Hot spots for website

This is specially dedicated to all the website owners and blogger out there. The chart above denotes the hot spots where casual readers normally focus their attention on.

If you are a business owner, know that the top left triangle is where you should place your "must-read" contents.

And nope, don't ask me why I'm not following this, I'm too lazy to be doing this. =p

The art of cold calling

Maybe I'm not THAT thick-skin after all.

I just did some "crazy" challenges over the weekends with some of my newfound friends.

First, we randomly called people and tried to hold a conversation for 2 minutes. I failed the challenge miserably, the typical Singaporean probably thought I was trying to scam. The longest I can hold? 1 minute. And my friends could stay 3 minutes or more, and was talking to the same sex some more.

After which, we started making calls to "rival" companies, pass off as customers, and tried to fish more information about the company. At least this time round I know I won't get rejected, because those customer service people have to mind their manners. =p

It's crazy embarrassing doing all these. But after the first few times, subsequent tries got much easier.

Have you guys ever tried cold calling? Did you get a better response?

About the Author: Shingo T knows of a guy who cold calls random people and ended up making a girlfriend out of one of them. Kewl!

The Twin Engines to success

Despite being an egoistic guy, I always believe in the importance of being humble when learning from a teacher. No matter how much you know, you should always learn from zero. Unlearn everything you know, because you may be having beliefs, mindsets and strategies that have been "wrong all these years".

Recently, I have been doing alot of unlearning and re-learning, and even gotten myself a sifu (mentor).

And the key to his success? He calls it the Twin Engines.
(1) generate cash from your business
(2) invest what you get from (1).

This is actually "common sense", but the truth is,
Common sense is never too common.

Close your eyes, open your 3rd eye, and start "seeing" things now.

Too cute to handle

Do you guys find small injuries in yourself, without knowing how they were inflicted?

My Wifey often found herself with small injuries or bruises that she incurred unknowingly, and will always ask whether I beat her while she was sleeping soundly, to which I will narrow my eyes and give her a "Yeah, sure I did" look.

Well, I had felt a small open injury near my right ankle yesterday, and had no idea where it came from. I was going to get myself a plaster, only to open the First Aid Kit and found plenty of plasters to choose from. Alas, there are no way I can use any of those.



You see, Wifey like cute things , and handsome guys, ahem. While the world buys souvenirs when they travel overseas, she buys those cute cute plasters from Pharmacy all over the world.

Think Mickey Mouse plasters, Hello Kitty and the likes of Winnie and the Pooh.

Well, any such accessories that will weaken my macho-ness must not be seen in public. And despite having enough plasters to cover a thousand injuries, I carefully and smartly decided against using any of the plasters.

And thus I'm as MAN as ever.

How do I contact you?

Just a quick note here. As some of you may have noticed, I hardly comment back on your comments these days. This will save you from checking my site every so often to see if I have commented back.

But I do read EVERY comment that is posted, as they are sent to me via email.

In cases when I have something to reply/add on to what you commented, I will press "Reply" to you via email, but in many cases I can't find your email address.

So if you will like to hear from me, do comment using your email address. Thanks.

Getting too close

There is a wanton noodle stall near my workplace that sells very good wanton noodles (and curry chicken noodles). For a while, I ate regularly at that stall and started striking up conversation with the stall owner, and been "friends" with them.

As time went by, my taste bud changed, and I started having other favourite stalls. Recently, I went back to this same wanton noodle stall to buy back dinner, and I was asked why I haven't eat their noodles for so long.

I stayed quiet and smile, waiting for the guy to smile back and forget about this conversation. I didn't want to go to lengthy explanations on my change in taste, and that his noodles are perfectly fine. Well, this awkward silence continued. He didn't smile back, so I had to come up with a "My family is cooking now", which is totally a lie, but something needed to break the ice. to which, he smiled and said "Haha, no wonder."

Have you guys ever gotten too close to some shop owners, and felt kind of guilty for not patronising them? Sometimes, I guess it's good to buy from strangers than someone that you got to know. At least there's no obligations.

Young Chap and Red Wine

My colleagues here call me "Handsome". And even the colleagues from the other departments know my nickname. Well, I can't really recall why I had this nickname, but it could be because of my constant reference (jokingly) on how good-looking I think I am.

It helped that my department was female-dominated, so being a rare male species made us men a well sought after. Coupled with my huge confidence and my thick-skin, I soon indulged in this ego-boosting nickname.

Today, we had a young chap joined our department. Someone who's young, who's more boyish looking. And for a while, I felt embarrassed to have myself referred to as "Handsome".

But I am red wine, I taste better as I get older. Though a little insecured, I shall continue to be thick-skin as I always had been just for the fun of it - I love it when colleagues pretend to puke at my nickname. Haha.

Wahahaha.

On a more serious note, I love it when new people join us. New blood, new ideas. I treat every newcomer like a protégé, and through old birds like us, they get to learn new skills and tricks, and avoid the pitfalls that we have went through.

And through them, I sometimes see myself when I was much younger.

Thanks Luke, call-centre saviour

I applied my first credit card during the first year of my first job, and I am still holding on to the card, for convenience. The credit card had great promotions, and the call centre provides quite a great service, and it has nothing to them giving me a waiver of a fine (I always forget to pay) whenever I demand ask for it.

But I was quoite pissed with the call centre last night. The story begins like this.

I awoke at 1am+ last night, to the noise of the phone ringing. It was Wifey, who was at the United States on a business trip. She was having problem checking out the hotel because the supplementary card I gave her couldn’t go through the payment.

Stranded on the check out day at a hotel, with no other modes of payment and minimal cash, I dropped her call and urgently called the credit card help centre to ask why the transaction couldn’t go through.

As you might have guessed, I got a reply that “Your card has hit the credit limit, Sir.” This was true, as I had made a substantial purchase with my credit card earlier that night.

However, Wifey had also earlier told me that when she checked in the hotel, they had already swiped her card to “reserve the payment” to the hotel when she checked out. I had earlier called the credit company and got an assurance that since the hotel payment was earmarked, so Wifey would have no problem checking out.

But when I told the help centre guy that, he insisted that “Sorry Sir, your credit card has hit the credit limit”. As I try to paraphrase my point, he will cut me halfway and reiterate that I have hit limit. I acknowledged this but insisted that this was not the problem. This explain and getting interrupted went on for some time. I felt he wasn’t bothered with listening.

Sleep-deprived in the middle of the night, and worried about my Wifey being unable to check out, I got irritated eventually and insisted that I talk to someone else, in fact ANYONE else.

He hesitated but eventually passed my call to his fellow colleague, who LISTENED, and did a check to confirm that the hotel payment was earmarked. And he told me that the REAL reason was that the amount reserved for payment at the hotel did not tally with the amount at checkout. And the solution was simple, the hotel just had to cancel this reservation, thus freeing up my credit, so that he can key in the new bill.

Now that I had gotten a logical solution, I thanked him repeatedly, and got the name of this call-centre saviour, his name was “Luke”.

After I told Wifey the solution, I couldn’t fall asleep (despite being dead beat), anxious if the Luke’s solution will solve the problem. When I finally got her SMS of confirmation, I smiled. And I finally could go to sleep.

The day after, back in office, I told my colleagues the ordeal I had and also the lack of sleep. And I told them never to irritate a sleep deprived man, I will bite.

Thanks again Luke, you are one good reason why I will continue to stick to this credit card company.