Sales, Social and Tech

My son is entering Primary 3 next year and we will soon be introduced to those Arithmetic questions that require a bit of thinking to get the answer. The challenge is you can't use Algebra to answer the question. Below is the introduction to such a question. Amanda and Mary had 28 stickers altogether. Amanda had 10 stickers more than Marry How many stickers did Mary have? Block diagram Initially my approach was this and found it was wrong. I took 28/2-10=8 (Mary having 8 stickers) thinking that if you took the total and divide by 2, both will get the same amount. Since one got 10 more, the other would have gotten 10 less. However, you don't get the right answer when you check. If Mary had 8 stickers, this means Amanda would have gotten 18 stickers. So 8+18=26 which is the wrong answer. I tried an alternative approach which I read somewhere that you subtract the total with the difference and divide it by 2.  Arithmetic  Step 1: 2...

Singapore will soon exempt local operators, Singapore Pools and Turf Club, from online gambling ban and the sites will be ready in November 2016. Ministry of Home Affairs explained that a complete ban on remote gambling drives demand and activities underground, and may create larger incentives for criminal syndicates to target Singapore." Yet in a 2012 survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCG) found that those who gamble online have the poorest control.  Source: https://app.msf.gov.sg/Portals/0/Summary/research/EDGD/Gambling%20participation%20survey%202011.pdf For those who indulged in online gambling, 30.4% said they gambled for a longer period than they planned to, 33.3% gambled with more money than they planned and 29.2% gambled more frequently they planned to.  Will launching the online gambling sites be like opening a Pandora Box that will create more issues in the future?

There was a time whenever I heard the title sales and marketing, I would cringe a little. However, doing channel sales now, a little dash of marketing can do wonders to your sales funnel. If the end is closing the deal, then the starting point of the sales journey is get a lead. In a traditional setting, that lead generation portion is often left to the marketing team. In today's Internet social media world, the salesperson with that dash of marketing will outsell those who draw the line between sales and marketing. The American Marketing Association most recently defined marketing as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Isn't the salesperson the best to do tall these? Today the medium and distribution channel are almost free. You could easily start a blog in seconds, with Blogger, Wordpress or event start a new po...

I been listening to several sales podcasts recently and one of the common tips that they give is that you should make the phone call daily to touch base with your sales prospects. I have the additional task of building the company's partner base and calling partners on a regular basis is also part of parcel of getting them to help bring me more customers. Today, a phone call help closed a deal. Sounds easy yet behind the phone call was some hard work and creative thinking to get the deal. This deal was considered as one that is handed to me on a plate as it was a maintenance deal to be renewed. For maintenance deals, the customer have already been using the company's solution for at least a year so there isn't the challenge of having to do the whole introduction spill again. Getting the appointment to close the deal was, on the other hand, the toughest part. This was because the customer was quite busy and had a tight schedule for a meeting. There were times w...

In my first sales job, I had a sales leader whom many described as having the capability to sell ice to Eskimos.  I left that job because I found that what I was selling was not of any benefit to the potential customers especially if their jurisdiction was just Singapore. Now, I am in my second sales job and I am find myself better selling a refrigerator to Eskimos as opposed to just selling them ice. Selling refrigerators to Eskimos is almost akin to selling them a solution as opposed to selling ice - a product.  Refrigerators would be a good solution to Eskimos because given the current climate changes, you need to preserve and store food at a regulated temperature instead of depending on the unpredictable moods swings of Mother Nature. With a refrigerator, Eskimos get to keep some of their perishables frozen or if they choose, just at a cooler temperature but somehow higher than the freezing point. The refrigerator will allow Eskimos to drink chilled water r...

As we come to the end of 2015, I thought it would be best to end it with my quotes in The Straits Times. Signing up for safer SingPass simplified; more streamlining expected, 22 December 2015 - Some SingPass users were pleasantly surprised by the change. Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, said: "The first step is so much faster now, involving fewer clicks." Streaming service with new set-top box may shake up Singapore TV market, 29 August 2015 - Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, said VPN services are already available on the Web for as little as US$50 (S$70) a year and can be used on any broadband connection. Consumers turning to telcos for phablets, 30 July 2015 Marketing manager Aaron Koh, 39, whose two-year mobile contract ends next May, said: "I'm holding out for the year-end launch of the new version of the iPhone 6, which will be more stable and offer better features." 1,000 free SIM cards for MyRepublic's mobile trial, 27 April 2015 - Mar...

MOS Teo said he didn't post the following quote on Facebook- "I learnt that some workers prefer to sleep without a mattress as they are used to it back in their home country". The above quote that appeared with the photo in the Ministry of Manpower Facebook Page came under heavy criticism for being insensitive to the plight of migrant workers in Singapore. It created that much furore to have the story appear on  BBC website . The Ministry of Manpower has issued a statement that the post and the caption was put up by an unnamed Facebook admin. The question of many, especially the government ministry, must be asking how to approve a post before it goes "live" on the Page. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't allow this function for any of the roles assigned for the Facebook Page. You could put a post on draft and get the other key stakeholders to sign off in the comments, but once you publish the draft post, the comments can be seen. With this...