"Welcome to New Hope Thrift Shop"

That's Ms Lilian in the photo, the very pleasant and friendly lady who helps New Hope Community Services run its Thrift Shop, located behind Sembawang Shopping Centre, on a little road named Jalan Serengam.

I dropped in at the shop yesterday as part of our tour of New Hope's shelter and services, and found it a very interesting place, worth a repeat visit, even with family.

Thanks to the contributions of donors, the shop is well stocked with decorative knick knacks, posters and paintings, toys, books, clothes including designer wear, even a set of brand new dining chairs - all because the couple who bought it decided they didn't like it after all. So, they gave it away .... for a Good Cause.

If you're in the Sembawang area, or planning a weekend at the water-fronting Sembawang Park, do make arrangements to stop over at this Thrift Shop. All for a good cause :)

To find out more about New Hope Community Services, go to www.newhopecs.org.sg

Check out this Thrift Shop

Ever heard of Jalan Serengam? Or Jalan Jeruju? This New Hope Thrift Shop is located at the junction of these two roads. Acrosss the road is the Sembawang Presbyterian Church. Not far from it is the road-fronting Sembawang Shopping Centre, your landmark along Sembawang Rd, on the way to Semawbawang Park.

The premises used to be New Hope's shelter for men in crisis - men who have come out of prison or drug rehab, and have nowhere to go, and need a temporary shelter where they can sort out their lives and prepare for their Second Chance. When it became too small, New Hope found a new shelter located very near Sembawang Park, in a good, friendly and understanding neighborhood. That's another story.

If you're reading this article, please accept my invitation to check out this Thrift Shop. Go see if there isn't something you could pick up for a good cause.

Selling can lose you friends???

At our "Keys to Success, Wealth & More Friends" seminar on June 15, workshop leader Kelly Lim guided the attendees to focus on two questions - basically, two sides of the same issue.

Q1. Why do people think and say selling can cause you to lose friends?

Q2. How would (or should) you do it such that you won't lose friends and instead make friends?

Going around the room, we got the following responses to Q1:

#1: I do seem to scare away my friends and I don't even know why ... some people tell me I ask too many questions.

#2: Hard selling, or forcing a sale of a product on friends, is what will lose you friends. Worse, if you are selling what you don't even believe in!

#3: You will lose friends if you are persistent in the wrong way - keep asking people to buy products from you even when they have said "no".

In the discussion that followed, a leader who was concerned that Q1 was even discussed at all, said: If you keep losing friends in the course of prospecting, examine your ways of selling. But do not be too hard on yourself. Sometimes, it is not your selling that is at fault. It is that the prospect is not good enough. There is such a thing as a "Prospect from Hell". We have come across one or two over the years ;)

As the discussion went around the room, with contributions from people of various levels of experience, we quickly established the following consensus response to Q2:

1. When going into a conversation with any prospect, it is important that we go in with the objective of wanting to get to know the person better, not going for a sale. In getting to know a person, we're really looking out or listening up for a fit - a good fit between the prospect's needs and what we can offer. Where a fit cannot be found, we must simply let go.

2. Think Relationship Marketing, another name for Network Marketing. Relationships must come before the Marketing. Establish a relationship first - ideally, a relationship built on trust. If people trust you, they're more likely to buy what you recommend.

3. Building relationship does not necessarily take a long time or many conversations and follow-up meetings. We can establish a rapport quickly - even within three minutes - if we would just be sincerely interested in people and their interests or concerns. Focus on people, and what they want; not on ourselves and what we may want out of them. If we do that, and if the prospect is right for us, we will have the opportunity to share the products and/or the opportunity within one conversation.

So, "selling" in itself is not a bad thing. It is how you do it.

Have a Laugh: Everyday things redefined

My friend Peck sent me the following "useful humourous definitions" by email, with a note saying some are quite true. I agree. These clever distortions do capture our sentiments on many everyday things. Have a good laugh reviewing them :D

School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.

Nurse: A person who wakes you up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Divorce: Future tense of Marriage.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: Art of transferring info from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through 'the minds of either'.

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Father: A banker provided by nature.

Criminal: A guy no different from the rest except that he got caught.

Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your confidence after.

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.

Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.

Atom Bomb : An invention to end all inventions.

Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.

Aren't they funny? You like them? Good. Now, smile :)

Why? Because ...

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.