Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Jangan pentingkan diri sendiri

Untuk membina asas pelanggan yang kukuh, sebagai perunding unit amanah, kita tidak boleh mementingkan diri sendiri. Keuntungan pelanggan mesti didahulukan. Jangan hanya mengira komisyen yang akan kita dapati sahaja. Kepentingan pelanggan mesti diutamakan.

Jangan hanya mengira keuntungan yang kita dapati dan mengabaikan kepentingan pelanggan. Contohnya jika kita berjaya membuat jualan untuk kategori dana ekuiti (seperti ittikal, PIEF dan PIOF) dan dana seimbang (seperti PIBF), komisyen yang kita perolehi ialah 2.85%. Tetapi jika kita membuat jualan kategori dana ‘bond’ (seperti PI Bond), komisyennya hanyalah 0.25%.

Jadi ramai perunding yang tidak mahu membuat jualan dana ‘bond’, malah tidak menerangkan langsung kepada pelanggan bahawa kita juga mempunyai dana ini. Sebabnya jelas, komisyennya yang amat rendah.

Ada waktu-waktunya kita boleh menjual 100% dana ekuiti. Dan pada keadaan sekarang (17/11/2005) dimana KLCI berada pada kadar 900 mata, dana seimbang adalah lebih sesuai. Pun begitu ini untuk pelaburan jangkamasa sederhana dan panjang.

Jika pelabur masih inginkan dana ekuiti, pastikan dia tidak melabur keseluruhan wangnya dalam dana ekuiti itu. Nasihatkan dia melabur 50% dari wangnya ke dalam bond

Sebenarnya kita perlu faham, yang kita sedang membina asas pelanggan yang kukuh. Ini bermakna, kita sedang membina kepercayaan yang kukuh kepada mereka. Sekiranya berlaku kerugian kepada pihak pelanggan, sudah tentunya mereka akan menyalahkan kita dan menyebarkan berita buruk ini kepada yang lain. Tetapi sekiranya pelanggan mendapat keuntungan, mereka akan membawa kebaikan kita seperti, menambah nilai pelaburan ataupun memperkenalkan pelabur-pelabur baru kepada kita.

Menurut Brian Tracy dalam suatu artikelnya, ‘menjaga’ pelanggan yang sedia ada, adalah lebih baik dari mencari pelanggan baru. Cuba renungkan sejenak maksud tulisannya ini.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Your Ideal Self and Life: by Brian Tracy

Your self-concept is made up of three parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these three parts enables you to put your hands on the keyboard of your own mental computer. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept of selling, you can then control your sales destiny for the rest of your career.

Determine Your Direction
The first part of the self-concept is the "self-ideal." Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Strive Toward Excellence
Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have distilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by your comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and your striving to behave consistent with them.

Clarity Is Essential
Successful salespeople have very clear ideals for themselves and their careers. Unsuccessful salespeople have fuzzy ideals. Successful salespeople are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful salespeople don't give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviors are consistent with their idealized behaviors.

Set Challenging Goals
Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Your Future Is Unlimited
Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.

What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead.
Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play.
You’ll immediately notice a difference in your behavior.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Why money is good: by Brian Tracy

The way you think about money will determine how much of it you accumulate more than any other factor. Your attitude toward money affects your emotions and your motivations.

Do You Feel That You Have Enough?
In psychology, money is what is called a "deficiency need." This means that it only motivates you when you feel def icient in it, when you don't feel that you have enough. Above a certain level, when you feel that you have enough, it is no longer a motivator. Put another way, when you have enough money, you don't think about it very much. But when you have too little, you think about it all the time.

Determine Your Attitude Toward Money
The effect money has on your emotional life depends on your attitude toward it. If you feel that you have too little, money can become an obsession for you. It can dominate your thinking, feelings and actions. Arguments over money are a major reason for marital breakdown. Problems with money are the primary reason for business collapse, the ruination of friendships and psychosomatic illnesses of all kinds. It's not uncommon for people to even kill themselves over money problems.

Practice The Reality Principle
The Reality Principle applies especially to matters of money. This principle states that, "You must deal with life as it is, not as you wish it were, or could be." Most people live in a world of partial self-delusion, or even fantasy, with regard to money. They wish, hope, and pray about their financial futures while at the same time, deep in their hearts, they know their dreams will never materialize. In Lewis Carroll's book, Alice in Wonderland, one of the characters says quite happily that he is quite capable of believing several impossible things before breakfast each day. In the same way, many people believe quite impossible things about money and then they wonder why they are having so many financial problems.

Overcome Deep Seated Beliefs
One of the most common obstacles to achieving financial independence is a deep-seated belie f that somehow money is wrong and that people who have a lot of it are inherently evil. This belief is not based on any factual foundation. It goes back to early childhood conditioning when the growing child is often told this because of other people's desire to rationalize away their own financial failures.

Money is Good
The fact is that money is good. It takes money to buy homes, cars, clothes, toys, food and most of the good things in life. Money has an energy of its own and it is largely attracted to people who treat it well. Money tends to flow toward those people who can use it in the most productive ways to produce valuable goods and services, and who can invest it to create employment and opportunities that benefit others. At the same time, money flows away from those who use it poorly, or who spend it in non-productive ways.

Action Exercises
Here are two things y ou can do immediately to improve your attitude toward money:

First, be perfectly honest to yourself with regard to money and to the amount you want to acquire in life. Pretending that you don't care about money when you really do will only make you unhappy.

Second, begin today to think about all the wonderful things that you could have in your life if you had more money. Then, begin to think of all the things that you could do to increase the amount you earn and the amount you keep.



Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Three Skills To Improve Conversation: by Brian Tracy

One key to becoming a great conversationalist is to pause before replying. A short pause, of three to five seconds, is a very classy thing to do in a conversation. When you pause, you accomplish three goals simultaneously.

The Benefits of Pausing
First, you avoid running the risk of interrupting if the other person is just catching his or her breath before continuing. Second, you show the other person that you are giving careful consideration to his or her words by not jumping in with your own comments at the earliest opportunity. The third benefit of pausing is that you will actually hear the other person better. His or her words will soak into a deeper level of your mind and you will understand what he or she is saying with greater clarity. By pausing, you mark yourself as a brilliant conversationalist.

Ask Questions
Another way to become a great conversationalist is to question for clarification. Never assume that you understand what the person is saying or trying to say. Instead, ask, “How do you mean, exactly?”
This is the most powerful question I’ve ever learned for controlling a conversation. It is almost impossible not to answer. When you ask, “How do you mean?” the other person cannot stop himself or herself from answering more extensively. You can then follow up with other open-ended questions and keep the conversation rolling along.

Paraphrase the Speaker's Words
The third way to become a great conversationalist is to paraphrase the speaker’s words in your own words. After you’ve nodded and smiled, you can then say, “Let me see if I’ve got this right. What you’re saying is . . .”

Demonstrate Attentiveness
By paraphrasing the speaker’s words, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings. And the wonderful thing is, when you practice effective listening, other people will begin to find you fascinating. They will want to be around you. They will feel relaxed and happy in your presence.

Listening Builds Trust
The reason why listening is such a powerful tool in developing the art and skill of conversation is because listening builds trust. The more you listen to another person, the more he or she trusts you and believes in you.

Listening also builds self-esteem. When you listen attentively to another person, his or her self-esteem will naturally increase.

Listening Develops Discipline
Finally, listening builds self-discipline in the listener. Because your mind can process words at 500-600 words per minute, and we can only talk at about 150 words per minute, it takes a real effort to keep your attention focused on another person’s words. If you do not practice self-discipline in conversation, your mind will wander in a hundred different directions. The more you work at paying close attention to what the other person is saying, the more self-disciplined you will become. In other words, by learning to listen well, you actually develop your own character and your own personality.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, make a habit of pausing before replying in any conversation or discussion. You will be amazed at how powerful this technique really is.

Second, continually ask, “How do you mean?” in response to anything that is not perfectly clear. This gives you even more time to listen well.

Be An Optimist At All Times: by Brian Tracy

Everyone wants to be physically healthy. You want to be mentally healthy as well. The true measure of “mental fitness” is how optimistic you are about yourself and your life.
In this newsletter, you learn how to control your thinking in very specific ways so that you feel terrific about yourself and your situation, no matter what happens.

Control Your Reactions and Responses
There are three basic differences in the reactions of optimists and pessimists. The first difference is that the optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent. The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order that falls through or a sales call that fails, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and that has no real impact on the future. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny.

Isolate the Incident
The second difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as specific, while the pessimist sees them as pervasive. This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in his life.

See Setbacks As Temporary Events
For example, if something you were counting on failed to materialize and you interpreted it to yourself as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in the course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments as being pervasive. That is, to him they are indications of a problem or shortcoming that pervades every area of life.

Don't Take Failure Personally
The third difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists see events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal. When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as resulting from external factors over which one has little control.

If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, “Oh, well, I guess that person is just having a bad day.”

The pessimist on the other hand, has a tendency to take everything personally. If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate him.

Remain Calm and Objective
The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life. The superior person has the ability to continue talking to himself in a positive and optimistic way, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control. The mature personality is more relaxed and aware and capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than is the immature personality. As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his environment, and is far less likely to be angry, upset, or distracted.

Take The Long View
Look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary, specific and external. View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you can have little control. Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability.

Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens. You may not be able to control events but you can control the way you react to them.

Action Exercises
Now, here are three actions you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself continually that setbacks are only temporary, they will soon be past and nothing is as serious as you think it is.

Second, look upon each problem as a specific event, not connected to other events and not indicative of a pattern of any kind. Deal with it and get on with your life.

Third, recognize that when things go wrong, they are usually caused by a variety of external events. Say to yourself, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and then get back to thinking about your goals

The Determinant of Your Success: by Brian Tracy

Perhaps the most powerful single factor in your financial success is your beliefs about yourself and money. We call this the Law of Belief. It says simply this: Whatever you believe, with feeling, becomes your reality.

What Successful People Believe
Whatever you intensely believe becomes your reality. That we have a tendency to block out any information coming in to us that is inconsistent with our reality. What we've discovered is that successful people absolutely believe that they have the ability to succeed. And they will not entertain, think about, or talk about the possibilities that they'll fail. They do not even consider the possibility of failure.

Positive Thinking Versus Positive Knowing
You always act in a matter consistent with your beliefs. The most important belief system you can build is a prosperity consciousness where you absolutely believe that you are going achieve your financial goals. We call this positive knowing versus positive thinking. Positive thinking can sometimes be wishing or hoping. But positive knowing is when you absolutely know that no matter what, you will be successful.

The Foundation of Willpower
Another principle related to your beliefs is willpower. We know that willpower is essential to any success. Willpower is based on confidence. It's based on conviction. It's based on faith. It's based on your belief in your ability to triumph over all obstacles. And you can develop willpower by persistence, by working on your goals, by reading the biographies of successful people, by listening to audio programs, by reading books about people who've achieved success. The more information you take into your mind consistent with success, the more likely it is that you will develop the willpower to push you through the obstacles and difficulties you will experience.

Beat the Odds on Success
Remember that success is rare. Only one person in one hundred becomes wealthy in the course of a lifetime. Only five percent achieve financial independence. That means that the odds against you are 19-to-1. The only way that you're going to achieve your financial goals is if you get really serious. To succeed, you must get serious. You must get busy. You must get active. You must get going. Remember, everything counts.

Resolve To Achieve Greatly
Self-mastery, self-control, self-discipline are essential for anyone who wants to achieve greatly. And control over your thoughts is the hardest exercise in self-mastery that you will ever engage in. See if you can talk and think about only what you desire and not talk or think about anything that you don't want for 24 hours. Then you'll see what you're really made of. It's a hard thing to do but with practice, you can reach the point where you are thinking about your goals and desires most of the time. Then, your whole life will change for the better

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to build a belief system consistent with the financial success you desire:

First, continually repeat to yourself the words, pictures and thoughts consistent with your dreams and goals. Whatever you repeat often enough, over and over, becomes a new belief.

Second, set a goal for yourself to think and talk only about the things that you want for the next 24 hours. This will be one of the hardest things you ever do. But if you can keep your mind on what you want and off of what you don't want for 24 hours, you can begin to change your entire future.

Solving Problems Effectively: by Brian Tracy

Your ability to communicate is the most important skill you can develop to get on to the fast track in your career. Perhaps the most important thing you do in business is to solve problems and make decisions, both by yourself and with other people.

Use a Systematic Process
A major type of communication in the business organization is meetings for problem solving and decision making. The key to effective problem solving and decision making discussions, is for you to all go through the process systematically.

Define the Problem Clearly
Right at the beginning, you ask the question, "What exactly is the problem?" Clarity of definition will resolve 50% of the issues before they go any further.

Focus on the Future
When discussing a problem, be sure to focus on the future over the past. Ask the question, "Where do we go from here?” “What do we do from here?” “What are our options for the future?" Too many problem-solving discussions end up focusing all of the attention of all the people present on what happened in the past and who is to blame. The effective executive uses this type of communication to focus on where the company and the individuals are going, and what can happen in the future - the only part of the equation over which anyone has any control.

Talk About the Solutions
A second element in effective problem solving communications, is for you to talk about the solutions instead of talking about the problems. It is for you to keep the attention of the individuals in the meeting focused on the possible solutions and what can be done rather than what has already happened.

Release Creativity
The discussion of solutions is inherently positive, uplifting and has a tendency to release creativity amongst the group. A discussion of problems is inherently negative, demotivating and tends to inhibit creativity.

The Key to Positive Thinking
You can become a positive thinker simply by becoming a solution-oriented person rather than a problem-oriented person. If you get everyone in your organization thinking and talking in terms of solutions, you will be astonished at the quality and quantity of ideas that will emerge.

Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can immediately to become a better problem solver and decision maker.

First, take some time to be absolutely clear about the problem that is under discussion. Give some thought to what an ideal decision or solution would accomplish. Instead of focusing on the situation as it is, talk about the situation as you would like it to be.

Second, keep the conversation focused on solutions, on what can be done in the future. The more you think and talk about solutions, the more positive and creative everyone will be and the better ideas you will come up with.