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Closing cycles, Shutting doors, Ending Chapters #2016

Photo credit: Daniel Peckham

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.

You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.

Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.

Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.

Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.

Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.

This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.

Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Source: Paulo Coelho

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7 Market Focused Questions You Must Ask to Help Your Business Grow

To answer this question you need to stop thinking like a small business owner and start thinking that you are running a multi-million dollar enterprise. Why? Because many small business owners tend to think like a small company. And the answer to growth is to think big.

Here Are 7 Questions to Think About and Respond to When Planning for Business Growth:

Do you have a strategic vision that outlines your business direction for the next 12 to 24 months? And if you have employees, do they know it?

What is your stated mission (or purpose) statement? How is it communicated to your employees, and how does it help drive business decisions?

Do you have stated, written and practiced company values to align how you and your employees work together and serve your customers?

Do you have a branding strategy that promotes how you want to be seen by prospects and clients and articulates your competitive advantage or differentiation from your competitors?

Do you have standard monthly financial reports to track the financial health of your business and to help drive your decisions?

Do you have outstanding customer service? If you can't answer based on your customer's feedback, loyalty, references and testimonials, your answer is "not yet."

Do you have an exit strategy for your business? Every business needs to have a sense of what the end game will look like. It drives growth and helps focus business decisions.

How did you do in answering these questions? Did you have thoughtful and detailed answers for each question?

When we talk to small business owners about these questions they often remind us that they are small businesses and not GE, Nordstrom's or Zappos. And that's the problem.

We have also seen companies that believe answering questions such as these is a waste of time.

Why Our 7 Vital Questions for Small Business Owners Who Want to Grow Their Business Is NOT a Waste of Time?

A small research oriented company who had been in business for 10 years was modestly successful. They were concerned, however, that although they were able to come up with a strategic plan every year, they were not disciplined enough to implement the tactics required to achieve the plan.

And they really didn't have to. Business came in and they were comfortable. You have likely heard us reference that success can be your greatest inhibitor to growth. And, the issue for them was that they weren't growing.

They decided to re-focus their efforts on growth. To do that they:

• Looked deep inside themselves and their business and discovered they were missing a number of ingredients for small business growth success. They uncovered this realization simply by honest answering our seven questions.
• Established company values to guide their work together and in serving their clients
• Created their strategic vision (ideal future state)
• Refined their purpose (or mission) statement
• Identified key strategies and tactics to implement the vision and created accountability by assigning those to lead individuals. Progress on tactics was reviewed quarterly, with general updates given monthly.
• Candidly discussed how they worked together and how work should be distributed to take advantage of each partner's strengths
• Identified their target market and the market niche
• Created tracking and reporting tools and a process to monitor sales
• Created a financial reporting system, reviewing it monthly and using ratio analysis to do a year over year comparison
• They are embarking on a re-branding strategy
• They are working to identify and develop an exit strategy

They started this initiative in 2008. 2009 was the best financial performance year they had in the company's 10-year history. 2010 was almost 40% higher than 2009. And note this was accomplished in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

So what really happened? Were they lucky? Were they in the right place at the right time?
No - neither of these can explain their growth. What they did was stop thinking small. They stopped behaving like a 'mom and pop shop' and decided to focus on growth.

So, we encourage you to take a dispassionate view of your business. Stop listening to the generalities and honestly and thoughtfully respond to your own market-focused questions we suggested. Thinking small will keep you small; thinking big and planning big will lay the path to your growth.

Source: BusinessKnowHow.com

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6 Lessons I Wish I'd Known Before My Business Failed

It was easy to forget about the difficulties of building my business, Brooklyn Taco Co., when I was catering for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart every month. It was a great achievement to have my favorite celebrity craving my handcrafted tacos. Getting Stewart to laugh at one of my impersonations of a lunch lady was also pretty great. But the feeling of success faded quickly.

In February 2015, Brooklyn Taco closed. Immediately, I found myself obsessing over the whys and what-ifs.  Five years of experience building a food business taught me unforgettable lessons, but they were taught too late.

With absolute certainty, I know that Brooklyn Taco could have grown beyond a local brand if we had followed the principles below.

. Swallow your pride.

I had too much pride to share ownership of Brooklyn Taco with an outside investor. Brooklyn Taco had an offer in the beginning for around $400,000 for 80 percent. At the time, it seemed like I was selling off everything that my partner and I had built. Today, Brooklyn Taco is a dormant brand.  If you asked me if I would rather have 10 percent ownership in a prosperous company or half ownership in a failed company, I would take the former. Of course, giving up equity comes with its own risks, but take the time to think about it -- just don’t assume that it’s best to keep your company entirely in your own hands.

2. Starting too small can be a curse.

Starting small seemed like the healthy approach. We created the concept with $30,000, including rent, equipment and branding. The plan was to slowly grow and use the earnings to fund a larger operation, but in reality, a space that is too small to generate substantial profits is like treading water until you are too tired to stay afloat and you go under. This is the exact situation that occurred with Brooklyn Taco. A small space with low rent seemed perfect until we realized we lacked sufficient cooking capacity and seating to generate enough profits for expansion. We had a consistent business, but with no opportunity to increase production capacity, we were doomed from the beginning.

3. Choose your location carefully.

Initially, New York City seemed like the perfect place to start a new food concept. It offered a high volume of people, access to big press outlets, tourist traffic, millions of food-centric locals and plenty of vacant real estate available to open new locations. Yet, rents in NYC are so volatile that it is hard to create a business plan that will sustain growth. Starbucks has felt the pressure too, changing its business model for NYC locations to focus on smaller more efficient spaces.

Rent was only one of the hurdles that stunted our growth.  Staffing in NYC became the biggest struggle for Brooklyn Taco. How could I expect my business to attract and retain valuable employees when I couldn’t afford to pay them enough to meet their basic living needs?

Opening Brooklyn Taco in my hometown in Connecticut was not as exciting as opening in New York, but it was an idea that I should have seriously considered.  It is hard to accept, but the cost of operating a business in a major metropolitan area can be so prohibitive that you can make more money opening in a small town.

Related: 5 Mistakes to Avoid as an Entrepreneur

4. Explore new ways to boost your bottom line.

Brooklyn Taco did not have a beer and wine license nor did it have a liquor license. Alcohol was not part of the original plan when we established the company; we were purely a food-driven concept. It was not until we started putting the numbers together for investors that we realized that a beer and wine license or liquor license would have increased our profits significantly. The reality is that alcohol is shelf stable and has high profit margins; food is quite the opposite. The importance of alcohol in a food operation was reiterated after consulting multiple restauranteurs as we started to explore opening additional locations.

While we were never able to move on those plans, the lesson we learned was important: as a business owner, you need to always be looking at ways to protect and grow your bottom line.

5. Build a business that needs you to grow but can run without you.

Brooklyn Taco had huge breakthrough in the beginning of June 2015 when we were accepted into a two-month outdoor summer market, Broadway Bites, located in Herald Square.  Rent was extremely high -- $10,000/month for a 10-foot square booth -- but we had an incredible opportunity to make a lot of money while testing our tacos out in the Midtown demographic. Two 96-hour work weeks into the market, I had learned the ropes.

Now let’s fast forward to our last day, the breakdown and cleanup. I was exhausted beyond belief and didn’t know that a disc in my neck was herniated. My shoulder muscles became partially paralyzed due to nerve damage. Surgery was my only option -- and the only thing that wasn’t included in my business plan. Brooklyn Taco was forced to function without me and it didn’t work. I had spent so much time building my business on the ground level that I had created a company that could not survive without me.

6. Do not start a business with your significant other.

There is an undeniable and irreversible toll of trying to mix business with pleasure. A fight at home can carry into the business, and in our case a fight eventually led to a breakup. My girlfriend and I separated, but we remained in a business relationship and it was toxic.

The hardest part was accepting that we could not continue to operate a business with this dynamic. Neither she nor I were willing to run the business alone, and angel investors were not lining up like we had hoped. This was the end of Brooklyn Taco.

Despite such an arduous path from the beginning to the end of Brooklyn Taco, I do not have any regrets about the journey. I started out as a nervous amateur cook who knew little about what it takes to run a business to a savvy owner and seasoned chef who created one of the most recognized tacos in NYC. I hope that some day, Brooklyn Taco has the opportunity to rise up again and show everyone its greatness. That’s the beauty of mistakes -- if you learn from them, you’ll never fail to build something better.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

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The Five Biggest Myths About Saving Money, According to a Millennial

Ethan Bloch.

Source: Digit

Ethan Bloch has some financial advice for his millennial peers: “Just have your f------ latte!”

The 30-year-old founder of Digit, an online financial company, can get heated about espresso drinks when discussing the clichéd financial advice given to his generation. In this case he is peeved about the “Latte Factor,” a term popularized by the author David Bach to signify how people can save by cutting back on little things. Bloch doesn’t buy it. “Just having that conversation in your head and using self-control over $3 is time and energy misspent,” he says.

Bloch isn't against saving. He just believes that technology—specifically, his—is better suited to help people get the job done. An algorithm developed by Digit tracks a user’s checking account to analyze income and spending patterns; when the software judges there’s “extra money” on hand, an automatic transfer whisks the surplus into a savings account. The average age of Digit users is 27.

Bloch's life seems lived in startup hyperdrive. He was fiddling with QBasic programming language at 9, sold software on EBay at 11, tripled and then lost $7,000 in bar mitzvah money day trading in the tech boom, started bingeing on Buffett and Munger at 20, and co-founded a startup called Flowtown at 23. He started working on Digit three years ago.

I asked Bloch, who has a lot of strong opinions about life and money, what common financial advice to millennials he considers off the mark. A warning for financial planners: The content of this article may be disturbing.

"It's important to get a job and start saving for retirement the minute you're out of college."

Actually, argues Bloch, it’s more important to spend time thinking about what you want to do and improving your earning potential:

It’s this kind of thinking where people should be spending their anxiety. Think about much you care about money, and what that means about a job for you. If your goal is, I just want to relax and surf and I’ll work my ass off so I can do that one day, well, it doesn’t cost that much to surf in South America. You could do that easily.

Even if you have a ton of student of loans, I’d still say figure out what you want to do even before you think about paying them back. If you’re 21, 22, spending the next few years deciding what you want to do will be more important long-term than making payments for three years. When you get out of school, it’s like you have to pay your student loan or you’ll go to hell. My point is to get out of that fear zone a bit.

"Getting a credit card right out of school is dangerous."

Not necessarily, says Bloch, who got his first credit card when he was 11 years old, from Chase Manhattan:

If you can, get a credit card. It comes down to you not using it to finance short-term experiences. Getting one that maybe has a $500 limit and using it to capacity will be really good for the long run. Set it up on autopay. If the limit is $500, you can’t destroy your life with that. It’s like training wheels.

"The American dream involves buying a house."

Bloch gets a little exercised on the issue of home ownership.

Don’t buy a f------ house. It depends on where you live, but nowadays it often makes a lot more sense to rent than buy. It goes back to values: Are you at a stage in your life when you’re really going to enjoy being a homeowner vs. having that idea implanted as something you want by an older generation or the U.S. government?

People in their twenties don’t have a lot of responsibilities, and that should be leveraged. Even though you don’t have a lot of money, you are rich in unattached time. You can be a bit riskier now than you can be as you age, possibly, and things become more determinate.

"Once you graduate, immediately try to build up a cash emergency fund."

Bloch goes off the personal finance reservation on this point.

People spend too much time thinking about or having anxiety about emergency funds. If you have a 401(k) through your job and start putting money into it, if something crazy happens, that money will be there, even if you have to pay a penalty. That is, by default, an emergency fund. Finance people hate it when you say that, but it’s the truth. It’s pretty pragmatic.

When you’re young, a lot of decisions that you come across are short-term risky, like using a 401(k) as an emergency fund, but the long-term benefit outweighs that.

"Investing is difficult, and stocks are sexy." 

It's actually really simple to manage your money, but a lot of people have agendas and have to sell products. There is a lot of noise and very little signal. So people in my generation check out.

For long-term investing, just put money in an index fund on a recurring basis and go back to living your life and you’re done. You don't need a financial helper to do that. If productivity increases, the economy does well. Then, barring nuclear war or an asteroid destroying the planet, you will compound your money at a reasonable rate for the rest of your life.

Source: Bloomberg 

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10 Great Autobiographies From the Brightest Minds in Business

The best way to learn about business is to listen to those who have achieved the same types of goals you’ve set for yourself. But you don’t have to have a direct connection to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or any other mogul to get this insider insight. Autobiographies give a personal look at these successful people's motivations, successes, failures and lessons learned.

Here are 10 of the best autobiographies from the brightest minds in business:

1. Miracles Happen


 

In her autobiography, Mary Kay Ash describes the principles that helped her build one of the largest cosmetics retailers operating today. Her book covers everything from the importance of expecting great things to dreaming big to paying close attention to her target market.

Related: 3 Short Books to Read to Maximize Your Productivity and Marketing

A champion of women, a savvy business executive and a first-rate marketer, Mary Kay Ash’s company is a legacy of her life and vision.

2. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman


 

Not every highly successful entrepreneur set out to conquer the business world. Yvon Chouinard, for example, began his business career as a highly skilled outdoorsman whose passions included mountain climbing and environmental causes.

Let My People Go Surfing is the incredible story of how he leveraged these passions to design innovative sports equipment and found one of the most environmentally-responsible companies in the world.

3. Iacocca: An Autobiography


 

Named the 18th greatest CEO of all time, Lee Iacocca was a man who changed the automobile industry for the better and brought Chrysler back from the brink of destruction. Born to Italian immigrants, his career started at Ford -- until he clashed with Henry Ford II and was fired in 1978. Despite this conflict, he was quickly courted by Chrysler, which he rebuilt from the ground up.

Iacocca is his story in his own words -- from his childhood in Pennsylvania to his celebrity status as a business icon.

4. Direct from Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry


 

Dell founder Michael Dell started his PC company in the same way that many other technology companies begin -- in his dorm room at college. With less than $1,000, he built his fledgling company into a powerhouse that transformed the way PCs were manufactured, purchased and delivered.

In Direct from Dell, he tells both the story of the company’s growth and his own management strategies.

5. The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company


 

The HP Way describes how Hewlett and Packard met at college and decided after graduation to found a company together in the one-car garage workshop that’s now known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. From tossing a coin to determine the company name to defining their own management strategies, this autobiography is an inside look at a company that chose to do things its own way.

Related: Rather Than Trying to Reinvent the Wheel, Be Inspired by These 5 Books

6. Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time


 

Starbucks is known for its ubiquity, but its “shop on every street corner” success didn’t come out of the blue. In Pour Your Heart Into It, CEO Howard Schultz discusses the customer-service principles that made Starbucks a household name. In addition, he shares the wisdom he’s learned and the techniques he’s used to keep Starbucks focused on customer and employee satisfaction, despite its staggering growth.

7. Sam Walton: Made In America


 

Love it or hate it, Walmart is one of the most successful retail businesses in American history. In Made in America, the chain’s founder details his company’s growth from a single dime store in Arkansas to the retail giant it is today, describing his successes and mistakes in an approachable, down-home writing style.

8. Jack: Straight from the Gut


 

Jack Welch is the man responsible for building General Electric into a multinational conglomerate that touches everything from lightbulbs to commercial lending and leasing. Straight from the Gut is Welch’s engaging first-hand story, starting with his childhood and moving through his meteoric rise through GE’s ranks. His autobiography discusses his career, business mistakes and successes, all in his trademark, no-nonsense style.

9. Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way


 

The playfully naughty title of this autobiography perfectly captures the personality of its author, billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.Losing My Virginity continues in the same vein, a unique and sometimes outrageous look inside the life and business of Branson and his cofounders. A perfect example of how an ambitious company can disrupt established but complacent industries, Branson’s autobiography is both entertaining and inspirational.

10. Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew the Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion


 

From being fired to building a multi-billion dollar business, Built From Scratch gives a first-hand look at the story of Home Depot founders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. An excellent example of grit and determination, the story of Home Depot is one that will inspire all entrepreneurs to keep going -- no matter what.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Have another autobiography that should be added to this list? Share your recommendations in the comments section below!

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6 Tips To Learn From Billionaire Jack Ma When Starting A Business

The idea of building a business is exciting and the outcome can be extremely rewarding. Take Jack Ma for example, before he founded Alibaba Group, he was an English teacher making around USD12 a month at a local university. Today he is one of the wealthiest men in the world, with an estimated net worth of USD22.5 billion.

As cliché as it is, most successful businessmen have their humble beginnings; the same goes to Ma. Here is a collection of some valuable lessons from him that aspiring entrepreneurs should take note of.

1. Before starting a business, know what you are doing

Image Credit: http://www.freshdialogues.com/

The purpose of being your own boss should not be solely because you are not interested to work for other people, it is also about spotting a business opportunity that will fill gaps in the market.

In 1995, when Ma went to the U.S. to become a translator, his friend showed him how the Internet works. Following that, he searched for the word ‘beer’. He found American beer, German beer, but there was no Chinese beer. “So I was curious, I searched ‘China’, and all search engines said no China,” Ma said in a documentary. As a result, this led him to starting a web company called China Pages, a yellow pages site which was Ma’s first ever Internet company.

2. Employ smart people, not popular people

As a boss you should look for suitable candidates to join your company in contributing and expanding the company. For instance, during a sharing session in Next Up Asia, Ma shared that when it comes to hiring, an employee should find the right people according to your level and needs.

“When your company is small like a tractor, and you hire the master who has Boeing 747’s engine, your tractor (company) will break when the engine start. Therefore, please do not ask for gorgeous (popular) one when getting people to join your team. Small company should hire smart people with the right mentality.”

3. Learn from the failures of others

Image Credit: http://nguyenhuudong.com/

Often times we only focus on the glamorous side of successful people, and we subconsciously forget through they been through failures and setbacks too. Besides learning successful tips and lessons from successful businesses, Ma remarked that it is the mistakes that business owners should really learn from. He said, “A lot of people fail for the same reason. If you know why people fail and you learn [from] that, you can make a correction.”

4. Always think about innovation, not just blind acquisition

People often compare Steve Jobs and Jack Ma. Both are dropouts, and they both are the inventors of two most game-changing technologies that they had eyes on way before their peers. For Steve Jobs, it would be the personal laptop and touchscreen smartphone; while for Jack Ma, it is the potential of the Internet.

Image Credit: www.haravan.com

During an interview with CNBC, Ma had this to share when he was asked about acquiring Ebay. “First, I don’t know if they would sell; and the second, we have to think about one thing—doing business is not as simple as only buying, you have to create something. You have to create something that has never existed, for the future.”

5. Take every risk—that’s actually worth taking.

Ma started his first Internet business called China Pages. However, it was his failed venture. The business lasted for about a year. Eventually Ma lost control of China Pages and the company was pressured into doing a joint venture with China Telecom. Although some may consider this as a ‘failure’, it was one that was undertaken by Ma as a calculated risk. In the end, it was still an experience worth learning. This, however, cannot be said about all failures and risks—some are just not worth taking and might even lead to bankruptcy.

Image Credit: Lifehack

Aspiring individuals would know that great entrepreneurs can identify ‘foolish’ risks and will reduce them to the absolute minimal value. There are many ways to do this, such as carry out thorough research about the market and available opportunities; practice patience and avoid rash impulsiveness; trust your gut-feeling; and have a back-up plan by insuring your business. The truth is, people are usually reluctant to endorse the last one. In spite of that, it happens to be one of the ways to suppress a great deal of ‘foolish’ risks.

Business insurances that are provided by certain parties such as AXA SME Smart Businessinsurance are specially designed to cater the protection needs of the SMEs (especially those with brick-and-mortar stores) who are vulnerable to unexpected events such as fire, flood, burglary, theft, armed robbery, loss of goods, third party bodily injury or property damage, your employees’ dishonesty or if your business is subjected to fraud.

So if something unfortunate happens, you immediately have the money you need to pick up the pieces and start over. This way, you can focus on the other risks you can afford and are worth taking.

6. The key to success lies in the younger generation

In any business, it’s crucial to plan ahead and one important factor to consider when planning for the future is your customer’s needs and desires. And since most modern businesses now cater to the younger generation, who better than to understand how to shape the company?

Jack Ma, as a visionary, knows that the Internet-savvy generation would be the key to leading a company towards success and thinks that businesses should leverage on this. “The younger generation is always better than (the) last generation,” he said, admitting that although he is objectively better than his own father, his children are now better than he is. “If you want to keep this company innovative, if you want the company to catch the future, keep the vision, rely on the young people.

Source: Vulcan Post

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INTERVIEW: ipay88's Executive Director says "Success is a Decision"

Mr Chan Kok Long, the Executive Director of ipay88 was one of the Nurture Growth Conference 2015 speakers. Here he shares his story with us.

1. You have a history of both failures and successes. Most people know only about the successes. If you could share one piece of advice to someone who just failed in a business, what would it be?

Look back on the failed business model and find out what had gone wrong then ask yourself whether the business venture has a potential or not. 

This is where all successful people will tell you that you must believe in yourself and the business but they usually fail to tell us that if the business model is a bad idea, continuing to believe in your business will bring you more losses than before. If the original idea is bad there is no harm to explore a new or adapted idea. 

2. What is a typical work day for you?

Wake up late like 8 am, newspaper and all social medias to get updates on what is happening in the business and the world that we live in! 

Of course, doing all these with my favourite freshly squeezed fruit juices and all my vitamins and supplements. Do my prayers. Then head to office and during the journey, I do my thinking and planning for my top two things to do for that day. 

You can do this when you have the luxury of having a driver. I usually reached the office at 10 am. I'll then have a quick 25 minute meeting with the sales team and say hello to all my staff. 

My first important task for the day is to be completed in morning and then later after lunch the second most important task should be done. 

I should be free by 3pm to 330pm to spend some time with my staff if I am still in the office. 

At 5pm, I'll have my networking session at bars or restaurants. I always reach home by 830pm and then have my light dinner and then have my shower.

I then spend some time with my children to monitor their studies and and spend time with my wife. 

After 11am, I reflect seriously on what I have done and what mistakes I have made during the day. Also what achievements I accomplished for the day. 

I then end the night with a big hug and good night kiss to my wife. 

In principle, we work 24 hours. 

3. Our economy is facing a bit of a slowdown right now. How do you ensure that your companies continue to strive?

To me, this is my biggest moment in my life. I have planned and anticipated this economic slowdown. Every crisis, there will be an opportunity as well. 

As I always mentioned in my sharing or speaking engagements, our business always go through a 10 year cycle. Never believe that you are the exception. So if you have been enjoying good business years for the last 7 years then you know you are at the peak of your business and this is the time you must start planning for the downturn and sustainability of your company. 

The problem is most of business entrepreneurs always believe that their business will continue to strive and make money. I personally experienced having a great business and being number one. We lost the business overnight and lost a lot of money.

4. When you’ve been in a business for so long, it can be challenging to change how things are done because of a set culture. How do you adapt to change and how do you make sure your staff understand that change is necessary?

First you must accept the change. Example, we travel and visit many world class companies all over the world including the Silicon Valley. We see that we must change in order for our company to stay relevant and not to just change for the sake of changing. 

Then we educate and share our findings from top down. Start with all department heads and go all the way down the lowest level in the organization including our dispatch boys and drivers. The key is education and sharing the reason why we need the change.

5. Who is your number one role model and what have you learnt from him/her?

OG Mandino. The great successful entrepreneur that built the most successful magazine in the states and motivational speaker. He almost committed suicide at the age of 15. He had learned that life was never fair to him. Never is and never will be. The second number one is my mother. How she single-handedly brought up a family of six with determination and hard work. She can work from morning 7.00am till the next day 1.00 am just to put food in our mouths. She failed sometimes but we became tougher and more determined to succeed because of it.

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