Selling Made Easy

I suppose that I should really feel quite touched when students from the ETP Club who turn up for the Fundamental of Sales workshop even though they have already attended it before.

When asked why the repeat attendance they responded, 'Because your workshop is interesting mah!'

As a trainer, that's easily the biggest compliment your student can give you.

A good thing then that I always try to make sure that each workshop is a unique experiece with different examples, case studies and activities.

Here are the highlights of the recently concluded Fundamentals of Sales workshop at ITE West (Clementi Campus).

Showing them the ultimate Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sales move

Students were split into 2 groups of buyers and sellers to try and see who can get a better bargain out of the negotiation process.

Students share a private funny moment.

Jeralynn and friend try to act cute. They succeeded.

Roleplaying is fun!

I really look forward to working with them again. Hehe, I haven't shown them the Raising Phoenix Marketing Stance yet.

Easy Target

As I often share with my students in sales modules, I'm the kind of soft-hearted customer that is most susceptible to great salesmanship.


An exercise in bartering and negotiation during the Fundamentals of Selling workshop in ITE Clementi saw me facing off with a student who really knows how to work the situation to her advantage. Needless to say, I was sold into bartering my sassy handphone with her MP3 player.


A student outdoing her master? It's not something that's straight out of a Star Wars script.


Of course, I asked her where she picked up her skills from, and I wasn't surprised to hear her recite a long list of retail outlets, including, she proudly proclaim, Fox; of which she's one of the top performers. Her sales in the ladies section was good, but it was exceptional when she was moved to the gents.


I'm wasn't the least surprised. She has an easy and charming demeanor and a sincere way of reaching out to customers.


Another great example of a talented teen was the student workshop co-ordinator. He was exceptionally polite (and dare I say professional?) in receiving us and in attending to my and my facilitator's needs. He also showed great people skills in handling his peers and was clearly cut out to be a leader (or a business leader, seeing that he's a leader in the ETP Club).


It's these amazing gems that I meet in my work that truly inspires me. The next generation of youth will be amazing. Just wait and see.

The Smaller, The Better

If you thnk that younger children can never be entrepreneurial, you've obviously NOT met the boys of St Stephen's School.

They're smart, speak impeccable english, have a great vocabulary, and comes up with the most interesting bazaar and product ideas EVER.

I mean, honestly, who would have thought of using Crocs sandals in a game, or mini-golf to raise fun?

Youth Enterprise Academy was engaged to train the students and to teach them the finer points of entrepreneurship. We taught them how to sell, market and promote their products.

I'll be the first one to tell you that I honestly didn't think that red packets stuffed full of surprise candy and chocolate would sell during the bazaar but they were the first one to sell out! Other great ideas that came up were ang bao cranes, bookmarks and other small gifts made from low cost items. I figured it's probably the Kinder Surprise mentality but it probably means that these kids know their target customers more than I do.

But just coming up with good products isn't good enough. You have to back it up with great marketing and promotion. The boys from Soldiers of Fortune created a pretty good and effective example:

At the end of the day, it was a really good practice for the boys, to learn from their mistakes that they made during the bazaar. I hear that they're going to have another bazaar in the later half of the year so all the best boys!