full website and uploaded it to Google. The results that came back surprised me, that I was handling a website that has over 3,800+ dynamic web pages that only complicates things further.

Working in a MNC company is challenging, as it really stretches one’s ability, and helps put on a thinking cap. Coming up with alternative solutions whenever the while hat standard business practice of website optimization for search engines are not applicable in the short-mid term at least, and coming up with other ideas to bend it towards making it search engine friendly legally using white hat strategies while complying with Google search engine rules.

The one thing that helps consultants get a really clear idea of what is lacking in a current live website will be Google Webmaster Tools, where they provide us with reports of the web pages crawling error, missing pages, and many other features that is required to better optimize the page for more online visibility.

Not only does it tells us the errors that we have, it only provides the link of back-links, even expired back-links that may be linking to missing pages, the traffic sources, and the global heat map of the concentration of audience that are visiting the website, providing business owners a clearer picture of where to focus their attention on, the buyer’s market and not markets that they think they want to go in yet there’s no demand.

The features in which are really helpful, and the best part is, it is completely free, saving businesses hundreds and even thousands of dollars if the person knows how to read and use the data given by Google correctly.

Back to subject proper, regarding the difficulties, initially, I thought I only need to report to my direct superior, it’s after this period that i realize other wise. In fact it is completely different, having learn from my direct superior that reporting is redundant,  what he and the business needs is reports of changes and any improvements in ranking.

Being the first person to lead and implement changes to turn a unfriendly website and make it search engine friendly is a uphill task and that give me lots of room to play with proper guidance and consultation with frequent advices and feedback from another colleague who’s also considered my superior due to her experience in every single department of the company.

It is much more difficult to implement changes when the system is already built on a search engine unfriendly platform, and having a whole team of support that doesn’t supports nor know optimization thus making it much more difficult. Nevertheless, it is a challenging task that allows me to learn and better appreciate what my mentor has taught me, and cherish what Google has done, to make their advertising platform as easy as possible so that anybody can advertise on Google on their own without any support staff for fear that staffs may screw up their advertising campaign, thus it is a smart move of Google to let clients advertise on their own.

Other search engine competitors wants to increase their competitive advantage, yet it is this very strategy of helping clients optimize their campaigns that is turning off clients, for what i realized is that they are already providing low quality traffic, now they still want to provide poorly trained support staffs to handle the campaigns, that’s really a huge joke, something that businesses wants to do.

That is something that is still lacking in the competitors that Google is fighting against. I know this because I was actually told to maximize the reach and awareness of the company branding and services, thus i had to keep on asking, just so that i can show that I am doing what is expected of me.

Here’s the ironic part, and i still cannot get this answer, why would i want to burn more of companies’ funds on search engines that are not providing quality traffic like Google, since Google is having over 85% of the traffic where search engine is concerned, so it doesn’t really make any sense for me to visit competitors who I already sensed from the contact page when I test their customer support staff’s knowledge, they don’t know what they are doing, yet wanting to optimize the campaign, sensing that they might work against my companies’ interest, i just continue to probe more. Now still in progress until I know how the lines are being drawn.

This employment that I have currently is great, as it gives me a chance to learn how to manage people, something that only department heads have to do. On one-hand, i have to report to superiors, on the other hand, i have to manage the graphics designer, and website coding staff (designer) and getting sure that my work doesn’t gets delayed. It definitely a great learning experience where business is concerned, like piecing up a large thousand pieces puzzle together, that will require lots of patience and hard-work.

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It’s being five weeks since I resume working about a long time break from my stubborn entrepreneurial journey, which tripped me over and fall.

Over the past five weeks, while it was great to be working again, getting financially rewarded for efforts put it, but than again, it has its adverse effect too..

Which is that being working puts an individual in a fixed routine and that creates a comfort zone, or should I say encourage laziness.

In the past when I wasn’t working, I had time to read books, a chapter a day from two books, an English business book as well as a Chinese historical book on Mencius, Confucius those type of books where we learn of how to think act and behave like in the past, to be a better person.

Before working, ideas were flying by literally on a daily basis as I read and gain new knowledge reading a new chapter from both books daily, after starting working, stopped reading, due to fatigue, weekends spend relaxing, ideas now comes only like once or twice in a week at most..such is the different in learning and growing of wisdom and the clear drop in quality content and the lengthy blog post (at least that happened for my last two post before this post).

That explains why the slower pace of writing new blog entries in sharing new ideas and strategies among other thoughts that I linked up from my past business experience having tried to market products and services to retail shop owners/in-charge else to clarify on the link between a employee and employer and how it helps both sides grow.

To get the best out of working without being having to reduce in brain activity is to continuous do what you like to do, and continue to learn on a daily basis. That is the one and only way to keep growing.

The best part of reading from past historical books gathered from the wisdom and knowledge of China, helped shaped my thoughts and speed up my maturity to way past head and shoulders beyond my peers. While they are starting to plan only about their career, I’m already planning the direction and charting the path in steps and details about my growth, and how I am going to increase my wealth in the next few years to meet my own personal target, of course with the help of being employed that does provide a stable lifeline support in financially so as to continue my entrepreneurial journey and continue where I have left due to shortage of funds.

Work ultimately is about the company and the business, it is not about the individual, but rather how the individual can help grow the business, by proving their worth, than only will the business help the individual to grow, that is the trade off and the mutual benefit it brings in employment, a necessary leverage on each other.

Of course, working means more time spend on the company and less time for ourselves, which actually helps in directly to force us to learn better time management skills and thus become a more disciplined individual as a whole.

I’m still in the adjustment phrase of adapting to working life and fusing my own lifestyle with the current one to strike a balance, and hopefully soon, to provide quality content to share with everybody else.

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Currently working in a small but financially stable company, with bright prospects in the company due to the freedom that I have in my current position and job scope. It has made me realized that there are just somethings that school cannot and will never ever able to produce nor impart to the students.

Experience is surely one of those important elements that makes or breaks the business when a person is given the chance to be in-charge of an assignment or campaign. These days, as i work on doing my work, I was busy doing power point slides highlighting the numerous wrong areas that requires correction on the business website, taking part in discussion meetings and getting to gradually understand how a real business really works.

It is funny and ironic at the same time as I am pointing out the errors made by competitors, other marketers, from other industries, that I use as case studies in a discussion, I actually know way much more than those website designers, advertisers, marketers outside with diplomas, degrees certificates, yet coming up with poor ads, wrong ads that I can easily pinpoint at least three to five mistakes in a single ad copy (electronic brochure), with me just being a ‘o’ levels graduated only.

I will credit my knowledge due to the different work experiences that I have in numerous industries, meeting different people from all walks of life, and that made me learn much more than wasting time pursuing higher education that does not help with securing a good pay with good prospects. On top of which, knowing my limited qualifications, it made me took interest in topics that others would find extremely boring, which is to read up business related books, especially those written by top forbes billionaires list and the other millionaires.

Those books came in handy, as it taught nothing about business, but on how to be a better person, and treat others equally without wearing colored lenses by judging people based on their qualifications.

The worst thing about education is that it only increases the individuals’ arrogance as they capitalize on their academic intelligence and judge people first by asking their qualification and not by their pockets and how deep is it. That’s how the society works, both locally and globally, it’s the same benchmark, the person with the deepest wallet among a group of people is the most respected and followed despite the lack of education.

It is only when such intelligent students graduate start working in the complex adults world, that they learn it the hard way, than they learn to bow down, and bend accordingly to where the money is, in the process forgetting how to be a better person and lost themselves, their principles while chasing after money, becoming a slave towards money and only money.

In the books written by if not talked about  those successful individuals, it is all about shaping a proper mindset, behavior, thinking, and how to treat people, things that school have long ago thrown into the rubbish bin if not flush it out from their sights already.

Those are the limitations of academic education, while it does impart knowledge, schools and institutions doesn’t impart wisdom nor experience that is considered to be more important than the knowledge learned from school as most of which are useless, except for those in the health, sciences, financial accounting, law, engineering, and designing.

But yet, look at those in the Forbes lists, most if not all are in business, and majority are in property, retail, and financial investment sectors, which are not taught in school, only learned from external sources, from books, against those that I listed above, most only end up in the middle class.

All the others are absolutely crap, as the very knowledge that they learn cannot be of any use after they graduate and thus have to relearn the whole thing again. Especially those working in the customer service and sales industry, their skills are not used in anyway, so why even study all the way up there.when the time spend on studies, if channeled into work earlier could guarantee that they chalk up sufficient experience, and pay to study only education related to help improve their future prospects on the employee or career of their choices only after they have started working and found something that they like.

That’s why most people now-a-days have double diplomas, if not degrees or even more, as they have wasted time in studying something completely unrelated in helping them towards the direction that they want.

The other equally important factor is how to succeed and win in  competition in business, is not taught in school, as the very purpose of school is to gear up students to become employees who work for others, something that government and every countries requires to keep the country and the economy afloat.

Learning from a mentor helps to compensate for the lack of experience and wisdom, by leveraging on the mentors’ rich abundance of experience and follow the tested proven steps first, and in future, than we will sooner or later learn how much savings have we saved by doing the right things taking shortcuts towards success.

You never learn to appreciate the valuable and priceless of your mentors’ experience and knowledge until you meet up and speak with people twice if not thrice your age, only to realized that they have being doing exactly the same wrong thing that you were doing if not for your mentor’s correction that put us on the right track. Than only will we appreciate the mentor’s and follow everything he/she teaches us, and ignoring what parents tells us to (because they are not as rich as our mentors).

In schools, they can teach you anything and everything you want, except for the most important thing that everybody wants and is after ultimately, and that is to learn how to make money, that is a topic no schools will ever teach nor do they even know how to teach. Because if the teachers, lecturers, professors knows how, than they will not be employed and be teaching.

From my humble and personal perspective, it is best to start working, gain some work experience, and find the industry that you will never ever find it boring, and than only improve on your education and qualification so as to climb up the corporate ladder one step at a time.

Academics is only important to teach the basics of learning a language, basic mathematical calculation and simple science for daily living common knowledge. Anything beyond these are not required, as we can just pay for such services without learning it.

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The question that always comes people’s mind is how do they rate the suitable amount to hire employees, talents, without appearing to be a over thrifty.

The question has being in my mind for many years ever since i learned the importance of money from working at the age of fifteen.

It is only just recently that I finally got to know the answer to my question.

Businesses always pays the lowest price whenever possible, yet it must be above competitive market rate in order to hire the most qualified talent.

I had the privilege of working in a big company yet with a small team and flexible team. Being able to work in the same office, knowing the other departments and get to know the chief executive officer (CEO) and hear the details, planning and the direction that the company is heading, it gives employees a clear cut answer to why they are getting more pay and not the employees.

This might come to many as common sense, but when it is only those who help the company to grow the business, increase revenue gets paid the most.

The rates in terms of wages are pegged against a few factors.

1. Academic qualification. In the absence of which, real results matters and only those individuals who can produce results commands the highest price tag.

2. Experience. It is this that not money can’t buy. In the process of interview, if the company does not have rooms for the headhunted talent to flex their muscles and skills, no matter how much can’t buy talents if they are not given the room to grow and deliver the expected results required of them, should their skills be challenged, nor questioned, than they will soon automatically take their leave.

3. Network. It is this that is most important, as businesses are built, created by people, and only the best connected person with vast positive networks on industry leaders that helps businesses bridge across the untapped boundaries of the unknown. That is how markets are being opened, by opening a new market with insider.

4. Profit sharing. This is what makes the difference between a employee versus a talent. Employees are paid a fix rate for a certain number of hours of physical non-revenue generative work, so even if they under perform, they still get paid, thus business will only .

Talents have additional income like profit sharing to put them on the same importance as one of the few very important people in the company. Only by allowing them a percentage of profit sharing, are they rewarded for performance in leading the business upwards and bring in more revenue.

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In business, it is not always about the money, rather it is the people’s interaction that determines the critical factor if the business succeed or fail ultimately.

Below are a few couple reasons.

1. Business requires cash-flow. Loans are required to keep the operations running until it becomes a profit. To secure a loan, you have to be in the good books of both banks as well as friends whom they trust to extend a zero interest loan.

2. In order to keep the business running smoothly, man power is needed. Without good relationship before employer and employee, equal and fair treatment, most importantly treat them like people and not dogs just obeying orders. Without the basic understanding of how and where to draw the line in treating employees like they expected to respected too in return.

3. In certain niche markets, the employer must hire employees who are smarter and have better prospects than themselves. In such a situation, the employer cannot afford to piss off the employee who is important in helping to grow the business, yet they cannot let the employee climb over their head. It requires some experience in knowing how to control a employee who is smarter than the boss, yet gives the freedom for the employee to do as they want to grow the business.

The catch in between the line here is to allocate a certain monthly budget, for the employee to to burn literally and notify that project starter when the funds will stop should the result fail to meet up reasonable expectations (based on experience).

4. The one man show syndrome. Like any business, especially in a new start up with extremely limited funds, the owner does everything him/herself, juggling between billing, cooking, sourcing for food ingredients in a new retail outlet, multitasking and trying to do everything, yet unable to get anything right, due to minimal concentration thus producing inferior taste (not even up to average standards) and precious future returning clients by giving them negative impression and remarks of the dish.

5. Attempting to sell to the mass for less hoping people will come back for more. This is commonly known no quality business, where the plan is to sell cheap, hopefully can earn based on bulk sales, but due to price point, the business is forced to sell low end cheap products to customers, and if the products becomes spoiled, than the business suffers in the long term.

Before the bulk sales can see profits due to recommendations, the entity is debt ridden due to massive overheads and it soon close the shutters permanently.

6. Excellent products that is constantly in hot demand, yet the business is not making any money, despite other business operators selling the same products and are reaping buckets of profits.

In such a situation, it could only be due to poor salesmanship, unsatisfactory customer services, arrogant hard-selling tactics, without first understanding what the products they are selling is all about, nor who are the customers they should be targeting to grow the business.

There are many other reasons contributing to failure in business, but the life support essential to succeed is to first learn to befriend your products, treat clients as friends, treat business partners like how you treat your family, protecting their interests at your own expense. Look after the people and they will help look after the business.

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Contract is what many would consider to be a love and hate affair. As it is most people would consider to be a chain that ties them to the company and be employed for the term stated on the paper else risk compensating the company and return whatever bonus he/she was offered at the start.

There are a couple of ways whereby we can use it to our advantage.

There are generally three types of contracts, positive, neutral and negative. I was fortunate enough to bump into at least two out of the three types that I just mentioned.

The worse contract ever is verbal contract with no black and white agreement, and you just have to bet on it based on blind faith, hoping it will not fail you before the terms are being met, and the worse thing that can happen is that the contract is void, and the only thing that you can take away is to learn how to selectively trust individuals and even pick up tell-tale signs to determine if the person is trustworthy or not.

The moment you realized that the verbal agreement has being defaulted, thoughts will start flying, majority negative, at it is at this critical time, that memories of the very terms mentioned by sweet talking, that replays like a movie rewinding in your mind, and you learn instantly and have it craved in your mind not to simply trust anybody.

The neutral agreement is one that does not harm you yet it does not help you in anyway possible, it only states that what are your basic rights, entitlement under the employment regulation and guidelines. If you want more benefits, you’ll have to earn it. That’s why most companies have either this one if not the negative to use against gullible rookies who are new to the working society.

Such of a kind is to prevent any extra liability from surfacing, protecting company’s interest as well as clearly stating how much maximal can the employee claim from the company so they know they cannot mess with them. That generally is the idea on how companies put a leash on every single employees if they have to sign on the papers, but only when the leashed individual try to step outside of the allowed area, than get choked and warned based on the legal terms stated under the eyes of the law, so they than learn how’s the boss.

The best type of agreements are those which Google may still are providing, and that is to headhunt for the next potential competitor, and acquire them even before they started, so instead of facing new threats and competitors, they are in fact creating more alliances to solidify their stronghold, build on their fortresses to deter any incoming, up and rising competitor from even getting near them.

I once read that Google’s employment contract for those whom they specially headhunted allows they to take time off to do their own business if they have any, and are able to use the company’s resources, with free food, funds, resources, paid to fail (funds for their to start business ventures) and create the next big thing. Such is a example of positive contract, but this type of contract goes out to only the smartest and the brightest will get it.

Nonetheless, contract is important, be sure to identify and determine if the contract is working with you or against you, should you have any questions, always ask and clarify first before signing on the dot, if you ask after you sign, you might have to pay compensation fees for failure to abide by the terms stated.

The best tip to landing yourself a neutral if not positive agreement that have your interests at heart is to follow and do what you like, there will be someone, some entity that will be willing to take you in, while allowing you to continue doing what you love most in a controlled environment to reduce and prevent any possibility of liability incurring.

If you want to have it in your advantage, be sure to follow my tip and do what you love, as you will in time find a employer who is willing to let you fail (try everything inclusive of banging the wall) so that they will win. Fail in a manner that helps them eliminate bad practices and concentrate on best industry practice, thus you and the business both gain.

It can be a win-win situation if you learn how to correct use it. To win or to lose, it is all up to you. Selecting the best contract is what puts you in safe hands.

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To determine and analyze if a new business can succeed or fail depends on the entry levels of the entity which it enters and exits respectively.

Majority of the businesses start small and expand accordingly based on their profitability. Only a couple of large scale business entities are able to start a new company on a large scale with a huge financial budgets.

Most aspiring entrepreneurs often fail even before they could even get a foot-hold and have the business steady and running.

There are a couple of entry levels that clearly demonstrates if the business will succeed or fail based on the entry in the short term perspective if the business owner doesn’t change strategy.

I hope this entry helps individuals in determine the level of start ups they are able to start, and come up with the necessary strategies required to take the business to the next higher level.

Size of financial ability determines probability of success, and most successful enterprises often acquire other businesses to get a head-start.

Level One

It is what many new business owners start and fail in, the term used is a start up. Before the business can even start operation (like a plane unable to start) the business face a couple of difficult problems in preventing the entity from even moving forward. Critical problem such as financial is the main concern restricting the even the growth.

This is often a one-man-show (OMS) business where the owner does anything and everything, left on their own to prove their worth.

Level Two

Start up business owner has minimal capital and him/herself to ensure the business is even able to continue operation into the first year period. Having to pay for products, services delivery fees, rental and their personal expenses. Funds are depleted much faster than predicted and the business close its shutters permanently having to repay their loans with installments, keeping them away from re-entering the business arena.

Also considered a one-man-show operation, but at times, they may only be able to hire another part time assistant to help out with the business. Future is not guaranteed.

Level Three

Business has no issues with funding, able to meet estimated business expenses for at least three to five years of operations. The only issue is the inability to hire talents, and grow the business, reasons could be due to poor employment guidelines, no proper appraisal, employees feel unhappy and dejected in the employee in particular with the superiors inclusive of a destructive boss limiting the employees to release their potential and talents to their fullest.

This is what many employees may use as a learning platform to gain the experience they need to run a new company before going to a better company to help grow the business.

As for the business owner, he/she will take the experience as a tuition fee and gain experience to recoup more funds for another shot in the business.

Level Four

Entity has got no issues with both manpower and financial funding from investors, but the both the head and in-charge pays well, lets temporary succeed clouds their vision and take matters into their own hands refusing to listen to advices from the very talents they recruited and soon find business sliding down gradually until it is at risk of elimination from competitors who are hot on their heels.

An example of such a business will be the Blackberry who are facing intense and much stronger competitors such as andriod – HTC and iphone – Apple. Talents all flock to bigger enterprises,  leaving the business in lurch, as Blackberry mobile apps have stopped development and is only on a demand supported basis, unlike bigger competitors who still have developers willing to create apps to create and spur new demand for the mobile phones with larger market shares.

Level Five

Enterprise has generally no problems dealing with both financial and manpower issues, but what’s left are those surround business expansion both locally and globally, low connections of important networks and help from experts in different fields to aid the growth of the enterprise to a higher level.

An example is how many overseas companies wanting to have a slice in the China market, Linkedin, Google having much difficulty penetrating market due to lack of local connections and poor support from the locals.

Level Six

The enterprise has got no problems nor difficulty in all aspects, pulling resources, funds, networks, and creditability based on excellent remuneration where talents are given room for flex their muscles and funds to even fail in order to come up with the next big thing both from internal and external sources by buying over potential businesses limited by funding issues.

Bill Gates is the only business for Microsoft to date that has no problems doing business in both Eastern and Western nations.

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Employment to many people is like a thorn in the flesh, having to report to work, doing things that they do not enjoy, and that is exactly what is happening to majority of the people globally.

Only those who really enjoy their job, are able to out perform and work in areas beyond their designated job scopes, such gives them an edge not only in preparation for the vacancy when the time comes, but also gearing up oneself in terms of being prepared and not get caught off guard when the promotion is announced,  not knowing what to do, and fail to perform in the worse situation and get replaced shortly after.

There are a couple of reasons why being employed is actually better and it helps support not only a person but a family to have a better standard of living.

1: Having a fixed working hours allows the employee/individual to better plan and manage their time after working hours.

2: Being employed means there is a stable income, required as a criteria for an entrepreneur, where funds, capital and cash flow means everything to the business, without it, the business cannot even start, it is like a vehicle without any fuel.

3: By being employed, keeping our minds active, keeping updates to market changes, economic impacts on our lives, it keeps our minds vigilant, may help eliminate depression which actually started due to the patient having too much time to waste and end up thinking about imaginary harmful thoughts that are not beneficial to oneself but also affects their immediate family members having to take turns to look after the patient.

4: Be employed, gives us at least an helpful environment whereby we can identify potential friends, business partners to talk with. As they know what is happening, and so more likely they will understand, and have something in common to chat, this saves the trouble of finding soul-mates or buddies from complete strangers online who may have ill motives posing as a danger to ourselves.

5: A salary is not just helpful to a person, but it allows an individual to support a family and start a family on their own with proper financial planning.

6: It is strongly recommended for individuals who are clueless on their future prospects, at least by following the company’s foot-steps alining in the same direction, they can progress together with the company and earn higher salary if we prove our worth.

7: Certain companies may have excellent staff benefits that includes traveling package as a reward to employees for their hard work,  so this again helps singles who may want to go on a holiday but without any financial abilities to experience different countries, tourist attractions first before they determine if they want to come back again with their family and friends. All done so from company’s pocket, that’s market testing, an excellent way to save money.

8: During the process of employment, it prepares oneself for entrepreneurship from an employee’s perspective, so in future, should they really decide to go solo, they know what policies to implement, and what not to, so as to maintain a happy working environment that only helps the business to grow faster and recruit talented individuals who understand and value the importance of a happy conducive working environment is hard to come by, something like spotting a needle in the deep blue sea. (Nonetheless, it depends on respective individuals passion and interest for different job scopes)

9: It allows aspiring business owners to model after a proven tested working model and implement it in their new business if they existing company refuse to even listen to employees feedback. (The case of why business fail and employees turn competitors; actually it’s being forced to, as employees enjoy doing what they love, but are being denied the room for growth and experimentation, some business owners just don’t get it and they never will)

10: As employees, we are always exposed to many different types of people from all walks of live, and it helps in allowing us to learn and test different methods to deal with customers who may be a difficult client, which adds up to the value creation for both the business, and the employee in company and personal development.

If you are not employed, yet, start looking, but be very patient and keep on searching until you find the right environment that gives you the room for exploring and experimentation.

We can actually be successful by being an employee, but only if the environment is right with minimal office politics and helpful team members with open discussion practices.

If you are wondering why many businesses never grow bigger than they can or may even have failed, the best place to find answers will be in your employment where you learn from the company’s mistakes and make sure you do not repeat them in your own business in future by simply reducing the amount of complaints and unhappiness in the office. If you do not want to be a failure in life, be employed, at least you get to learn something and it may be helpful in the future.

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