Do Not Let Your Innerlight Snuffed Out

To the frustrated,

You may have difficulty waking up in the morning and wondered what lies ahead. Everything seems bleak and no one in the world seems to care. I know, I have been through it and I am going through it. There are thoughts of regrets, remorse, revenge, self pity and even suicide. You know what? Those feelings are normal.

Take a deep breath and start breathing. Pay attention to your breathing. Fill your lung with air and let it out gently by emptying your lung. You are still alive. Take stock of what you have, write down five things that you are grateful for. Think and thank the people who has helped you in the past.

Are you drinking? Cut those out now. You do not need any form of alcohol. Alcohol affects your thinking and your sleep. You need to think clearly and sleep well. What is over is over. You cannot change the past, you cannot predict the future. Now is the most important time. Think about what is the outcome that you want to achieve. Do not wish. If you wish for something, you are expecting someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. At this point in your life, you have to take charge and figure out what to do. Set a goal, look at the goal and write down your options and action items.

Write down your options. Finished? Write down some more.  Finished? Write down even more. Go through the list. Some are down right bad ideas, cross those off. Filter through the ideas and short list the best ones. Is it done? No, not really.

Find a mentor, find someone whom you can trust and give you an honest feedback. Talk to this person, discuss the issues and talk about your ideas. Do not expect the person to give you any action items. No. You have to take ownership of your action items. At best the mentor can only tell you what is their opinion and assign a timeline for your action items.

During this period, make sure you eat well, sleep well, stay active and spending enough time with your love ones. No TV, no idle surfing the net and no gossip. Clinch every moment you have and work on your goal. Review your action items and talk to your mention as you progress.

Will things get better? Of course not! You will encounter more frustrations and set backs as you move towards your goal. Failure is because you have tried. Frustration is because you are doing something different. Keep going and keep moving.

What if you do not have the sufficient knowledge or resource to make things happen? Read and reach out into the internet. Chances are your problems is nothing new, someone must have encountered it. Read and learn as much as possible. People can bring you down and take away your possessions. However, they cannot take away what you know. To be competitive, you just need to know a little bit more than your competitor.

The hard truth about life, all these will come to an end. Nothing stays forever. Sorrow and setback will come to an end, so is happiness too. Hang on there and stay strong.

Kind regards,
Simon.

You Just Need to Show Up and Ask

There are sayings that to succeed you just need to show up. While another saying, ask and you shall receive. In my experience, not only you need to show up but to ask as well. When I say ask, it means asking tactfully.

Lately we have been working on a couple of prospects. The discussion to secure a deal is still on going, but the very least we are given the opportunity to be heard. I do not know these prospects personally nor we were introduced. It just so happens that we got acquainted through a charity event and exchange name cards. These prospects are all well established players in the market while I am still a new kid on the block with limited clientele and cash.

Instead of hard selling my services, I asked about their business, plans and frustrations. I offered some of my thoughts and even promised to introduce somebody that I might know whom might be able to help them. After we have established the relationship, did I immediately sell my services? No. I did not. I offered to catch up over a cup of coffee to discuss the matter further and wanting to know more about they do.

This sets up the opportunity for a second meeting. I would use that time to check out and understand more about this prospects. It can be their business nature or read up about things that they enjoy. If the person is a football fan, I would read up about it. Some of you readers may think this not sincere at all. You are wrong, I am sincere. I genuinely wanted to establish a relationship with this person. The only way is to have a common ground. Not all prospects can become business opportunity, the bright side is that you make a new friend.

In our second meeting, we would have more things to discuss and talk over. Will I spring up the question about my business offerings? The answer is depends. If I notice that there is nothing that we can offer. I will keep my mouth shut about my services. Occasionally I would say something about my company but never in detail unless the person ask. If there is an opportunity, I would offer my company's service but it is never in detail. If the person is keen, I would ask for a formal discussion. Of course, this sets up another meeting which is a formal meeting. Even if there is no opportunity, it is no harm to catch up again.

That's why showing up to meet the person is not only important but knowing how to ask tactfully is vital too. Many would think that "to ask" is means to ask for the business. It is not true, to ask is to understand your prospects and offer a solution to their problems. Is this time consuming? Yes, it is time consuming but we are here to establish a long term relationship. In many business dealings, it is all started from human interactions and relationship.

Change of Direction

The year of 2013 has ended and a new year has started. This year our business performance is actually way better than the year before. However, the profit margin is rather low.

The board of directors had few meetings and dig deeper into our business performance. We realized that our core strength in our business is actually inventory management and sourcing. No doubt we understand the hospitality business well but we are not getting right customers nor the margin to sustain the company.

We review back our past year projects. Our customers were most impressed by how we set up their restaurant's inventory management system. They are able to track their stock levels and know when to replenish the inventory. As such, one of the directors asked whether the same concept be used in other industries? The answer is actually yes. Maybe some changes but the basic ideas are there.

The existing team is small and we cannot afford hiring employees. As such, the amount of projects that we commit is very little. Managing building/ renovation projects involves long hours. The hours could have been spend on other activities that can generate revenue for the business. This was also one of the main factor that drives our decision to change the business model.

To further push the business ahead we need to generate revenue for the company with the minimal cost but the maximum benefits. Sadly, our 1.5 years old company has not found a constant stream of revenue that will cover the company's annual operation cost. As such, our new trading model will work for us.

Customer has already expressed interests for our products and we were also able to find a reliable supplier. The next phase is to built in the process and get the necessary paper work done to import our goods.

Do Your Part No Matter How Small: Lesson Learned from Agent Coulson

I have a confession, I am not exactly a fan of any Marvel Comics. Nonetheless, I enjoyed their movies and the way they set up their movies. In today's blog entry, I do not want to talk about Iron Man or any other major super heroes but a character that started off with a minor role but eventually given top billing with his very own TV series. The person that I would like to discuss is Agent Phil Coulson.

Agent Phil Coulson is played by an actor Clark Gregg. According to IMDB, he is a veteran of both TV shows and movies. What fascinates me is that how could a character who had less than five minutes of screen time in Iron Man when on to have his own very TV series. In short, this actor has won over the hearts of fans and leadership of Marvels.

I do not know Mr Clark Gregg in person, but I would like to hazard guess about his success. Despite having a minor role in Iron Man, Mr Clark has worked hard to play the role of Agent Carlson. He went on to appear in multiple Marvel movies and short films. Most of his screen time is relatively short, but he is portray as Agent Phil Coulson has made an impact and has won fan's support. Fans wants to see more of Agent Coulson and the inner workings of SHIELD. Thus, giving birth to the TV series -- Agents of SHIELD. In life many people and including myself complaining that they are not given any big opportunity. The thoughts is always -- "I can do more, I deserve better". There is nothing wrong with having such thoughts. Rather the question that we have to ask ourselves is -- "Have I played my role as best as I can play?". If we cannot even play a small role well, how could we expect others to give us a chance to play a bigger role? Just when we thought that no one is watching, please think again. No matter how small is our action and role, someone is watching and judging. Mr Clark Gregg is a good example -- short screen time with huge impact.

There is really no such thing as a small role in life. Each role has a part in life's puzzle. Play your role well and do your best. You will never how your hard work will be rewarded. Please let Mr Clark Gregg be your inspiration.

Do You Know Your Business Partner?

Before you answer the question, re-read the title of the blog again. Your quality of your business is only as good as your supplier. I have already mentioned this in my previous writeup.The quality of your business partner is also important. Some readers might roll their eyes and say this is a no brainer. Yes! It is a no brainer, but the risk of business partner messing up is very real.

Few days ago, I got a call from client whom we worked on a restaurant project. The client asked me to help him to secure a supply of cooking gas for his restaurant. In Malaysia, cooking gas comes in giant canisters. It seems that he could not count on his chef to have the cooking gas delivered to the restaurant! This client was traveling as such he was not able to monitor the delivery.

What I did was straight forward, I called the chef making sure he is in the restaurant to take the delivery, call the supplier to arrange the delivery. I do not make any money out from this incident but there are some lessons can be learned.

The client should have been able to make delivery arrangements with the supplier before he travels. Cooking gas is the lifeline for any restaurant. It is also the single point of failure to the business should the restaurant runs out of cooking gas. Incident such as this is good for my business to built up the relationship with the client and supplier, but it is not healthy for the client when the business lifeline is out of their control.

I find it hard to accept the fact that chef is not capable in reaching out to the supplier. As a chef he should have ultimate control over the kitchen. The chef's conviction towards the restaurant is now being questioned. There is just no excuse for the chef on not following up on important issues such as ensuring the supplier of cooking gas. With a business partner who is not motivated, other business partner has to work harder to fill the deficit. In the long run, the business partnership will ultimately tear itself apart.

Starting a business and sharing the same dream is very easy. The willingness is to wake up from the dream and make things into reality is difficult. Choose your business partners carefully. If it not working out, shut it down.

Tile Size and Slipperiness

For those who are observant, they would notice that the tile size used in the bathroom are normally much smaller than the other parts of the house.  Besides the surface of the tile, the size of the tile also affects the slipperiness of the surface. Smaller the tiles, the more tiles are required to lay in an area. This increases the number of line gaps within the area. The more lines the more friction it can provide for the feet or shoes. As such, the surface become less slippery. Do note that you would still need rough surface tiles for wet areas.

All about Tiles

Recently, we have been working on a house project. The dimension of the house is around 4000 square feet. The owner wanted both floor tiles and wall tiles for the property. Wall tiles are only limited to both bathroom and wet kitchen. 

During the exploration phase of the project, we learned that the owner is very cost sensitive and insisted on homogeneous tile. What homogeneous tile means the outer layer of the tile is the same color as the inside of the tile. When you chip a homogeneous tile, the damage should not be too obvious. Another term for homogeneous tile is called full bodied tile.

With the current tile making technology, for a normal housing project the decision whether to use a homogeneous tile should not be a main consideration anymore. In the olden days, the tiles used are what we called ceramic tiles. These tiles are easily chip and damaged, thus leaving an ugly uneven color on the tile surface. Thus, many would choose homogeneous tile to avoid such an eye sore. Modern ceramic tiles are a lot tougher and should withstand a lot more knocking before chipping. Any tiles would survive a simple furniture move and day to day living. The choice of homogeneous tile is limited and significantly more expensive. The color of such tile is only limited to light or earth color. Dark surface tiles are only colored on the surface.

Another type of tile that has gain popularity is the porcelain tile. Porcelain tile has a higher density than ceramic tile. It is a lot tougher and able to absorb a lot more knocking than ceramic tiles. In fact, a lot of modern buildings that has heavy foot traffic are using porcelain tiles. Depending on the usage, this type of tile comes in different surface. Rough surface for wet areas to prevent slip. While polish smooth surface for the living room. The price of tiles between surface of the same series is also different. Therefore, any buyers should check with the supplier carefully.



The recommended gap between floor tiles is 3mm. Leaving a good gap between tiles is to prevent it from popping up. Tiles are sensitive to temperature changes. When is cold, the tile shrinks. When is hot, the tile expands. As the tile expands and the gap is too narrow, the tile has no where to go but pops up. While laying tiles, the workers would use separaters of certain size to determine the gap between tiles. 




This is what I have learned working from tiles. I am sure there are a lot more that I need to learn. In my next write up, I will talk about managing cost of tiles.