Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Survival is the best bet against anything in the world.

Having watched documentary of the week: Surviving Disaster – Avalanche, it gave me new insights and reminder to on survival and the basic guidelines and principles to live. Linking it up with what I myself experienced on my progress in Entrepreneurship, it gave me a actual blueprint on surviving the hardships of entrepreneurship.

I’ll just summarized what i’ve just learned and convert it to make it business-proof.

In an ski trip with an injured ski-mate with a open bone fracture, and with a handful of team mates, with night approaching, the best bet is to set up a snow cave to spend the night waiting for day light before attempting to find help.

Check for any injuries, in this case, it’s a open bone fracture, cover the open wound with clean cloth to prevent infection, without pressing on the bone, put it on top of it, break the ski stick in the correct length and tie the leg tight against the sticks to prevent anymore movement. Lay person on a ski board, move injured head downwards with leg on top. So in event of hitting an object, wound will not incur any additional damage, with head protected by helmet. With sun setting, it’s time to build a snow cave for the night.

The snow cave allows all ski members a safety cover from the elements, shelter from the wind (which speed up heat lost), allows members to stay together to have the warm air in the cave stay there while the cold air drops to the entrance.

Once the cave is built, immediately move the injured team mate inside, as motionless individual stand greater chance of hypothermia. Lay the injured person on the, while other ski members take turns to take care of each other. Giving the injured as much food as possible to encourage more heat generated, but don’t let injured drink alcohol which speeds up hypothermia. One person in-charge of the injured, another in-charge of keeping the entrance partial open for air to come in, the other one to check for every team member’s health status (preventing death sleep in the cold), and rotate duties every hour.

Next day comes, day-break, leave behind the slowest team mate to take care of the injured in the snow cave while the rest seek help.Member staying behind uses urine and ski board to mark a clear X (cross) sign on the top of the mountain while the rest find help (instead of all waiting to die).

In the process, downwards, they faced an avalanche, 2 team mates trapped in it. Using avalanche survival kit to track (20 yards effective radius) members trapped under the snow and dig them out of it before they die of suffocation and hypothermia. Moving in a zig-zag direction to cover the whole distance of the avalanche path.

Upon finding trapped member, dig up, and wait for help, use binoculars to reflect light to the helicopter, and create a landing zone (L.Z) preferrably on a flat surface. Wait for the search and rescue dogs to search for team mate who’s survival kit was not placed with him, and instead a bag further putting oneself in danger.

Than inform the rescue team about the injured at the top of the mountain.

Now for the entrepreneur conversion. The food is the important fuel that allows members to live, in business wise, minimal food to fill our stomach.

Put aside emotions, which is vital for wealth creation, follow and obey leaders who can grow money, not reduce it.

Follow all basic ethics and the laws to observe discipline, so you will not have your efforts gone down the drain one day when you’re caught for any crime.

The snow cave refers to a shelter over our head as a protection.

Team members: Select only a handful who will not put you at more risk. Example: spilling your business secrets/strategies, waste your resources, burn bridges of trust, creditability and reputation critical for success.

Search and rescue team refers to new sources of income when your financial reserves are depleting fast. Seeking help is not a sign of failure, it is to live to die another day.

Proper medical, survival knowledge with experienced leader: Vital in a process, to tell exactly what’s happening, what will happen and how to minimize risk of failure and look out for safety.

PS: In ski, dangers are bears, elements of cold, but in business, it’s the eagles and vultures, seasoned players who gradually/openly steal your strategies, food, business partners, networks and turn them against you!

So weigh your own skills set, financial reserves, networks, expertise, knowledge and flexibility to adapt to new changes, such as temporary going back to employment to first solve the fundamental money issue before you resume your entrepreneurship.

Last but not the least, be damn aware of your own surroundings, keep your strategies and wealth generation sources to yourself. In the absence of team mates, depend on yourself and your own resources.

Never ever give in to opposition of your family and love ones (that’s logical) knowing they will want to be in the rats race suffering together for a short-term most risky employment without any job security.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Technology is the usage of knowledge of tools, techniques and crafts to communicate for convenience especially over long distances.

Modern technology has replaced old traditional media such as telephone, text messaging or short message system (SMS) and even blogging ever since the introduction of mirco-blogging which is more related to giving updates of personal details than to share ideas and thoughts.

No matter how much innovation and creativity are being created with modern technology, age old communication face to face will still be the strongest form of communication.

It is only when discussions are carried out in person, than are they able to melt or iron out disagreements, differences in thinking, ideology, principles, objectives, agenda before unanimously agreeing on a share vision for mutually beneficial terms and conditions.

While technology has increase the bonding of friends without meeting up in person, it only is able to tell us in one single aspect of communication which is the thoughts of what is in our mind that is written in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and many other social websites or even gadgets such as 3G phones etc.

The benefits of meeting up in person for discussion has got more benefits in fact which most civilians will not notice either way because only businessmen or owners will testify to those benefits.

In a person to person boardroom, group, or private meeting, there are many other ways in which we can communicate and understand both parties’ interests clearly without many words used.

Within a short effective one hour group discussion of meeting, there will be discussions, disagreements are ironed out instantly without waiting increasing the lag time. The tone, facial and body expression will tell the receiver even more details about the real intentions, thoughts and observations during the conversation thus making an accurate decision as compared to a casual discussion online.

Social websites can create the common bond, but it is the bonding of trust and chemistry that is only created during inter-personal interaction that brings the gap one step closer to one another.

Technology at the end of the day should be used as a secondary communication channel only for keeping in contact with people who each of us are not really close to, but primary communication still stands and is technology proof, interpersonal communication is still what works best.

It’s a fact; if not why would couples want to meet in person to know the other half instead of meeting, chatting with each other online until the critical stage of marriage than meet. It is a fact which we cannot deny and cannot escape; bonding is created only at interpersonal level and not via technology usage.

Embrace technology and put them to good use, but do not let it be used as an excuse not to meet friends in real life. Communication is what holds people together and it should be done in person.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Ownership is having legal rights of procession; proprietorship. It is to have the exclusive rights and control over property.

It involves multiple rights, from title to intellectual property, distribution rights, translation, print, copy, duplication, recording, transmission in whole or in part in any retrieval system or in any other permission related to the use of a product or property.

Having ownership of a proprietorship is akin to winning and having a money tree bearing fruits of money and increasing the owner’s wealth with deeper pockets.

Example: Having a great story, can be translated into a book, animation, video, drama series and movie or be converted into other mediums of products for instance bookmarks, gifts, clothes, or any other product which can be sold for money.

The world is our limit, as long as we the owners put on our thinking cap, wealth, money and riches will find their own way and crawl onto the owners if you know how to market and generate profits from your own products, knowledge of expertise which is exclusively only available to you yourself only.

There are thousands of ways to get rich, have you found your own method to make it big? Going from rags to riches is a simple but uphill task which is not easy without proper guidance.

Are you having any exclusive knowledge, product or information or idea that could propel you forward towards getting rich? Do you have great ideas but yet are clueless on how to market your ideas nor have any strategy to safeguard your intellectual property to prevent other people from stealing it away from you?

If that is the situation you are in, speak to me and I might be able to offer some advice to you upon request.

Getting rich and be successful is not a lonely journey, in fact you will need business partners and companions who will assist you on the voyage to your destination. It is up to you to decide if you want to win alone or win as a team so as to celebrate success together and share the happiness at the top rather than being alone with no one else by your side to share your joy and happiness.

It is simple but it is not easy. Speak to somebody whom you can trust for advice. See you at the top.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Small is what majority of the people don’t like, but in monetary size, it is welcomed by bankers, businessmen, designers and fashion professionals whereas average people like to have big bigger items and ownership thus they spend more.

The trail to wealth and successful starts from being small to big, from a small business and expand it into bigger business. Rich people start big, and grower bigger without learning the technician issues with starting from small thus they lack the foundation to go from small to big, and contribute to their failure to come back successful after once declared a bankrupt.

Look around the people who you know who invested capital into businesses. Those who jump into the boss category start by throwing in lots of hard earn savings from friends, family relatives and parents. They never once know the pains and labour of managing everything themselves, thus in the event should they want to cut cost, they don’t know how to do it themselves and thus with lots of weakness themselves, the business collapse and never picked up again.

Lost of trust and savings from their closed loved ones is part of the reason. Failure to cut cost is another reason, not knowing the basics and how the business really works from the insider trade secrets is the fatal flaw and the mistake which small business investors failed in.

In the world of property, starting small is essential, but recognize the fact of Singapore versus other countries, It is common for us and in Asia those developing countries to have big homes at a affordable price, needless to say, China has the largest yet extremely affordable price to those homes.

As Singapore economy progress, so does the homes, there are inflation which are obvious to people as home buyers but from gullible home buyers, they feel that it’s value for money, but due to demand and supply, buyers are ignorant of the facts thus they never fail to push the sales of property up and speculation etc.

Singapore property is going from average size to smaller size homes yet commanding a higher price tag, reason, lack of land, more demand for their own home, high demand not desired, low supply of desired homes thus there are huge demands for homes near their relatives etc and rules implemented to assist people to encourage family bonding etc.

Look at Singapore’s property market, the square feet of the home, previously average was 100+ square meters, now it is slowly reducing to slightly less than 100 square meters. Look into future, it will be super cramped and commanding a high price tag like Hong Kong a pigeon home all squeezed inside..else look at Russia first world economy status, their homes average square meters was only sixty square meters, extremely packed yet cost so much more.

Successful and wealthy businessmen always believe in “Less Is More” and this is true and will withstood the test of time, thus quality is always more important than quantity. Look at the different types of food business, markets, coffee shops and food courts are all offering affordable food that’s no longer cheap like few years back and they get more portion. They run the business longer than average, wants more customers with larger portions and serving for coffee shop business owners, to earn more, they earn by quantity thus they can’t offer quality.

Food and Beverage industry will know, increasing the business profits by setting a time limit of two hours for whole course of Chinese New Year set lunch or dinner package, some restaurants who wants to squeeze more profits than lower the limit to a hour so every hour, new batch of customers come in, their profits are up making huge profits during the Chinese New Year season.

If you look at high class restaurant, they however are super successful yet able to retain their high class standards and price without having the rush hour kind of environment because of the way they do business. The customers are king, no time limit, only appointment basis, once it’s fully booked, they will not make excuses to force customers to leave restaurant unless they are happy to leave. Never mind if the food portion is small, but the value of the food it commands is of high end standards and grade thus accountable and justified for the pricing thanks to benchmarking.

Paying more for class, service standards, ambiance and the luxury of time is what amounts to the difference between high-class restaurants versus average restaurants.

Look at different business model and how they operate and you will realize how wealth is really generated.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Blame is a physiological behavior problem that everyone was taught and influenced as we all grow up. It is a negative behavior that supports and strongly encourages people to be poor and create more problems and tensions and it is everywhere and taught to exist in our subconscious.

It is the act of making negative remarks of an individual or a group when their action(s) are socially and morally wrong. Being not taking their own share of responsibility, only pushing the blame to others, they are not accountable to themselves, the group, the company and the profits, thus when you see such people in life, they are usually wanderers who have no fix group of loyal friends to themselves and are not welcomed to any events. Such people will never be successful or wealthy.

Blaming is used in our daily conversation, newspaper reports, news, shows, radio, internet and even when gaming, it happens when a person cause a team to lose in the competition. It is only used by people who are struggling to meet ends needs particular people who are working, getting a small pay cheque to meet ends’ needs. With a just over broke mentality, the poor will only think of themselves as perfect and wants everybody to change and accept that it is their fault for a failure in job or work project not taking responsibility for their own actions.

Higher level middle income to high class income earners, entrepreneurs will practice different level of accountability and responsibility which attribute to higher pay cheque and bonus because they do the fair or business well and have a code of honor and other ethical self practice which isn’t taught in school.

Entrepreneurs blame no one except for themselves for the results they are getting. The more accountability and responsible you are, the higher rate of success you will attain. It’s about taking charge of your own actions and results, and not implicating other innocent people into the picture or situation. It’s like you’re sinking in the vessel and you want somebody to sink together with you, which isn’t good to begin with. Instead of dragging down somebody, if you know you’re sinking if not dying, why not give up your own float which you’re wearing to somebody else who has a higher chance of survival.

You don’t need to drag others to hell to be successful even if it’s a failure in the project work. If it fails, and you take responsibility for the failure, at least you look and leave a good impression in front of your colleagues, employer and partners thus more projects will be entrusted to you in future.

People who pass the blame to others are myopic people who need to wear spectacles. They can’t see the damage they incur when thy do any action, thus they deserve to fail and don’t need to be bothered nor pity them for their situation. They reap what they sow and they deserve it. Give mice a cheese and they will ask you for a glass of milk. So don’t even pity those people until they are sincerely and feel remorseful upon their own reflection and shown sustainable change in behavior and actions over a long period of time before you give them the second chance.

You might want to consider praising others instead of blaming others in future if you want to have a better and brighter future.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Endorsement is a agreement either between two individuals or between a company and an individual with celebrity-liked status with creditability, trust and reputation. He/she can be either an media artist, model or athlete and others.

Endorsement is just a simple business strategy which allows the company and business to leverage on the celebrity’s reputation and the trust which they have built with us through different Medias inclusive of their own effort and hard-work over the years. It is the act of getting paid to endorse products and that doesn’t mean the celebrity endorsing the product have to use the product himself/herself when endorsement agreements are carried out as long as the agreement of a highly remunerative compensation in return for the celebrity to endorse a product.

Celebrity endorsements can be taken likely with a pinch of salt because when the celebrity himself/herself don’t even use the product or is unable to use the product and services because of specific gender targeting, than the endorsement may create a curiosity among the customers and the public which is another strategy which businesses often do depending on the market they want to penetrate into.

The most recent case is Ris Low endorsing a condom brand – Zander Asia who is the distributor of the condom as reported in Channel News Asia. She has said in a morning live interview that she endorse the product condom purely because it promotes a healthy image, which most of us will agree, other queries or doubts with regards to this endorsement, lets leave it to you to discuss and think about it.

Business endorsement is another story and a completely different ball-game in this same aspect. When a business endorses a product or service, the firm is entrusting their reputation, creditability on the line for any business endorsements.

If in the event should a endorsement products or services failed to satisfy the customers’ needs and failed in delivering the promise, the business that’s endorses the product and services will instantly overnight facing huge business loses which will definitely implicate other business endorsement they have a hand into even if they are not related together with the company that pay the business for the endorsement deal together down in times of trouble.

An perfect example is Tiger Woods after the sex scandal for sex addiction and most brands has since removed him and terminated the endorsement contract with him. More details in Time website.

With such heavy risks, that is why not many, in fact only a handful of businesses out there are willing to put the business brand and reputation to endorse their products and services. The most successful business endorsement is Trump which belongs to Donald J.Trump a billionaire property investor.

The next time you decide to buy any products or services with endorsements, find out if there is any ambassador who took up the endorsement and if he/she is a businessmen/women or it’s a firm that’s endorsement the products and services.

If you find any businessmen especially successful ones personally endorsing any company, products or services, than don’t even think about it and jump right in joining them to earn wealth together if there’s ever an opportunity to work together with them. Businessmen access and do their own investigation for months first before any commitment etc so if they are happy with the results which risking their business reputation which could tarnish and collapse over night due to a silly mistake, they will jolly well make sure that this doesn’t happens.

Make the right choice in purchasing opportunity, products or services from businessmen endorsements rather than celebrity endorsements. Be smart, save money, and time and grab whatever opportunity that comes your way.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Trust is the emotional creditability which everyone has used on everything and anything in our daily lives, from buying a product from a reputable food store to buying clothes from well known brands offering products suitable to respective individuals.

Trust is also used in relationships, family bonding, education etc. Trust is formed when an individual has shown and proof that him/herself can be replied on with responsibilities. It is the integrity and confidence which someone might have on the other person.

It is not easy to build trust but it is simple to build trust. The way which it works is simple, if you abuse the trust, never ever again will others trust you regardless of what you do. That is how successful businessmen emphasis in entrusting their business partners with projects and businesses.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Reputation is the key consideration factor when doing anything be it business, going into a relationship or investing on an individual or a company.

As simple as it sounds, it doesn’t looks easy to carry out. Reputation is an intangible asset which is in the balance sheet of profit and account statement which we treat it as branding. How much does the brand cost, and what is the difference between products which is branded versus a product which is new on the market.

A new product will take time to build a base of customers by offering services for value creation and giving customers more reasons and small gifts here and there to convince and persuade customers to change direction from a brand to another. Whoever is able to command a higher perceived value in the eyes of the customers wins until the next contender surface.

Business is all about reputation, creditability, and how much he/she can influence and make customers or even strangers take his/her word with complete trust and assurance without even an doubt in the individuals’ character or personality. That to me is build on mutual trust, and a unprecedented high level of trust will be build when quality is not compromised even in big companies and franchise models. This is the true value of trust which goes a long way.

It takes from months to years to build the trust in both the brand (business) and in the leader leading the company risking his/her reputation on the line with each and every step. One wrong move will result in overnight tumble just like when a professional explosive specialist has being given the go-ahead to push the button to detonate the explosives in a vacant building to give way to new property developments.

With reputation being placed on the line, every step we take with ourselves or with our business partners, colleagues and friends should be taken into consideration first and their credentials first before signing any agreement.

If in the event, there’s no trust and credentials yet, a guarantor and disclaimer policy can be put in place before you carry out any business campaigns. By first drawing a clear line between what’s yours and what’s not, you can be sure of what and how to react in times of problems should they try to push the blame to you? Always have a mutual black and white agreement with people whom you work with so once they commit, they will have to obliged by the terms and conditions set and follow throwing away any grey to black hat strategies which they have if you are not a push-over.

Devise your own terms and conditions before hand, get to know what potential problems you may encounter if you have a lot to lose considering you’re a influential successful person. If you’re a nobody, just go right in, learn whatever you can build your trust, reputation and credentials from the first project you do.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Connections are a term which has similar meanings with networking and are words both used in businesses.

In business, when businessmen go around the social hall mingling around, they are networking, introducing each other, getting to know one another and creating a strong network of people to ensure a smoother transition into areas which may require each other help in future.

Connections is a word which holds a stronger meaning to just networking. It is the bond that holds individuals together with trust and equals to meeting up, hanging around on a regular basis, thus being connected with wealthy individuals’ in particular successful millionaires as mentors, who also are connected to stronger multi-millionaires are essential.

People with lots of connections are the people who will be able to help you extend your wealth, the convenience the wealthy influential multi-millionaires have as compared to average income earners on the streets.

To be successful, in MLM, most people depend on the bridge to bridge the gap between a employee with Just Over Broke (J.O.B) situation to a adviser also known as a presenter who will be the connector in between the two strangers who knows you.

In business, connections is mostly all that is to it to success, wealthy people are connected, like what is being mention in the book “What Men don’t tell Women about Business” completely illustrates the point of connection among the super wealthy individuals who are traditional successful businessmen.

How they select new partners to work with are simple, just ask around for views, even in front of the presence of the individual, he/she who’s the center of the discussion will not even know the hidden meaning there is to successful businessmen blacklisting that particular individual without them even knowing. That in turn gave me new insights to how real successful businessmen works in the traditional setting, read that book, understand what goes on behind every phrase and short conversions which will tell them all about respective individuals.

Remember, long conversation is crap, its quality short, straight and unsuspecting conversations which are understood by other the successful businessmen which is Alpha Males in the book.

Time is precious, required for negotiations which in turn reduce the sales price thus converting to saving money. Everyone has the same twenty-four hours, how you maximize the twenty-four hours of your day is a skill which we need to master and what better way to learn and leverage by joining millionaires and learn their language, understanding and perspective of viewing a business, individuals etc.

To learn the skills that make a successful millionaire, you need to get a connector who will connect you to millionaires, be their apprentice and learn whatever you can learn like a sponge, and leverage on their financial capabilities to jump-start your path to success with the right tools, environment, coaching and connectors.

As there’s a saying, if you can’t beat them, join them. Like wise, if you can’t devise your own strategy on how to become rich and wealthy to be a self-made millionaire, than first go and learn from a self-made millionaire than devise your own methods by which I mean model your method after the tested proven successful model than add in your own enhancers to make the method easier.

Popularity: 1% [?]