We’ve read hundreds of books but some books are so memorable they stick like duct tape in our minds. They contain good advice and ideas, good enough to keep referring to them over and over. If you’re book-hunting, here are our top selections for what we believe are the essentials for building your business, growing yourself and changing your mindset. These are the books that we’ve learnt from, and keep referring to over and over.

1. Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad

This was one of the first books I read right out of university. I was then a junior copywriter, happily and gainfully employed. He wrote about knowing your assets from your liabilities. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking a house or a car is an asset. They’re not unless they make you money. Every time we re-read his book, we discover newer insights.

Try playing his Cashflow 101 board game after you’ve read his book. It makes the ideas of money, assets and liabilities a lot more concrete. Now most people play Cashflow as a game; they play without realizing the game teaches you about managing money and yes, how to know what doodads are and how to stop spending money on them.

2. Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Mastery

We love this book because it reveals why most small business owners end up frustrated although they started with lots of passion initially. The idea behind E-Myth is that you need to work ON your business, not IN your business. There’s a big difference in that and those who struggle for years are those who haven’t read this book and had their big “A-ha” moment.

The key to making entrepreneurship fun and exciting is to be able to create systems which help you run the business. This makes a lot of sense because I personally see a lot of successful professionals who are so tied to their businesses that they can’t even take a day off! Their success becomes their ultimate prison. Nic felt that Gerber tends to be too long-winded but this is a good book to read if you want to prevent disillusionment from settling into your business.

3. Felix Dennis’ How To Get Rich

An eccentric Englishman called Felix Dennis wrote this book, a funny tongue-in-cheek read about how he became rich, his life lessons and why you should never be afraid to pay taxes. If you’re paying taxes and a huge chunk of it, it means your business is making money and there is no shame in that. As a fact, Dennis pays millions of pounds in taxes and get this, even frames up a copy of his cheques to the Inland Revenue Department as a testimony that he is getting richer each year.

4. Donald Trump’s Think Big and Kick Ass

Granted, the title sounds as cocky as the billionaire himself. The thing about Trump is, you either love him or hate him. There’s no in-between. That said, not everyone enjoys his brashness but the fascinating thing about Trump is that this man can talk big and still make big bucks. I believe that is how he silences his critics. It is no mean feat bouncing back after a tango with near bankruptcy. He co-authors this book with a guy named Bill Zanker who described how he made his first million the moment he enlarged his thinking!

You may not want to “kick ass” but the key learning from this book is that if you’re thinking, you might as well think big. Half the book is penned by Trump while the other half is penned by Zanker. Trump’s anecdotes about people he likes and hates (and why) are in true Trump style – he dares to mention people who have crossed him and how he got them back in the end. If you forget all the cockiness and big talking, you will find heaps of good advice in this book, rash as its title may sound.

5. T. Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

This is not a business book per se but it is a life-changing book. Before you start with Trump’s book, it is best you read Eker. We’ve attended Eker’s seminar live and no doubt he is a consummate salesman with the ability to push the right buttons so that people run to sign up for his next event. It gets old after a while (those Internet marketing ‘deadlines’ and ‘only today’ offers…sigh). You don’t have to spend money going for his live seminars when you can easily and affordably get his book. We loved his book before we saw him live and I can say I prefer reading his book! The book isn’t so much about business as it is about creating a new money blueprint for yourself. With this new blueprint and a new way of thinking about money, success and fortune, you can go out and get going with your business.

6. Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Sales Answers

If you’re a business owner, you must equip yourself with sales and marketing skills. But you have no time to bother with long treatises on marketing (the kind taught in school). So what do you do? I suggest grabbing a copy of this book. It’s not for you to read from cover to cover but it is a handy and concise reference for anyone involved in sales to find answers to their selling! What I like best about this little book is that you can pick it up, read 1 page and still get enough good advice for you to use in your next sales encounter. Gitomer is no-nonsense in his writing and that’s why the other books in this series are such hot winners too. You will never go wrong with Gitomer!

7. Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles

This is one of those books which you will continue to refer to because the principles are universal and classic. This is more than just a business book – it is a personal development book. With 64 chapters to explain and illustrate each of the success principle, this book gives you a round-up of what you need to get where you want to go.

The parts I enjoyed the most were the stories of successful people as well as the exercises which one could do to deepen the understanding of a particular principle. I believe you can read a chapter on its own and still derive great benefits and inspiration. Inside this book are stories about Tim Ferriss, John Assaraf and many more. No doubt some stories are taken from his highly popular Chicken Soup For the Soul series, these stories work as a way to give meaning to the principles he outlines. As every business owner knows, you need resolve and strength to do what you need to do each day. Sometimes you meet naysayers. Sometimes you need a book like this to help you get back on track when you’re out cold.

Content makes a website. Quality content makes excellent websites.

So here are three quick ways to help you improve your website content and make sure they do what they’re supposed to – convince your customers you can help them solve their problems!

Content is the key to the success of your website. Here are 10 tips to make sure visitors find it a pleasure to return to your website!

Here’s a secret: if you don’t pay attention to your content, you won’t go far with your website. Based on our years of experience building websites with solid content, here are the insider’s secrets to real, effective website copy. Plus you get the low-down on one free classic book you must not miss out on.

Think business websites are boring? How untrue! Inject fun and authenticity into your website with the right words.

These posts are truly evergreen and as such, we’ve selected the best of the best so you can benefit directly (which needing to comb through our blog).

If you like these blog posts, remember that you can easily share them with friends. Under each blog post is a SHARE function – you can click to LIKE it (Facebook style) or recommend it via +1 (Google style). Whatever way you choose, help us share the goodies with your friends and colleagues.

7 Tips to Create a Better Website Immediately
Want some quick and easy tips to improve your business website? We give you 7 free tips in this article!

Making Your Website More Profitable
Focus on the right elements on your website so that it’s easier to navigate, understand and ultimately bring the ka-ching to your pocket. Here are 5 ways to make your website more usable for your customers.

Avoid Putting These On Your Website
Don’t want your website to look outdated and smelling of the early 90s? Then don’t put these on your website.

How’s Your Marketing Tool Doing?
Your website is your marketing tool and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Do you know how this tool is doing? If you’re not really sure, it’s good to read this piece and get smart about your best marketing tool.

Prevent Costly Website Mistakes With This Website Audit
Before you engage anyone to do up your website, how about knowing what mistakes you should not be making on your upcoming website redesign? Check out this full website audit.

In case you have not noticed, we just launched our newly revamped website last week after spending almost a month on it from concept to design, from idea to content and more.

We’re transitioning because we know that it is time for us to guide more people with our marketing and business expertise (which we’ve delivered for the past 14 years through our website design). Clients come to us for a great marketing tool and this tool is specially developed in the way we design, write and provide strategies for our clients.

Website Design Plus Marketing Expertise

We still design great-looking websites and this year onwards, we’re giving you the knowledge and expertise you need to take your business to the next level.

What’s the next level you say?

The next level is a far more interesting level. In the next few weeks, we’ll be explaining a lot more about this concept about “building your own mountain”.

The way we see it, business can be a lot more fun and exciting if we all had a proper system for the marketing process.

A lot of time, business owners are multi-taskers. You are probably doing ten million marketing things at any given moment. Sometimes you get fantastic results. Sometimes, zero results.

But how about if we told you that there’s actually a system or a method to marketing for your business?

How about if we told you this method works and people have obtained incredible results using it?

Would you be keen to know more?

Of course you would! After all, we business owners are pro-active and always eager to learn in order to improve our business right?

Learn This System For Your Business

You may have heard about the Redbox X Factor which we have been promoting in the last 2 years. If you’ve attended any of our workshops in the last 2 years (we’ve done 20 of these workshops), you would be familiar with this system.

The Redbox X Factor is a system we created in 2008 to empower business owners who want to take their business to the next level. Inspired by a Chinese martial art system called Wing Chun, this system gives you the tools and steps to be the champion in your industry.

You Often Worry About These Two Things

Every business owner we’ve met tells us that there are really 2 major challenges they face in their business – how to get rid of the competition and how to attract and convert customers.

How you conduct business is really a reflection of how you think. That is why the only way to change the way business is done (especially if you have challenges right now in your business) is to change the way you think.

When you start viewing your world and business and customers from a fresh, new perspective, you can gain the upper hand in your marketing. We’re not just satisfied with giving you the upper hand – how about a way to defuse your competition so they don’t matter any more? And how about (finally) getting a premium price for your products?

That, in a nutshell, is what you can get from Redbox Studio in the coming months.

We create powerful marketing tools in the form of websites and now we’re empowering you with a powerful system (tried and tested in the last 2 years) to accelerate your business!

Look out for our upcoming workshops and tools where you get all the tips, tricks and resources you need to do all that and more.

Until then, have a prosperous and fun Dragon Year!

Our studio is taking a break from 23 January until 29 January. We’ll see you when we get back on 30 January!

You gotta have great content in order to have a sustainable ranking on search engines.

I blame the SEO issue and why everyone is hung up on SEO on those SEO gurus who think SEO is the be-all and end-all of all websites.

And now, here’s the guy you should listen to, even if you don’t listen to anyone else.

Matt Cutts works for Google. So really, there’s no better expert than a guy who works inside Google telling you what you really should be focusing your energies on.

The gist is, you can’t replace good, solid, kickass content. (Go and watch his short video here and hear it from the horses’ mouth.)

Oh you can have your website SEO-ed like crazy. You really can. But then it’ll always be like chasing your own tail.

Now if you just focused on creating killer content, you’ve really won most if not half the battle.

You must be thinking, isn’t everything that we have today already designed?

Yes.

But haven’t you also come across frustration when using certain appliances, gadgets and furniture? Even tools. Especially tools.

So here’s an intriguing story.

It’s about a man who decided to create a better sanitary pad.

Yup, a MAN. Who does not have a uterus and does not have menstruation and yet he figured he wanted to design a better pad.

Read Arunachalam Muruganantham’s story of how his wife, mother and sisters shunned him when he told them he was designing a better pad.

It’s one of the best stories I’ve read so far!

“We have our Standard Operating Procedure to follow.”

As small business owners, we often believe we are at the beck and call of larger companies.

We feel compelled to follow their rules and meekly do so for many reasons. After all, they are the ones with huge pots of money to dole out.

We have so many good reasons why we want a particular big company to be our exclusive client. Bragging rights, for instance.

We hope the business will be long-term (well, doesn’t everyone spout that?). These days, long-term could be just 2 months given the lifespan of many companies!

We hope this big-time client will refer more business our way (wish again. If you don’t ask for referrals, you won’t get them.)

We hope to land that one big fish which will set our company on its path to prosperity for life (when life is probably the next 2 years before a new CEO comes and shakes things up).

We hope that this will be our big break – where we get a prestigious client and get to show him or her off to potential clients.

That is why as small business owners, we are sometimes excited yet fearful when a big company comes a-calling. We nervously want their business but we’re so afraid to negotiate because we could (gasp) lose the deal if we ask too much, set too many rules or not follow THEIR rules.

Here’s An Exercise For Your Mind

But what if, for instance, you (yes, you the small business owner) decided to stand up and refuse to follow stupid rules set by these companies?

What if you decided that their payment procedures sucked?

What if you decided that you are going to set some rules of your own instead of always toeing their line?

What if you brought these issues to the negotiating table?

What would happen?

What if you’re not afraid to walk away from the money, regardless of the outcome of your negotiation?

What if you stood up for yourself, your beliefs and the sanity of your company?

You see, small business owners don’t have to take rubbish from clients who think they can wield their power (usually in the form of money) over them.

Why do small business owners end up harried and frazzled? Because most of them let money be their master.

“We need to finish this up by this Friday,” the Boss barks.

“Why?”

“Because the Client said so.”

Or this scenario: “I need this urgently on Monday and I am willing to pay good money for it.”

(The request comes in on a Friday evening and you know you have to work again like a dog over the weekend.)

Actually it’s because Money said so. You want the money, you work like a dog. And still, you get the money 60 days or 90 days later!

And many small business owners accept this. Makes me so hopping mad when I hear this corporate bullying.

Granted, you can only set your own terms in any negotiation deal IF you have something no other company can offer. You have to be that unique provider which makes them feel that they will lose something utterly valuable if they refuse to see your point of view.

Why Most People Just Give In

You cannot negotiate a deal if you have nothing to offer. Nothing to distinguish your company from the next company.

And perhaps, worst of all, it’s because you have no spunk. No balls. No gall.

You see, there is sometimes no difference being a business owner and being employed. When you’re employed, you hate your boss because he makes you do things you don’t want to do.

When you’re a business owner, you should have a choice but most “business owners” do what their Clients tell them to do and most business owners gripe and complain on the side. Still they do it because the Client is always right? (Or is it because Money is always right?)

But I Can’t Say No To Money! Errr…Or Can I?

Does this mean that you shouldn’t even bother with Money?

I say, be very concerned about the Money. It is a fair exchange for the honest work you do for your Client. It is work which benefits your client, keeps them happy and satisfied. But there are times when you are called to make a tough decision between choosing money or choosing sanity.

Let me explain.

Let’s say ABC Company says that they want your service. They’re willing to pay because they want it urgently. So you give them a quote. Because they’re so damn pressed for time and you’re the only one who (insanely) agrees to do it for them in 7 days, they agree to your quote. (Here’s the caveat – YOU must be damn sure you can produce what you promised in the next 7 days.)

Now here’s the fun part.

They have Standard Operating Procedures which means they have rules to follow.

But they forgot you have rules that you’ve set out too. Only that they forget you have rules. Or they think any minion of a company will forego any rules in order to work with them. (That is why we hate big corporations right?)

“After all, we’re such a big company. You should count yourself lucky to be able to touch our feet.”

Your rules and their rules clash. So begins the negotiation process. They say they will pay you but according to their rules – within 60 days. You want a deposit (they shake their heads). You want to be paid within your number of days (they shake their heads) because let’s not forget, this is a super urgent project, they need it in 7 days and you know you can fulfill it and still they won’t bend over backwards to accommodate your requests?

Who makes these rules anyway?

Rules are for the common vendors and suppliers. This is an uncommon request. And anyway we’ve always worked this way and none of our clients have issues. Why does ABC have a problem with it?

Why Business Is Like Playing Poker

Business is very much like sitting at the poker table.

Every move is a risk. You can risk small or you can risk big. Risking big has its rewards. You can lose big too.

In any negotiation, you need to know what position you are in. Whether you are willing to risk and whether it’s worth to risk it all.

In the above case, ABC had everything to lose (no project done if the deal falls through). Yet like any big company, they forgot that they were the ones with their heads on the chopping block if they did not get the project done.

We could be on the losing end too (again, if the deal falls through). That also means, how much are we willing to risk?

Could we walk away from the deal? Could we say, you take your SOP and do whatever you want with it?

Here is where Money starts to tighten its noose around you. The idea of money is tempting. It’s cashflow (though delayed by 60 days if you agree to their SOP).

Do you take the deal, work like crazy through your weekend (because you do have to work like a dog) and then wait 60 days to get paid OR do you insist on your terms (50% deposit now and the remaining when the project is done)?

I’d love to hear your views.

Especially the snow.

For this holiday season and with Christmas just around the corner, we’ve decided to create some “snow” for ourselves too. (Right after we saw how it was snowing at Google….we wanted some quirky fun like that too!)

So you will see snowflakes gently floating down our website as well as a couple of our clients’ websites such as our longtime client, Penang Bar Committee as well some of our clients’ sites (see this and this and this).

It’s little things like these that our clients love!

The little surprises that surprise users who visit our clients’ websites.

See? We can let it snow in the digital world even if we live in Malaysia.

Happy Holidays everyone!

She had asked me for my opinion about group deals. You see, she is in the soap business. Her soaps are made with natural plant oils and are wonderful to use in the bath. I’ve bought a few from her before. But this is not your regular type of soap.

Price-wise, it costs a lot more than Lux or May or any of the commercial soaps in the supermarkets. At RM19.90 each bar, her specialty soaps are distributed to niche businesses such as spas, pharmacies and organic stores where the customers are willing to spend more for quality soap.

She asked if it was worth her while to offer a group deal since her business is just a few months old and she could really do with an influx of new customers. She wondered if offering her soaps at a highly discounted price would give people a chance to try her soaps. A friend of hers was using this type of group deal to promote her food products and Alice was tempted to try this method.

We had this conversation during a quiet lunch in a Thai restaurant in Pulau Tikus.

I told her, it really depends.

Can Group Deals Be Bad Business?

I’ve read about Jessie, a Portland coffeeshop owner’s personal story with Groupon when she signed up with them and get this, the deals caused her to lose money. Now how can something this good be so bad for the business?

Maybe I can explain it by using our business. In our business, we do not give discounts. We’ve never done so because we focus on giving value to the clients so much so that no one has ever come to us for a discount.

If you give a discount (with the assumption that you are providing a kickass service or product), you are just setting up an abnormal precedent where the customer will always start asking for discounts!

Without a discount, they won’t buy whatever you’re selling (unless it is something urgent and important). If you don’t give discounts, then will you lose out to your competition who does so? Yes but you are only losing the customers you really don’t want and giving your competition a damn fine headache.

Perhaps it is all right if her product is something new and price isn’t an issue later on (remember, this is soap that isn’t sold at regular prices). Soap isn’t exactly a must-have item – you can substitute with body wash or cheaper soaps.

Bargain Hunters Live For Bargains – Period.

Let’s just say Alice does a group coupon deal and decides to offer her RM19.90 soap at RM12. She will get a lot of people who will just buy her soaps just because they’re cheap and on offer and such a bargain.

Perhaps out of the entire bunch, a few will be truly enamoured but bargain-hunters function differently – they want everyday to be a deal day. If they can buy at a highly discounted rate, will they will buy it at the regular price?

I’ve polled some friends and they are of two groups. One group says they will patronize the business if the products or services are good. Group two says they won’t because price was the only reason they chose to patronize the business. They would keep an eye out for more discounts since they know they won’t need to pay regular prices.

The people you attract with a discount are generally people who will always ask for a discount, no matter what. I’m not the only one saying it – Redfin says it too:

“We’ve also learned that the customers you attract only with a discount will disregard what you love about your own business, and won’t treat you with respect; both sides usually regret the transaction…As the grandmother of our VP of engineering, Sasha Aickin, once said: When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it.”

I am keeping an eye over these group deals but personally, as a business owner, you have to play your cards right and not get burned by the deal!

But then again, are business owners just jumping on the fad or are they really out of ideas in promoting their small business?

I’d love to hear your take on group deals.

Are they worth it? Are you speaking from the perspective of a customer or a business owner? It should prove quite interesting!

As anyone and everyone who has had the chance to come for our workshops, we never sell you anything. No upselling, no sneaky previews, no “buy today and save RM10,000″, none of these awful sneaky stuff which most people are subject to.

When we say it’s a free workshop, it’s free and it is also, contrary to those free preview seminars (where you’re just waiting for them to announce some special deal and cannot wait to sneak out of the room), it’s packed full of value and knowledge. You can come and ask Nic anything and he will give you an honest answer.

We give so much value that attendees keep recommending us to their friends. Case in point, last week Esther told us she came because her friend, George, told her she should not miss our workshop. Even if some people don’t make it, they will also nudge their friends to attend.

Over the past 2 years, more than 100 people have come to our free website workshops. Everyone of them, minus one or two people (some are ‘competitors’ in disguise – we welcome them too), find our workshops extremely refreshing.

We start by announcing that we are NOT here to sell them anything. (There’s an almost audible sigh of relief written on their faces when we say this before Nic starts his presentation.)

In fact, we won’t sell you anything until we know what you need. A website is not for everyone, despite the digital age we are in. Most people can’t handle their websites. Most people don’t know how to do it and get disappointed.

We get lots of funny questions too. Funny as in ‘odd’ because you believe there’s no free lunch in this world, right? So why is Redbox Studio spending time and effort to educate you for free?

“Why are you doing this for free?” one lady asked point blank. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we Malaysians can be intolerably rude when it suits us.

“Why not?”

Actually we have a motive.

We got quite fed-up of all the silly myths that’s floating about (no doubt thanks to sub-standard web designers). We’re not sure how these myths get circulation and airplay but we were quite annoyed with answering questions that didn’t make sense.

So through these workshops of ours, we get to set the record straight. We get to tell you, right from the start, what you really need to pay attention to. What you don’t need to waste money on. What you should not focus on and what you absolutely must focus on.

We’re rather different in that we tell you, we really don’t mind how you choose to implement the tips we give you, so long you implement them and see the results. (Thanks to clients and evangelists, we’ve got more website projects than we can handle so it may be even if we loved your idea, we won’t be able to take your project for the time-being. Plus we have a few projects on the side which are keeping us busy too.)

Plus through these workshops, we get to finger the pulse of the general public – we get to talk to people and get direct feedback on what problems they are having with their websites. From this feedback, we are able to know what solutions we can offer them.

Last Thursday was our 20th and final free workshop. We had a good crowd last week. In fact, so good that they gave us applause and didn’t want to leave! They still wanted to ask more questions and jot down more tips they could use for their own websites.

We’re not sure if we’re doing any more free workshops but you can still be on our list – we will keep you updated. Consider it a super, super exclusive invite to be in the loop. Your email is completely safe with us.

So go on, sign up so you won’t miss out when we do open up our workshops next year.