Financial Freedom | Lifestyle Travel & Sovereign Journeys: Stephen Chua

Symbol For Wisdom

On my travels my notes sometimes contain wise quips important for your sovereign journey. I’ve put together the top ten I found really most profound. Master them, and I have been told by the wise ones who have journeyed this way, and you will be a force to be reckoned with.

1) Learning all there is to know is knowledge; making best use of that knowledge is wisdom.

2) A loud scholar demonstrates his knowledge; wise ones know when to remain silent.

3) You are not always responsible for events around you; but you are responsible for your own actions.

4) The courage to speak is only matched by the wisdom to listen.

5) We demonstrate who we are by doing; not just talking. 

6) The angry person is unreasonable; the reasonable person is not angry.

7) Measure carefully before you leap; lest you miss your intended footing.

Success is achieved in two ways; destiny or resulting determination.

9) The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.

10) 1% of everything is better than 100% of nothing.

A young entrepreneur came up to me in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia trying to peddle a scenic tour to me and some friends. He couldn’t have been more than 14 years old. Then memories of decades past came flooding back to me.

Malaysian Jungle Misty Morning Scenery

My mind’s eye played the scenes back in vivid detail. This was a time some decades ago when children working to supplement family income or for personal survival was common place. By and large, entrepreneurs are opportunists.

Even when a slimmest chance of an opportunity presents itself, the true entrepreneur being the survivalist he or she is, will pounce. Nothing slips away.

Back then, the teenager was myself, giving ecotours to the yuppie generation. A foot trek through the virgin jungle was an adventure to them. They paid really good money at the time for a good knowledgeable guide. I made more money in cash over one weekend than the average person in their first year working did in a month. And then I went back to school for the rest of the week!

Despite the money, this was something I enjoyed. I knew every species of tree, insect, snake, wild animal, butterflies or any creature known. In fact, just name the creature or a choice of available locations, I was the guide to get you there.

They had a choice of seeing a waterfall, a variety of creatures, mountain views, a lake, a river boat fishing trip and even the large animals. But of course, there will be areas that are off limits to all but the most seasoned of adventurers.

There were times we ran into the odd tiger or huge pythons, but I was particularly careful not to approach water buffaloes or elephants - they are very bad tempered and will charge and kill anyone.

Besides, I enjoyed meeting the variety of people in my charge. I learnt to size my clients up and like any good business man, I delivered far more than promised. This always brought out the extra cash tips and even job offers.

The cross section of my customers were really surprising. There were magazine and TV models doing their pictures in the scenic areas, stock brokers, bankers, school teachers, doctors, museum curators…none of them were the great adventurers one would expect.

The lesson here? Read what you wish into this true story. But as you can see, you should not miss every opportunity to create a profitable business.

To earn more money, conventional wisdom tells you to just sell more product right? This is not always true and I will explain later.

Your Business Can Make More Money Fast.

Instead, the fastest way for a business to make more money is to literally increase your prices! I can hear the howls of protests now…

a) My customers are price sensitive and I will lose them.

b) This is the recession and the competition is cutting back prices.

So, how can you raise your business income virtually overnight? It’s so simple business owners lose their voices when they find out.

a) Working on a business everyday, you can increase your prices by offering far more services as an upsell – more value = more benefit.

b) Introducing higher prices to new clients.

c) Use small immediate price increases with added service – e.g. 10%.

Try it. There is no excuse to miss out on a great opportunity otherwise.

Why not put up a program to sell more product, to make more money?

a) It takes time and more cash investment.

b) Time lag between putting your sales program in place and seeing more money.

c) Most promotions are unsuccessful.

In short, the cost of new customer acquisitions is far more costly than selling to your existing customers.

On the road to financial freedom online businesses are all the rage these days. But did you also know, in new territories, there are also new dangers?

Business on the internet is booming and anyone being in business of any kind and are left wondering why you are not being as successful as that guy down the street, might want to take a good long look at using a series of websites to get that coveted income.

Of course we’ve heard all about hackers breaking into computer systems stealing sensitive info and destroying computers. Then there are those nasty bugs that travel around like the plague known as viruses, trojans, spyware and worms… But did you also know that there are those problems caused by the upgrading of the technology itself?

I have a series of websites and recently, a ton of information vanished. Then the sites were all down for days at a time. What the h… happened?

Well, the answer was the new technological wonders came up and bit us on the blind side hard. All the cases stemmed from moving all the hosting systems to a much vaunted faster one on another system called “Cloud Hosting”. That crashed our sites completely. In fact, it was so unexpectedly bad that I lost access to my cpanels (the back office of the website being hosted). But all indications of those servers running this system worked well and far better than the old servers.

Yes, it hurts for the businesses affected by such a disaster. I had everything backed up and so did the hosting companies taken precautions, but Murphy’s Law reigned. We’re trying to get everything up, but alas, I can’t even answer some of my e-mails and lost some communication with my customers - dang it!

So, if anyone feels short changed, I do too. So, just continue to come back I’m sure the best brains in the industry from Dell can solve it.

Knowing how to get rich in Singapore can be an extremely daunting task, as it is anywhere in the world if you attach the wrong ideas to how you should build your nest egg.

Kids During Chinese New Year, Aawwww...

Yet it is child’s play to build that surprisingly large bank account. Yes, I saw what a child, or rather a bunch of little five to seven year olds did while I was in Singapore. I was amazed and humbled at the same time. They reminded me of something I had left in the deep recesses of my mind and also the world at large.

This was Chinese New Year and the children get to receive their “Fung Pao” or red packets with some cash in it given by their elders they visit. Sometimes, these packets contain quite a sizeable sum, but at other times, just a few coins.

These little kids could teach rich dad poor dad Robert Kiyosaki that valuable lesson in making money. MInd you, this is not easy money, but something the children often learn very early in life.

Lucky Money Red Envelop That Kids Covet.

1) The First Impression: they dressed and acted as cutely and cuddly as they could to draw attention to solicit the most numbers of these red packets.

2) The Sales Pitch: they acted out with the sweetest language and voices they could muster to solicit the largest prize possible by calling every adult within range by their proper titles, e.g. uncle this, aunty that, and they add “grand” to more elderly people whether related or not.

3) The Upsell: these little smiling angelic faces went round with clasped hands and repeated bows, proceeded to wish everyone “Guanxi Fa Chai” or Happy and Propsperous New Year and sometimes got even more little gifts from the bemused same adult.

4) The Strategizing: these little ones turn into little business people out of sight of the adults as the gather in their little group to count their pickings. They exchange notes on who gets the biggest ones from whom and hatch a new plan of attack.

5) The Back End: the one with the smallest take has the first go with an ever slightly sulky face, with a Fung Pao sticking out of a pocket, and milling round the most generous giver, until another little gift gets produced. This being a special time, gamblers will play their favourite games like mah jong or poker and the winner is apt to be extra generous a second time - to these little blood suckers of course!

6) Calculating Profits: these little bankers and accountants to be then convene and choose what they want to buy, calculated right down to the last cent. Of course, they will then save the rest out of reach and sight of their parents of course.

7) Celebrations: for their job well done, it was time to celebrate their hard won profits at the corner store. Of course Uncle Stephen shelled out for the ice cream.

The Loot Kids Can Get Off Adults During This Festive Time.

If only us as adults can muster and apply such incredible focus on our objectives, we’d be winners every single time.

Current economic times have pushed up the ante for financial frredom. It has just got much tougher. Or has it?

The following is an anecdote about the battle for freedom. It is specifically aimed at those of you who think you’ve got it bad.

Imagine yourself in a war torn zone where human life is treated as less valuable than lifestock. It’s true. Lifestock you can kill and eat but another human is another mouth to feed and a possible enemy who will not balk at snuffing your life out in an instant.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, strife bombardment and the killing continued in the region until at least 1989. The story of the Killing Fields” was but one example of the stories that came pouring out as people left that region in search of peace and life by the hundreds of thousands. Those that made it to the refugee camps counted themselves lucky.

Refugee Camp In Thailand @ 1982

But as many as those that escaped, many more, perhaps ten times more did not. No, I do not mean they could not leave the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia (Kampuchea today), and Laos, they were fleeing from. I mean they will never leave. Death in the most horrendous way awaited most of them.

They all have to cross what the military calls the killing zone. This is no man’s land. Anyone crossing the last several kilometers will likely get blown up or shot to pieces. Even young children who brave the crossing were not given any quarter.

And in time - for those that made it across the Thai border or were found floundering helplessly in the South China Sea, life in the refugee camps eventually became a new life in their new adoptive country. Hong Kong, Canada, USA, France, Brittain, Germany, Australia all played significant roles in accepting those seeking refuge.

To them, just having the passage and a life to live, with food to eat daily, a simple roof over their heads, new family and friends around them, was financial freedom. Because, as they often commented to me then, “What more could we want? This is all we need.”

Cash is King again in this economy. Why?

When you have it, you can be the final arbiter during a buyers market.
There seems to be a shortage of that commodity everyone now craves for. There doesn’t seem to be enough going around.

So what’s the real problem then?

The distribution of that cash is a lopsided affair. Most of it is being held in larger amounts – i.e. the wealthy keep their loot pretty close to their chest or rather their war chest.  That means this is cash invested in safe interest bearing financial safety and not meant to be spent any time soon.

There Has Been More Cash Stashed Away Than Ever Before.

Economic performance is really a measure of spending and all that cash are not in the hands of the spenders. That’s most of the people who would ordinarily spend to make their lives a little easier. For example, a new home, a sofa, that latte, the subway, a cab, a quick trip down town, shopping at Macy’s or Wal Mart… In other words, the everyday consumers who make the economy go round.

The truth is, there has been more cash stashed away in the last decade than ever before. The global economy had been expanding significantly the last 15 years. So, then where is the cash?

According to a Forbes report, cash deposits have risen significantly:
“American households have $7.4 trillion in checking, savings and other bank accounts and money market funds. They have another $4.1 trillion stashed in Treasurys and other bonds. That $11.5 trillion, up from $8.9 trillion (in constant dollars) in 2000.”

Despite the mortgage melt down, that’s more than enough to pay off every home mortgage and also enough to bail out the American economy.

As an investor, the general assumption is that you always have to be invested; holding cash suggests that you’re not investing but rather sitting idle. Yet this assumption couldn’t be more misguided. Cash is actually the investor’s most valuable asset. Most don’t see its true value, however, until there’s a cash crunch in the economy.

It’s the buyers market and with cash in hand, you can call the shots. My price or I’ll leave it. Warren Buffett beat out other buyers for Constellation Energy because he didn’t have to quibble about financing.

But you need more cash and you need it now. So does most of the other folks around you. It’s just a lot harder now. A borrowing life line from the bank just ran out, and you’re told lay offs are imminent.

This is when due diligence is required. You will have to make a full financial picture of your entire assets versus liabilities and your cash flow. You’ll find places like that smoke or snack and latte or that eating out weekly that can be cut; reduced travel with the car or SUV; that new pair of jeans can wait another year…In short, you’ll find money you didn’t have.

The above ideas are conventional enough, but this is the part where I often get howls of protest like wolves in the full moon.

Finding spending cut backs is one thing. Now, how do you replace your income? Do you get another job and let the whole cycle begin again? Remember the above narration about having money? Notice it belongs to the rich who can hoard it until an incredible investment comes along. If you’d like to be there, you’ll have to do your homework and begin to really learn to invest to make your money work for you.

Piggy Banks To Save Some Money In Is Actually A Darn Good Idea.

All most rich people will tell you is that during times of poor economic performance, it your performance that will win the day. If you succumb and hold onto your remaining assets or cash and do nothing for the future, you’re dooming your future.

Suddenly real estate investment got onto the radar of investors wanting to put money somewhere; anywhere but the stock market. Tons of e-mails got everyone busy and most of them were about the state of real estate.

Number of Homes For Sale Have Fallen Far More Than The Prices.

Watching the GTA (the Greater Toronto Area) real estate right now, I do not see the great investor panic prevalent just recently in the US. Instead, home owners have simply put off selling their homes and not upgrade to larger houses.

Similarly, investors have decided to hold off disposing of their properties if they need not. So reports about falling home prices did not keep pace with the falling numbers of homes sold in recent months. Even the latest real estate prices for the month of October did not reflect panic selling but indicated a lower selling average price across the GTA.

That said, the Provincial and Federal Governments in Canada have been making the right noises about easing lending rates and liquidity. There is no general panic; but there is belt tightening, evidenced by the stricter lending practices. Although an end to this recession is still not evident, governments all over the world are very definitely preventing a total melt down of the global financial services. That augers well. And I am for one, hanging in there and not panicking.

In fact, I see opportunity.

Then, there is the plethora of real estate Gurus and pundits offering up their services to invest in commercial real estate. Well, let me qualify that. They are promoting their know how into investing in real estate with rentals and rental potential.

It does make a calculated financial sense to have stable businesses or renters paying your mortgage and maintaining that real estate investment. But due diligence is the order of the day, no less. Also, be very careful of your borrowing terms. Invest in the services of a really highly respected real estate lawyer specializing in such commercial and rental properties. They’ll save you a bundle by avoiding the money pits and traps.

Then there are the sitting on the fence buyers and sellers.
I can only advise doing the math to match your needs; financial, physical or emotional. Do what makes the most sense. Right now, it is the higher prices and larger properties that are experiencing the greatest price derease and slower market.

What surprised me were the number of real estate agents that were e-mailing requesting my take on the situation - and I thought they were the experts there! But verily, this recession has everyone spooked. My reply to them has been to actually seek opportunity right now. Look for new ways to make money or promote your services. holding back right now is one of the worst things you can do during a slow down.

The winners will be those that take the plunge and go right ahead and promote their real estate business; take calculated risks. Those holding back will be akin to commiting business suicide.

This is the time when fortunes are won or lost.

If you own or operate a local business, you’re probably feeling the crunch from the economy. Everywhere you turn people are tightening their belts and trying to squeeze one more mile out of their dollar.

It’s during these times that fortunes are made and lost for local businesses.  And it’s not what you’re thinking.

You see, studies prove that its during hard economic times that businesses should be spending the same if not more on advertising and marketing.

It might sound crazy…
But it’s true.  Check out this statement from All Business, a D&B Company;

“Study after study has delivered the same results: companies who pull in their resources and hunker down to ride out the economic uncertainties fall way behind when things get better.”

“Those same studies show that companies, who aggressively pursue revenue in good times and bad, leapfrog over their competitors in the following years.”

So what this means is, don’t be scared to spend some money on your advertising during these tough times.

And what you should do is take a look at what type of advertising or marketing will give you the best chances of survival.

You’ve got to find the methods that will offer you a nice return on investment (ROI).  You’ll have to pay attention to your advertising and where your best results are coming from.

Now more than ever, people are performing local searches on the internet before they leave their home to shop for products or services.

They’re looking to find what they want online first, price compare, and then head out to get it.  You see, the public at large are paying attention to gas mileage, time, and energy as the economy is hitting them too.

That’s the main reason why local search should be an important part of local business marketing. It’s cheaper than traditional advertising and when done right you get a much better ROI.

You might be wondering how to do it because you have no idea what local search advertising is and how to get it done.  And that’s exactly why local search directories are making it easy for your company to implement.

Local search directories are chock full of everything you need for your city and are highly optimized for your specific area.

What I’m saying is if you’re looking for a real estate agent in Toronto, you’re not going to find a real estate agent from Niagara Falls popping up in these local directories.

What that means to you is when your potential customer is searching for “Toronto Real Estate” they will find your business much easier because it’s targeted and optimized for those types of searches. 

Ultimately that’s more money in your pocket for every advertising dollar you spend. More and more searches are being done online before anyone ever leaves their home. And you should capitalize on it.

You’ve got to get ahead of your competition and start getting listed in local searches before the technology and your competitors leave you in the dust.  The bottom line is…it’s here to stay.

Note:

The above article was written and distributed by the Directory Network Association of which the Directory of Toronto and the Directory of Niagara Falls Area are members.