What I learned after 3 years doing business – part 3
Continue from Part 2, let’s talk about the last 2 lessons that I learned over 3 years of managing a business; talk less, listen more; and a new world of opportunities.
Tl; dr;
- Talk less and listen more.
- Access to a whole new world of possibilities.
Interactions with other people
I have always been a quiet person, which I find it a lot easier when I realized this approach actually works. People tend to complain about their issues, brag about their achievements, and talk about their plans. All of these can be converted into opportunities. All I need to do is to ask the right questions to keep them talking. Looking back, most of my meetings will consist of about 80% of other people talking about their businesses and their issues. At the end of the conversations, I know more about them than they do about me, but that 20% of me talking is embedded in their mind, and I make sure that they remember me and my services through talking about how my services can help them.
Credentials are often overrated. I find that when dealing with a person, they care a lot less about what achievement you have, and more about how you can help them solving their problems. So I don’t even bother telling them about my companies size, how much clients have we served, etc. I listen to their issues first, and if I can help them with Digital Envision‘s services, I will align the discussion that way. If they query about the credentials, then I briefly talk about that, but it never is the start of my conversation.
Negotiation skills are something that I have been working on in the last few months. I practice methods in Never Split the Difference book, which is suitable to my style of interactions. So far it has been helping me securing a few contracts, so I will continue on practicing the methods. There is one sentence in the book that I like the most: “Negotiation is an art to make other people have your way.” I guess once you really understand this quote, then you will be an effective negotiator.
Opportunities
There are things that will never be available to non-business owners, simply because we don’t even know about it. One example, everyone uses American Express cards. Some even use multiple credit cards, which we call them card churning, which is a method to rack up bonus points, often flight points, to be able to claim for free flight travels. The major down side of credit cards is they cannot be used to pay invoices with bank transfer payment method.
Well, not really. Amex allows business owners to access something called Access Line, which allows us to pay our employee salary, our invoices, and even our tax returns with Amex account. And we can rack up the points with these payments. Through card churning, you need to apply to multiple credit cards, damage your credit scores to get a few hundred thousands points. For us as business owners, we just need to pay everything with our credit account and the points are quickly stacking up. (We’re not there yet) Imagine we spend like 100k each month as employee salary, and with 1 Qantas point per dollar spent, it’s already 100k Qantas points per month. That’s like a free ticket back to Vietnam every single month.
Apart from exclusive services, I also have access to certain conversations that contain information before it was reveal to the public. I know about how Federal government rolled out their COVID-normal plans probably 2-3 months before it took place. And that privilege really helped us realign our business to fit the direction from the government.
Summary
2 words to sum up the lessons: Quiet and Opportunity.
It has been a life-changing experience for me over the past 3 years. Lots of lesson learned, and there are still numerous things out there waiting for me to know about them. Life has never been more exciting for me.
“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” – Ram Dass
By Tuan Nguyen
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