Alexandra Wong quit her corporate job to be a professional storyteller.

I’ve known Alex for a long time now – curiously we were in USM together, though not taking the same course. Even so, we’d see each other when we changed classes or met up in certain classes (there were elective papers to be taken). In those days, I always found her to be a mystery. She was always dressed in colourful attire and I remember her most in her flowing gypsy skirts.

Back in those days, we hardly spoke. Maybe I couldn’t find my courage to speak to her or perhaps we just didn’t make an attempt to connect more. For whatever reasons we each had, we kept to our cliques and our own circles.

Time does a number of odd things. We didn’t connect again until recently. I’ve always read her column in The Star Weekender and always did mental cartwheels while reading her words because they are always shot with sensibility and profound, quiet honesty. Writers do admire other writers and though most of my writing has been for business, I still maintain that we of the same flock will always recognize each other.

It was one of her comments which she emailed to me after reading some posts on this business blog of ours that I realized she had been following us as closely as I had been stalking her!

After a number of emails back and forth, we decided to meet up for a chat. After all, we’d been acquaintances in varsity, not venturing more than a “hello” or shy smiles but now we’re actually emailing each other and having a full conversation, albeit online.

You know this thing about knowing a person through her writing? It’s true. When we met, we had such a fabulous time talking about business and writing and life lessons that I felt, “Hey, why didn’t I do this sooner?” It was as if we had been long-lost friends.

So yes, this has been a rather lengthy introduction to Alexandra Wong of BunnySprints BUT I couldn’t possibly let you have the interview I had with her without giving you a context of our relationship. Context gives meaning to what you’re about to experience. Without context, we will not fully appreciate the experience.

Perhaps it is apt to note why I wanted to interview her. Writers have the enviable job of writing heartwarming stories about others – celebrities, pop stars and even the regular woman-in-the-street. But no one writes about the writers.

When I was a former web editor of a women’s lifestyle portal way back in 2001, I’d meet a number of writers whose lives are just as worth writing about as their interview subjects. While writers do meet interesting characters, writers are also interesting characters unto themselves!

So I thought, who better to kick off our series on amazing Malaysians than someone I know about? I didn’t pick her because she is a famous columnist. I picked her because she chose an interesting path in life – she had successfully made that transition from full-time corporate career to a well-known writer with her own column. She’s enjoying her life in her own way and I admire people with guts and tenacity to follow their own dream.

So who exactly will benefit from this interview? Perhaps you if you are thinking of a career in writing. Perhaps you if you are thinking long and hard about following your heart and dream. Perhaps your son or daughter has asked you if you’d allow him or her to be a writer and you’re simply not sure if they’d starve to death with their choice. Or perhaps anyone who would like a peek into the life of a columnist and wants to know where she gets her inspiration from.

And so I present to you, Alex the professional storyteller who is one of the many amazing Malaysians whom we’d be featuring in this blog of ours in the next few months.

Tell us a bit about yourself and why you’re doing what you do now.

I am a storyteller and solopreneur: I am in the business of writing stories about people, places, businesses, trends, lifestyles etc. That’s a more accurate job description than “writer” because I don’t just write all day. I am also salesman, marketing manager, accountant, clerk, and occasionally, reluctant Ah Long (when invoice reminders fall on deaf ears).

What made you take the path less travelled? What inspired you?

I’d always enjoyed writing, and was already contributing articles occasionally to newspapers and magazines while I was employed at Dell. When I left my Dell job, I naturally decided to give writing a crack because I had no other marketable skill. I still thank God every day that I haven’t ended up on the streets!

What is a typical day like?

The best part of my job is that there is no routine, so that’s a little hard to answer. Discipline is always a challenge for any freelancer because you could sleep in till noon every day and there’s nobody to tell you off! So what I try to do is to perform one or two productive, future-income generating activities every day. It could be an activity that translates into immediate returns – like writing for a commissioned assignment. It could be an activity that would potentially generate future leads, like answering these brain-squeezing questions of yours. Who knows a potential client may read it and decide to contact me? Even writing a blog post is an investment of sorts because you train your writing muscles and a post you write now could be turned into an article later. The idea is to be productive and to keep your name in circulation.

What did you invest in when you started?

An ultralight laptop and a mobile broadband account, because I knew I’d be highly mobile and I’d need a mobile office. I haven’t expanded my acquisitions by much. In fact, I think I have scaled down even more because I don’t even use a thumb-drive anymore after discovering the joys of cloud computing. If I need to print (which is rare), I just go to a computer shop near my house or the print station at KL Sentral!

How long have you been in this field?

Professionally? I’d say I started writing earnestly for a living since mid 2006.

What is your workplace or home office like or where do you write? Could you describe it?

I need constant stimulation, so I never work in the same location or environment more than 2-3 days in a row. I write on my train trips, I park the car at the roadside and start typing into my phone when an epiphany hits me … I have an open office so that I can write on the go. At home, I switch back and forth between my bed and my writing desk. I can’t really describe what my environment looks because I hardly notice it. When I am “in the zone”, the whole world can cave in and I would still be typing obliviously away, unless something lands on my head!

What aspects of your business/calling do you enjoy the most?

The interaction with people and of course, the warm buzz I get when I nail a piece – that would be my writer’s ego talking

What are your plans for the next 2 years?

To crystallize at least ONE of my gazillion book ideas!

In your opinion, what do you do better than any other writer out there?

I feel that I can easily relate to and sometimes, instantly, with strangers – it’s normal for me to meet someone for the first time and walk away feeling like we’ve known each other forever three hours later!

How has growth been for you personally?

I think the biggest change has been my perspective on fulfillment. I used to think that if you do what you like for a living you’ll find happiness. Not anymore – for me, writing must have purpose. (By the way, that’s the raison d’etre for the name of my company, WordMatters.) Recently, I came across a really awesome line which sums up my sentiments right now perfectly: “Happiness comes from the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs.”

What do you consider a breakthrough for your field? Did you experience it? When and how did this happen?

Getting my own column Navel Gazer in December 2007. Even in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined the kind of visibility and opportunities it brought me.

How did you market yourself when you first started? What worked? What didn’t?

The most valuable marketing skill a new freelancer can have is to pitch effectively. I must thank my Dell training for that. If not for all that practice making cold calls in my telemarketing days, I would not understand the value of crafting persuasive cover letters. I realized early on that editors are inundated by tons of aspiring writer wannabes and they’re not going to pay attention to your Nobel Prize winning article unless your cover letter makes them sit up. Knock yourself out with a killer article, and make sure you have a killer cover letter to go with it!

Train tales...Alex manages to stop for a picture at the Gua Musang station.

What would your advice be to those thinking of following this path of yours? What should they prepare for? What should they look out for?

Explore every opportunity. Be courteous and nice to everyone as far as possible. Learn something new every day. Trite but tested-and-true advice that has worked for me.

What are the 3 biggest myths of your industry that you’d like to debunk?

1. The only skill you need is writing – if you think that way, you won’t last more than three months.
2. You can’t make money as a writer. I know of writers who make 6-figure incomes annually.
You must know where to look – obviously I’m not looking in the right places yet!
3. There are no politics in writing – WRONG! There are politics in everything. Just stay out of it – be professional and helpful, and resist the urge to gossip. It’s a very small world!

How do you envision success for yourself? What would that look like?

I don’t have an answer. What happens when you’ve arrived at success? What else can you look forward to when you’ve done it all and you’ve got it all? What a horrible thought! Besides, our definition of success changes over time. When you’re 30 you may want to make 10 million dollars by the time you’re 40. But by then, you may have other goals because you learn that money alone is no longer fulfilling. For now, I’m happy to continue learning, growing and to have something to look forward to every day. Ask me again in ten years’ time

Get more of Alex at her website, BunnySprints.com or email her – alexandra.lywong@gmail.com

Next month, catch our interview with an engineer who turned a hobby into a lucrative business – he builds audio equipment which can rival the big boys’ stuff any time.

Gone are the days when we’re forced to sit and watch promotional ads. We tune them out most of the time.

So content marketing is really something you can and should consider – like we often say, do what you are most comfortable with. If you can write, start a blog. If you can’t, consider what else is out there and how you can benefit the most from these tools.

That said, I’d like to show you how Delta’s video starts off innocuously to show you the journey of your bag once it is checked in.

It’s called “Behind-the-Scenes: Your Bag’s Journey on Delta,” and this video has been viewed 1.5 million times since it was uploaded in December 2011.

What’s equally fascinating is this: we think it’s silly to want to know such trivial stuff (someone will inevitably say, why would I want to know where my bag goes when I check it in?) but you’d be surprised how many people love these kinds of information.

Watch it till the end where the surprise comes. Don’t blink.

I can’t be sitting here and thinking up topics all the time. (Well, sometimes I do but most times, it is the interaction with others that give me lots of ideas for our business blog.)

So a few days ago I was seated at a table with eight other people. Next to me was my friend’s husband whom I had just met for the very first time despite knowing her for a few years now.

If you know me, I don’t open my mouth and sell at every opportunity. I just think that’s ridiculous given that I don’t know anything about the person or his needs or his ideas.

If you meet me, I’d let you talk. I’d ask you questions about yourself and what you want. Through the conversation, I can gauge if you’re a prospect or if you’re not, how else we can connect (or rather who in my network can benefit from knowing this person I’m talking to). And never write someone off just because he or she is not your prospect just about then. Who knows? Things change and one day he’s not interested or keen in your offering but tomorrow may bring a different set of circumstances.

I knew Matt had a question that he wanted to ask. “How do I market myself?” he asked.

“Or rather, if I had a website, how do I get people to come visit my website?”

The idea of getting people to notice you or your website is that number one million dollar question we get asked ALL the time.

Right off, I told him – there are no secrets to having a successful business website. It takes hard work but it also takes a great product.

Because Matt is in sales, he nodded. He understood the great product factor. He told me he had an interest in writing and selling songs of his own.

How Unique Are You?

“How unique are you?” I asked, once I’d finished munching my samosa.

“Well, to be honest, not very. From a scale of 1 to 10, maybe 2.” At least he was honest. I found out that he had a great day job – the kind that typifies the regular nine-to-five with a good salary – BUT here he was, asking about what he could do with his hobby and if he could make some form of living from his music and songs.

I dug deeper. It seemed that he had a friend who wrote and recorded songs and uses Facebook to promote his music. I could see that Matt wanted to know how it was possible for his friend to use Facebook to market himself. Matt admitted that he wasn’t very Facebook or website-savvy.

You see how talking brings up interesting insights? When most people ask us questions, we have to work the conversation like a psychologist figuring out what exactly people want to ask. Usually the first question isn’t indicative at all of the underlying concern or issue. Until you listen and understand more, asking the right questions, you’ll discover that the first question isn’t usually the question at all.

In Matt’s case, it’s this: he has a desire to write and sell his music online but his worry is that he is not able to market himself properly, unlike his Facebook-savvy friend. He is trying to understand how his friend is doing it and if it can be done for his music too.

Marketing Is Science & Art Combined

Marketing is a combination of a lot of skills – you need to understand who you’re selling to and what motivates them to buy what you sell. It is also about the ability to draw up a plan for long-term and sustainable marketing. That is why marketing is a consistent series of activities – it is not something you do for 1 month and give up when nothing happens.

And if what you’re doing isn’t bringing you results you want, you need to review your marketing.

We review our marketing all the time. We change course too when something doesn’t work. Consider marketing a series of experiments – it’s rooted in hard and soft science.

Well, back to Matt’s question. How do I begin to tell him that marketing begins with a mindset? If you’ve always hated Marketing and think marketers are sleazy and out to get your money, you must get these preconceptions out in the open and understand why you have these ideas. Some people are uncomfortable about selling to the point they break out in cold sweat at the mere mention of sales and marketing.

You cannot market until you understand that your product is going to bring value, happiness and convenience to your customers. You must also understand that you’re not selling once to your customers – once you sell, you begin a relationship with her. That cycle lasts as long as you’re in business and she’s willing to buy from you.

Next, marketing is about trying and failing…a lot. Some things work, some don’t. But try them out for a while before you give up. And the golden rule applies – do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you. So forcing, coercing and harassing people to buy your products is out of the question -that’s why we all despise multi-level marketers right? They keep on calling you and harassing you until you blow your top.

Marketing To People Means Understanding Them Inside & Out

At its core, marketing is about understanding human motivation. That is why it is exciting. Humans are the most confusing creatures, each with their own needs and wants and sometimes, you never really know why they act the way they do.

That is why in the following few months, we’re creating an affordable marketing course to equip you with marketing how-tos.

Most people never learnt Marketing and why should they? They’ve been schooled to be engineers, lawyers and teachers. Most people never read books on marketing either. They learn through trial and error. If it works, they stick with it. If it doesn’t, they chuck it.

We’re thinking of marketing workshops too so you can attend and get answers to your biggest marketing frustration. These marketing courses and workshops are here to help you with marketing even if marketing scares the daylight out of you right now.

We want you to do it for yourself, on your own because it’s satisfying and when you do that, you are creating ownership and taking responsibility for your own business unless of course you have a team and cannot be bothered to do any marketing. Even then, even if you own a team, there’s always something to be learnt that you can pass to your team so they can perform even better.

When the lunch ended, I told Matt that we would need another discussion session so that I could explain online marketing to him otherwise we’d be there the whole day.

The Secret of All Secrets For Successful Marketing

P/S: Here’s a hint on how to get people to be interested in your website or product or whatever you’re selling is to be interested in them first. Ask how you can be of help to them without any ulterior motives. The big idea in marketing is this: build trust first. Don’t attempt to sell anything until you know you have their trust. How do you build trust? Well, that’s another blog post for another day. Bookmark our blog and come back again and I’ll tell you how you build trust before you create a sale.

Actually I had already blogged about it in my personal blog but Vern was very much a part of Redbox Studio a few years ago so it’s apt that I talk about her here.

This photo was taken from The Pixel Project website which she helped to design and develop from scratch. She's as much a designer as an engineer.

She interned with us in 2009 and we had a lot of good fun, and in between she helped us churn out a website for a non-profit (which we did pro bono mainly because we believe in supporting an excellent cause), had great Jenga sessions in the office and had loads of fun.

I’ve always found her to be an interesting combination of the best of both sides of the brain. For she’s not only terribly smart about technology and computers (which she and Nic can talk for hours on end) but she’s also a humble bookworm in which resides an artsy soul.

She writes. And writes well. I don’t seem to find many people like this any more.

She loves music too – the eclectic, the indie and the wonderful. She was the one who introduced me to Zee Avi years ago when Zee Avi was just starting out. And she’s the kind of engineer who can actually think logically – I’ve often told her that she should be a closet Mensan – the kind with both EQ and IQ!

Vern is also my neighbour. We live in the same apartment block.

When she comes home for visits, she pops by our apartment sometimes and we have long, drawn-out pu-erh tea sessions while listening to our Monica (a gorgeous audio system built by an audiophile friend).

I’ll keep this short because the good stuff is over at Wei Vern’s blog. No one writes like this young girl with an old, insightful soul.

And it’s not just because she says:”People like Krista make me want to become a better person and strive to reach my own goals. Today, both of them – Krista and Nic – remain to be my faithful mentors and friends who inspire me in so many ways.”

Reading about ourselves that way is simply weird but it brings on a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Take it away, Vern.

Why and what domains should you buy?

This highly useful article on domain names by Monte Cahn will give you some terrific ideas.

Here’s what you can expect from an excellently designed and developed website.

Double or Triple Your Sales

Many of our clients have achieved more than their fair share of sales and serious enquiries with the websites that we’ve designed for them.

Your website becomes a true digital salesman which works 24/7 all year through. It helps you offer quality information so that your prospects can make a decision.

Be ready to change how you think about a website. With your website, you can expect to fulfil orders and shipments because all the answers and information can be found on your website.

Using our Redbox X Factor system, we incorporate each and every anticipated question about your products and services into your website, making your marketing much easier and more profitable.

One of our clients even told us that they don’t need to do THAT many road shows and tradeshows a year now because they can easily point prospects to their website!

Get Ready To Go International

When you have a credible website full of great information and good products, you can expect to enlarge your customer base to include customers from all over the world.

Trust is instantly established for website visitors so don’t be surprised when people of different countries are ready to contact you for business opportunities.

If you’ve been previously selling to local customers, get ready for international customers. Your website is developed to compete at the international level.

One of our clients who owns a factory producing sambal paste and Sarawak laksa paste are regularly swamped with orders from countries like Australia, US and UK plus some countries in Eastern Europe which she cannot even pinpoint on the map! Isn’t that a good problem to have?

Attract Better People

When you have a strong, trustworthy website, you have a marketing tool which not only markets to your customers, it also helps you raise your reputation and get the attention of people whom you want to hire.

A better website allows you to communicate your brand, values and philosophy, inspiring others to look up to your company as the company they want to work for, and have a career with.

This is especially so if you run a small company and would love to attract great brains! Attracting better employees is always an intangible benefit of having a world-class website. Better employees mean improved productivity and this always translates into a bigger bottom line for your business.

What Your Customers Can Expect

When your website is developed with our Redbox X Factor framework, here’s what your website will do for you.

Higher Credibility

We are often skeptical of companies and businesses we see or read about. Yet, we know how to reduce or even completely lower this uncalled for skepticism using a combination of research, expertise and commonsense (and of course, our Redbox X Factor system).

Your website lets website visitors know that they can trust you and your business the moment they arrive. Your website gets all the secret ingredients you need to give your business high credibility.

A credible website converts more leads into customers compared to amateur and sloppy websites.

According to Stanford University’s Web Credibility Project, “nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes.”

The study concludes that people do judge your website by how it looks. If it doesn’t look credible or it doesn’t look like what they expect it to be, they go elsewhere. You don’t get a second chance. It’s actually not very different from how we judge cars and politicians.

Researcher Dr BJ Fogg, says, “Those who can design for credibility have a strategic advantage.”

Having a credible website gives you an advantage (and secret weapon) your competitors won’t be able to figure out!

Communication

A good website is a great communication tool. This is yet another secret which we at Redbox Studio are proud to reveal. It takes a lot of effort and careful attention to produce content which converts prospects into customers for life.

Our websites look good and contain content which communicates your message effectively. The content we write is always relevant, honest and useful. It is structured, organized and presented in a way which leads your website visitors to understand what you sell, how you sell and why you’re unique and finally, why they should buy from you.

Good communication is simple, precise and clear, like a good story. When we help you communicate your story, your business shines.

Clear Choice

Being the clear choice is often one of the toughest challenges online as your prospects cannot see you or feel or touch your products or experience your services.

With some help from us, we can project your business as the clear choice, hands down. If you’ve always felt that your business has always been like every other business and doesn’t have much uniqueness, wait till you get a website designed by us at Redbox Studio.

After your prospects visit your website, they will know that you are the right choice for them and they will either contact you or email you or if you have an e-commerce website, buy from you.

We’ve mastered techniques in the way we design, write, develop and maintain your website which easily demonstrate how your offerings are completely trustworthy and that you are the most logical business to buy from. Prospects would be crazy not to buy from you!

If you want a website which becomes your best marketing tool, contact us today and let’s see how we can work together.

First, let’s make this clear: most things or objects which are seemingly ‘simple’ are really hard to do or design or make.

Simple, in many cases, does not mean easy.

It may look easy and effortless. And yes, it should look that way but the thinking and planning and de-cluttering take a long time before you end up with something so seemingly effortless and simple.

Which is why a lot of web designers can design complex websites. After all, they just add everything but your pet into the website. And I mean, everything. Anything that blinks, winks, makes noises – hey, add them all in. Mix in a good dose of rainbow colours from red to blue and yellow. That is how they justify their price.

We start by taking things out, chopping off unwanted bits. Unnecessary things. Things which don’t matter so that we can create for you a website which truly matters.

“A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de St-Exuperey

Visually easy designs are usually visually consistent designs which have been properly thought and planned out.

Here’s a very good article discussing what is essential in good design. You need to pay attention to 3 items: the grid, the colours and the typography.

That’s the very same system we use in our web designs. But getting the colours and typgraphy right – NOW that’s the part where a lot of thinking and agonizing have occurred. God really is in the details.

“The details are not the details. They make the design.” Charles Eames

Nic has been invited to adjudge a business plan competition at the upcoming SGGS International Student Conference 2012.

This business conference for students, to be held from 26 to 30 May at the Copthorne Orchid Hotel, Penang, will bring together not only a business plan competition, workshops and a slew of interesting events but also showcase inspiring entrepreneur-speakers.

Among the speakers and guests include Lina Tan, the producer of the popular 3R TV programme; Datin Mina Cheah-Foong, the director of Rampai-Niaga which holds The Body Shop franchise in Malaysia; Jazz Tan of Penang Youth, a youth-targeted marketing and branding company, among others. The last I heard it also includes Anas Zubedy and our national astronaut.

Professor Dato’ Dr. Zainuddin Md Wazir, founder of Allianze University College of Medical Sciences, will be giving the keynote address at this event, held for the third time organized by the St George’s Girls School, a premier girls’ school in Penang.

SGGS International Student Conference 2012 is an international gathering of high school and college students with delegations from 18 countries.

Participants are exposed to the relevant skills and knowledge needed to become entrepreneurs. Themed “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, the conference wants to show participants that there is truly more to a career than conventional ones and that entrepreneurship is a much more exciting path to follow! (Actually it is quite true!)

Doesn’t it sound like a fantastic conference for students? How I wish we had conferences like these when we were in school!

You know how it is in business. It’s not like salaried employment where you get to switch off once 6pm arrives. The brain won’t stop working though the clock says so.

Here’s The Brand New Redbox Easyweb

For the past two months, we’ve been busy re-igniting one of our products.

We first launched this in 2005 (yes, that long ago!) when we were asked to create a product for people who wanted to maintain their own websites and were on a budget.

We called it Redbox Easyweb which was a simple website for people who are just starting out. This product of ours gave solo-preneurs a stab at getting a website on their own without resorting to paying a web designer or even knowing HTML or basic programming. It gave them convenience and freedom.

We have had training consultants, authors, property agents, home businesses and translators buy this product for their own use.

Should We Or Shouldn’t We?

While it was a great product, for the longest time, we didn’t know if we should continue offering it. On one end, it was super for solo-preneurs. On another end, we didn’t want to offer a product if we didn’t upgrade or improve it. The fate of Redbox Easyweb was in a limbo for a long time – actually in the past 3 years.

The product needed to be enhanced and improved if we were to offer it again.

But what actually tipped the scale was this – we have had so many people come to us asking if we had anything they could do on their own. (Our Dragon Mojo isn’t for everyone because we pour the best of our 14 years of skills, expertise and short-cuts to success into this totally customized website, which is really built for driving results. It’s priced at a premium but excellent work is always worth every ringgit and sen.)

Semi-DIY Website – Now With Ecommerce!

Finally we decided – yes, let’s revive, improve and re-launch our semi-DIY website builder product. Just in case you want the full story, the full story is over there.

This time, it’s going to be even bigger and better than before because you get an all-in-one package for the totally affordable price of RM799 plus e-commerce capabilities.

Yes! Even we’re excited and I can tell you, if we’re not excited about our products, we don’t market them. If we don’t love them, how could others love them? We made sure Redbox Easyweb is one of the most complete and robust little website packages that any solo-preneur would be proud to own!

We call it a semi-DIY website builder because we still design a part of the website for you.

You see, over the years, we’ve met people who told us that while 101 templates were initially exciting to know about, there’s this thing called the Paradox of Choice (or why more is really an unnecessary evil). The more choices you put in front of a sane person, the worst off he is! He gets paralyzed by the array of choices and gets numbed and that’s not really going to make him any happier.

You Want A Tool, Not A Toy

Unlike typical website builders where you get lots of stuff to play with (so much so that overwhelm drives people to inaction – sad but true), we pare things down.

In true Redbox Studio style, we continue to pare things down until you get only what you need to do the job. After all, why do you want a website? You want to promote your business, your services and your products, not fiddle with fonts and colour schemes and templates.

So yes, all you folks out there – you now have a chance to own a semi DIY website and launch your own ecommerce store too. Like our tagline says, our Redbox Easyweb gives YOUR business wings to fly.

These days, you can’t do anything if you don’t have a credible website. And credibility is a tough nut to crack.

At least with Redbox Easyweb, you know you can achieve credibility even if you aren’t ready yet for Dragon Mojo. In this case, we do the hard stuff for you plus you know you will always have a strong and reliable company to fall back on if you ever need anything – because we know marketing and we know websites.

Go ahead, go check out Redbox Easyweb and see if it’s not the coolest thing ever.

Plus did we tell you that you can try it completely risk-free? We guarantee a refund if you’re not 100% satisfied.

While we may work in the IT industry, we are a paradox in our own ways. We find that there’s nothing better than a good old face to face meet up or if that’s not possible, a nice phone conversation. (It pays if you really enjoy talking to your clients. I find that talking to people is therapeutic! That’s why I started with my workshops.)

Hearing someone’s voice on the other end – a live person – really is much better than a dry old email. And sometimes, so many things cannot be said in an email. How you feel for example when you start talking. Or how your energy levels start soaring after you hear good results from your client.

Call me Gen X but I am all for websites and Internet and what-have-you but at some point, we need to talk to each other and stop messaging each other constantly.

A quick call can be so energizing.

A quick call can also bring the relationship to higher level.

How many people do you know who actually takes time to place a sincere call? Not many.

The next time you start thinking of sending off an email, pause and ask yourself: “Would this person prefer to hear my voice instead of getting my email?”

Most times it would be a yes.

Friends and clients are usually pleasantly surprised when you ring up. It doesn’t have to be about anything. A quick how-are-you and checking in with each other means you care.

In this world today, not many people care unless it’s stated in a dollar sign. People have too many commercial motives at heart.

I love hearing the surprise in my client’s voice when I ring up and ask about their day.

To me, that’s what real communication is. Nothing beats a real conversation.

What methods do you like to use when communicating with clients or customers? Which method works best for you? Do share!