Take action for your Business today!
Attended my first meeting at BNI-Raffles as an official member today. Almost couldn’t wake up after working on the migration of SportsKaki’s site to our servers but in the end managed to get into Geek Terminal right on time. I’m usually not a morning person but somehow meeting up at BNI always give me a buzz that lasts right throughout the business day.
We had a great session today with our mentor Leonard Song from Business Oasis International giving a great motivational speech on the key elements to a successful chapter. He concentrated on 3 main points, 1) OWNERSHIP, 2) TEAMWORK and lastly 3) TAKING ACTION!
1) OWNERSHIP
Leonard reminded us that being business owners, we are truly the only people who can take control of how we want to grow our own company. This also applies to how we want to grow the chapter. Having this mindset will help to cultivate the right approach by showing commitment to the team
2) TEAMWORK
An example that was brought up that stuck particularly with me was that geese fly in a V-formation to reduce drag and fly more efficiently. Similarly in a team, by working together, we will grow faster and better. We were also reminded that the guy (top bird) in front has a tough job and showing support is always a good thing.
3) TAKING ACTION!
The last point was that we should all take action to improve or examine how we do things now and make sure each member knew what the other was doing. The power of word-of-mouth marketing and referrals is that by engaging our members on what we do and similarly learning what the other party offers, we can start connecting opportunities in our daily work.
A good example was how immediately after the meeting, Kelly from Power Laser International dropped me a mail titled “How to find the right referral for Power Laser?“. I was immediately intrigued and read through the details. Some key points about Power Laser that immediately gets stuck in my mind for customers with office supplies needs.
- cost saving on cartridges without compromising on the print quality
- enjoy unlimited on-site printer maintenance and servicing
- enjoy free part replacement for printer
- enjoy free temporary printer loan to tie over the downtime
I look forward to putting the 3 points into action and getting to know each member of Raffles Chapter better. Ang from Bio Life Marketing gave a great quote to end the meeting.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. – Henry Ford
Moving from WebCollab to activeCollab for project management
Project and tasks management is very important to small teams so having a web based tool that can allow all members (including clients) to have an overview of what are the milestones and tasks as well as a central repository of documents helps a lot. Had been using WebCollab for the past 3 years and while I’ve found it to be quite sufficient for my needs, customers often complain that it isn’t the most user-friendly tool.
Seeing as how BaseCamp has been wildly successful in its attempt to be a project management tool for the masses, I thought I would try it too. However, the costs associated with it on a monthly basis isn’t the most attractive option.
Thinking I would have stick to WebCollab and its green/red tasks indicators, I’m glad I came upon RedMine and spent quite a few hours getting the CentOS + Plesk 8.1 server ready for Ruby. However, after spending some time with it, I realise although its a great project planning tool, it seems more suited for developers rather than end-customers.
Again I went searching until activeCollab came up during my Google Reader scans. This time the requirement for PHP5 gave me a little problem since Linux server is still on PHP4. Luckily Windows server is able to toggle between PHP4 and 5 and I managed to get it installed and tested out creating projects and clients. It has a straightforward interface that allows for creating of projects, assigning clients to it as well as milestones (deadlines) with its associated tasks list. Looks like I’ll soon be migrating all the projects currently being managed to activeCollab since it looks simple enough for end-users to use too.
Finally joined BNI Singapore – Raffles Chapter
It took me a longer route than usual, first a breakfast visit to Abundance in March 2005 where I got to know Glynis Koh (very friendly propety agent who found me my flat and whom I later introduced another deal) and Alex Siew (who helped me and another friend do our ROM and AD photography). Soon after, Asis-T Solutions joined/started BNI-Excellence through Aik Boon‘s participation and where I got to substitute and get to know more about “Word-of-mouth” Marketing from BNI members.
Since then, I’ve on-and-off participated but didn’t really get into the spirit of BNI since I’m usually on the project side of things. Moving forward with On9 Systems, I plan to be more active in the sales/marketing aspect of the business and have joined Raffles Chapter (got approval today from VP!). The aspect of getting up early (VERY hard for me but shall strive to change) and meeting at 7.30am each week without fail will probably make most people squirm at the commitment. You’ve gotta respect the folks at each chapter who commit to making their business their concern and work hard to make new friends and refer businesses each week.
I’m already looking forward to get to know more of the members with whom I’ve had the pleasure to know some of them before joining. Greets going out to Andrew, Ang, Ismadi, Daniel, Doris, Sally, Kuan Kuan, Ranny, Leonard, Ken, Steven, James, Thaufik, Kelly, Trecillia, Felix, Melinda and Adrian who did one of the better presentations I’ve seen on Life Protection today.
If you’re a small business owner or interested in the world of “Word-mouth-marketing”, we’ll be meeting at Geek Terminal each Friday at 7.30am, so do let me know if you’re interested to join us for a lively chat and breakfast session. (As it so happens, I just found out that Goh at Geek Terminal is my ex-school mate!)
Thoughts on registering a business in Singapore
Claudia from limedsign recently asked for comments on registering a business in Singapore. Seeing as how some friends are recently thinking of doing the same, I thought I would pen down some experiences with it. Am certainly NOT a veteran at this having only registered 2 myself (Asis-T Solutions and On9 Systems) and 1 other for friend (Webvolutions) but this should be useful to me (and anyone reading) should I/you need to register another company again! 
Step 1 : Think up a great name for your company that people will start asking you about. In current web climate, misspellings or non-English sounding names seem to go well with the crowd. Of course, something to do with what you intend to sell/offer would be great. Can check out names available at Acra’s company registry here.
Step 1a : If you intend to get an online presence, start thinking about what domain name you’ll like. Find a suitable web host and check if the name is available. It sucks to have a great name thought out, registered and realize the domain has been taken up by a squatter.
You can use http://www.sgnic.com.sg/ and http://www.betterwhois.com/ but I usually use my registrar’s domain search service http://www.webnic.cc/.
If you’re just starting up, a simple plan should suffice for web hosting but of course, it all depends on your cashflow and needs. Remember that most web hosting is paid up front annually.
Step 2 : Create a financial plan on how you’re going to make money in the 1st year, 2nd year and if you can a 5 year plan is even better. I just plug in a cashflow scenario of likely income, outflow (transport, stationary, rent?) into excel and estimate the number of customers I’ll likely need to talk to and get sales to be in the black. Don’t worry, being in the red in your first year should be pretty normal unless you sell stuff that make you 100% profit each time with zero overheads.
| Income | |
| Sale of goods or services rendered | Factor in your typical sales cycle and sales volume. Doing service based business? Categorize according to large and small projects and take a good average. |
| Outflow | |
| Business Licenses |
Sole-proprietorship, Partnership, LLP – $65 one time Pte Ltd – Be prepared to pay for incorporation fees and secretarial fees. Check out DP Bureau and other services at Tanjong Pagar’s International Plaza. For home businesses, you’ll also need to apply for HDB’s Home Office Scheme (HDB). Medisave, factor in $540 for minimum trade income as suggested by CPF. Its a good idea to just get it over with since you’re probably not putting in any CPF contributions for now. |
| Name Card | I use Honesty Printing, 200pcs for $40.00 |
| Rental |
Working from home still need to pay electricity, mortgage etc My situation: |
| Transport | Ulu places like Lim Chu Kang will need taxi, taking bus just takes up time and money! Have all cab companies numbers saved to your mobile for that urgent customer visit. |
| Mobile | Get a decent plan from any telco with FREE incoming. I saved half my monthly bill by switching. Thanks M1. |
| Fax | Used to use Singtel’s Faxplus but without incoming fax, this just doesn’t work for me anymore so I just bought a fax modem and hooked it up to my desktop running 24/7 anyway. I save paper and get to send/receive fax anytime. |
| Salary/Allowance |
You’ll need to eat/socialize have fun also so don’t forget to give yourself some $$ to survive. I use a base of $1000.00 per person which is of course dependent on one’s lifestyle. This is of course most likely a figure for partners only. Hiring would require different figures to be plugged in. Based on my experience : Interns – $500 – $1000 |
| Banking/Checking Account |
If customers don’t mind giving cash or issuing cheques in your personal name, you can try getting a UOB Cashplus account since it has no minimum opening amount and no fall-below fee. Asking for waiver of the annual fee shouldn’t be a problem also. Just remember not to issue cheques from your credit. That’s just silly. Otherwise, be prepared to have an initial opening of $1000.00 onwards from various banks Corporate Accounts. I’ve use UOB and Maybank. UOB’s Corporate Account requires $1000.00 for initial opening and to maintain a monthly average of $10,000 otherwise there is a service charge of $15/month. |
| Secretarial Services | For Pte Ltd Only, not very familiar with this so taking a walk around Int’l Plaza should give you some clues |
| Accounting | I do my own accounting using Microsoft Money to generate invoices and excel for quotes. Generally try NOT to wait too long to keep your accounts in order. During Tax time, its just one big hassle if you forget everything that happened a year ago. |
| Marketing | Allocate a small budget for marketing purposes. Either join a network like BNI, ASME or any other you’re comfortable with. Can also try Google AdSense if you have a website. Word-of-mouth also works great if you have a good product/service. |
Step 3: BE VERY HAPPY with your plan and tell your friends about it. Most will probably balk at the idea since starting a business isn’t really the IN thing for most people who work at MNC’s. Some others will wish you good luck and wonder if they could do it but probably won’t. Some will offer your partnerships (silent) if they think you have a good idea and may want some equity. My advice? Its your life, so be happy if you decide to take the plunge and work hard for the next two years and stick to the plan. Register your business and go forth and make new friends, meet challenges and have remember to have fun at it.
* Disclaimer : I’ve done my research and most are based on personal experiences so best to ask around for opinions. Am in no way endorsing that you go ahead and register your business just because you read this. Drop me a mail if you’ve got questions. I’ll be glad to help within my means.
Get invited to beta sites with Invite Share
Guess with all the craze over private betas and web launches, it had to happen sooner or later. The team behind InviteShare aims to help get those invites lying in your beta account on popular sites out to the community. I logged on to see some familiar sites like Joost (which I had sent approximately 60) and Dopplr (sent 3 so far). Some of the sites like Pownce which I had recently only learnt about were also on. Unfortunately, Popfly and Google Mashup editor don’t have invites yet so they aren’t listed.
It would be interesting to see what are the plans for InviteShare. Since they are already aggregating invites in typical mashup style these days, offering an API that offers OpenID integration to truly open up the invite scene would be pretty interesting? Imagine just logging on to one place with a single identity to give you access to private betas that are running.
Are you a freelancer? Get to know more about the industry by taking a quick survey
Are you currently or have worked as a freelancer? Freelanceswitch is currently running a survey that tries to collate information that would be pretty interesting to view when it ends in August. With my roots being in freelancing about 8 years ago, I decided to to take a quick survey that asked various questions like years of experience, hourly rates and average project costs. I think most of us when faced with project pricing always wonder if we’re going too high or going too low so knowing some of the results would be great to get a bit of perspective of project work in the region.
Link to » FREELANCERS UNITE: The 2007 Global Freelancer Survey Is Here!
