This is a post written in 2014.

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I just came back from Penang trip with my families. It has been 17 years since the last time I visited my relatives in Penang. Reason for this trip is to meet up with my aunties and uncles who came over all the way to Klang to visit my then ill mother when she was in the ICU.

I told my mother that everyone came and visited her and if she recovers from her illness, I shall bring her and the rest to visit the relatives. However, she passed away and I believe that it is my duty to arrange for family visiting.

Since we have a few days of leave during the Eidul Adha, I and my wife decided to visit Penang and to throw that idea to my dad. He is happy to hear about the Penang trip as he can enjoy his so called Mee Pokok Ceri and some other foods which is only available in Penang.

Initially, he said that he is a bit reluctant for this Penang trip as the jam might be massive. I told him to just relax and enjoy the trip. I’ll be driving anyways. He said ok. Let’s go to Penang then.

So food hunting it seems.

While doing the planning, I told Ayah that if we visit Penang for food hunting, we will not be scoring any points in the eyes of Allah. Why don’t we visit Penang for the sake of Silaturrahim? Perhaps that is better since it is sunnah. Being someone pious and learned, he definitely likes my idea and thus our Penang trip is actually to visit relative for the sake of strengthening the silaturrahim. Food hunting is secondary for this journey.

To my surprise, the condition of the road was fantastic throughout the journey except for our first day. It took around 12 hours from Seremban to Penang as we need to fetch my little sister who is studying in UiTM. Other than the first day craziness, the rest of the days are just fantastic.

I told Ayah that Allah definitely loves anyone who does something for His sake and our journey has just showed how our intention can actually benefits us.

So during the journey, we managed to visit Ayah’s family and also the food hunting. However, the food taste was bad. How can that be? Maybe Allah has taken the loves of food from us while we were in Penang and what Allah wants is for us to repair the relationship which was not good.

Recently, I met with a businessman and he gives me a few business tips on how to do well in business.

In business, we need to have networking and find ways to create good networking. Smart people will find ways to increase their networking as right people can bring greater success to your business.

e.g – If you only network with normal people, your sales will be among those normal people. However, if you network with bigger people, your target audience will also be bigger.

So choose your network and find ways to network.

What does it mean being different when most of the product in the market is already being sold by other people. Well, that’s how the average joe thinks.

e.g whoever goes to Petronas will definitely knows Anis Chocolate cake. (http://anisfood.com.my/) . 

What is so special about this cake as compared to other moist cake? The specialty is the owners managed to sell in Petronas and unlike others.

That is the difference! Volume! Right place for the right people. Be creative in your channel distribution. Create your own channel and definitely business will flow accordingly.

How many of us have heard this? Sell product that can satisfy and be the solution to the customer. Otherwise, there is no specialty in your business.

Be a proud businessman and knows that you are one step ahead of others who are still working as an employee. There are a lot of challenges especially among competitors. Well, that’s the beauty of doing business. If you yourself are not confident with your own company, your customer will definitely not be confident with you.

Change your view and be confident as that is one crucial key to be successful.

We live in a world where there are many people who has reached success and there are definitely many successful people around us. Get to know them and treat them as your mentor. Without guidance, we will be lost. This is something that Allah has showed to us. Prophet Muhammad’s mentor was Allah and Gabrael. Therefore, we need to learn from there and take advantage from people to short-cut the ways to success.

Looking back at this 5 tips, it is true that all this are very important tops indeed.

Writing tips

In one of the seminar we attended, one of the participant asked a question of:

“Sir, how can we write a powerful marketing content?”

The speaker was silent for a few minutes and then he answered 

“To have a powerful marketing content, the secret is to read.”

What does this mean? It shows that reading can actually increase the content of marketing in our business. When we look back at our Islamic teaching, the first ayat is read. Read. Read. How powerful is reading? 

Reading the right materials can enhance our knowledge and that’s why Allah has asked us to read. But what to read? That is another question. When Allah said read, it doesn’t mean we should be reading any sort of materials although there are no sayings that disallow someone to read anything he wishes.

In Islam, if we want to know more about Islamic teachings, definitely we need to read, understand and seek knowledge from the Quran. Quran teachings are being supported by Hadith. Therefore, in our daily modern life, if we want to be better in our forte, we should be studying and reading in that forte. There is no shortcut to success. 

Salam.

This post was actually written in 2014 after me and my wife attended a seminar organized by Puan Ainon of ABS Holding.

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Just a few days ago, we attended a seminar conducted by Puan Ainon, the founder of ABS Holding. The topic of the seminar is Tribe Marketing. Tribe marketing is being popularized by Seth Godin. He wrote a book solely to describe on the tribe.

As a Muslim, Puan Ainon mentioned that tribe has started all the way and in Islam, we can relate it to our own beloved Prophet Muhammad. When he received the revelation of Islam, he approached a few and it starts with his own wife, Siti Khadijah. Besides Siti Khadijah, the other three converts are Ali, Abu Bakar and also Zayd. So in total, there are 4 people who supported and believed in him. After them, there are 20 something who converted.

Looking at the above, it shows that the most important person in the tribe is our partner. Bless to those who has partner. Or else, it can be parents, sibling or friends that are trust worthy. No such thing as you can create tribe alone.

After gaining some perspective about tribe, we (Zaahara’s management) came to realize that we have deviated from our initial business and mission. Just to share, we basically knows who are our target market based on what we believe and what we aim for. However, along the way, we decided to expand it to a bigger market and this has actually bring no luck to us. We are still lucky that our business is still surviving. (and still surviving till the moment I am writing this)

Many old people will say that in business, the first time will be the best and the sweetest. Along the way, it will be tougher and tougher. (read other success stories) For us, we have never thought of quitting but we are wondering what’s wrong.

Mr : Something is not right. It has been a few bazaar we attended but there is no success.

Mrs: Yeah. So what should we do now? Should we just quit and enjoy our family time?

Mr : If we are to quit now, there will be no success stories to be shared among our kids. What a waste of effort. Let’s just start all over again!

All over again.

Yeah. That’s the mission. Start all over again. Why bother rushing as business is an activity of buying and selling in which you need to have passion in doing it. We must forgo becoming others as others who are successful have managed to create their tribes and they have put a lot of effort in building it.

Therefore for us, we will be focusing on what should be done and enjoy doing business once again. InsyaAllah, the journey will be more fun after knowing where we should be heading to!

Please pray for us and let’s grow together with us.

Salam.

Honestly buat business online or any other business ni tak sesenang yang semua orang rasa. Kita yang bukan berbusiness mesti selalu teruja dengan kejayaan seseorang yang dah BERJAYA dan dari situ mungkin timbul perasaan jika buat business mesti boleh berjaya kan?

Masa tahun 2015, saya dan wife ada pergi attend seminar IMKK yang dikelolakan oleh Dr Azizan Osman. Program tersebut berlangsung selama 3 hari. Pada malam kedua, ada sesi testimonial di mana peserta lepas yang dah berjaya dipanggil duduk di atas pentas. Di sini peserta akan diberi masa selama 10 minit untuk menceritakan pengalaman mereka dari kehidupan biasa-biasa sehinggalah mereka berjaya.

Kerusi yang mereka duduk dinamakan ‘hot seat’. Bayangkan mereka sedang bercakap di hapadan 3000 – 5000 orang. Apakah perasaan mereka ketika itu? Dari kehidupan biasa-biasa dan ada jugak yang berasal dari kehidupan susah ke luar biasa hebat. Ada yang menangis ketika memberi testimoni. 

Ketika itu, adalah jugak perasaan teruja kerana mereka kelihatan begitu jujur dalam penceritaan mereka.

Bagi wife saya, dia sebenarnya tak berapa faham akan situasi golongan yang biasa-biasa ni sebab beliau dibesarkan di Subang Jaya oleh parents yang mantap. Beliau juga dikelilingi oleh sanak-saudara yang mantap dan kawan-kawannya juga kebanyakkannya bekerja di tempat yang bagus.

Lain pulak dengan saya kerana saya datang dari Klang dan kebanyakkan kawan saya adalah terdiri dari golongan yang biasa-biasa dan ada jugak yang susah.

“ Perlu ke semua orang bermula dengan susah? Kena nangis-nangis?” Bentak isteri saya.

Ok, itu dulu masa 2015.

Masa akhir tahun 2016, kami pernah duduk di tepi katil sambal hamper menangis kerana memikirkan pasal business kami yang ketika itu sedang menghadap cabaran. Tiada sales disebabkan tiada Telekung untuk dijual. Jika tiada sales, cabaran kami yang seterusnya adalah duit company yang akan berkurangan kerana kami mempunya overhead setiap bulan.

Dikala itu saya bercakap ngan isteri saya,

“Well, Allah nak ajar kita. Mungkin inilah cerita kita nanti. Kita pun pernah jugak menangis.”

So disini ingin saya berkongsi bahawa business itu bukan mudah seperti yang kita sangkakan.

Kejayaan company besar seperti Facebook, Google dan macam-macam lagi pasti ada sejarah mereka yang mungkin kita tak ketahui.

Selain tu, kalau kat Malaysia ni pun macam-macam cerita kita boleh gali jika kita bertanya kepada usahawan sama ada yang berada di sector korporat, online, atau pun yang offline.

Kepada sesiapa yang sedang buat business kat luar sana, always keep in mind that you are better than those who just wait for the moment. Honestly, the moment takkan tiba kalau kita duk atas kerusi saja.

Doakan kami ya agar kami boleh teruskan perjalanan business kami ke arah yang membanggakan.

Amin.