Secrets of Enrolment strategy to massively increase the number of students

How
You Can Double the number of students to massively improve your institutions income and you as a marketing staff will be promoted by your boss

T.F.Lai

Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to the hundreds of people who have helped me before. To my parents Lai Ho Fong and Chai Lan Nyuk who make a great support everyday. To my wife, Jessica Jong who has been my pillar of inspiration and strength. To my partner, Associate Professor Arwinder Singh who has been giving me a suggestion and ideas continually to push me to the next level. To my partner Koong Wai Keong, who is a mathematic lecturer in INTI International University College for being an ultimate evaluator to evaluate the mathematical equations. To my partner Foo Kim Eng, who also is a mathematic lecturer in INTI International University College for being my next evaluator. Special thanks to INTI International University College, Professor Dr. Nirwan Idrus, Tasha Foo Chung Yi, K.K.A.Devi, Tan Ann Li, Wong Chee Yee, Google.com, Yahoo.com and all the INTI library staff.

About T.F.Lai

T.F.Lai is an Engineering lecturer in INTI International University College. A book of Secrets of Enrolment Strategy to massively increase the number of students is the first book he write. He was writing this book because he had underwent many enrolment researches. He even proposed a research title called Mathematical model & analysis to double the number of students in an institution in year 2007. This research title had been approved by the INTI International management. Not only that, T.F.Lai also had did many researches and now more than 10 technical papers had been published in the international conference. He got the lecturer awards in 2004, 2005 and 2007 for the best lecturer in INTI. In year 2006, he started developed an Enrolment Forecast Calculator copy right 2008 which is used to predict the number of students who will be registered and enrolled during the road shows and educational fair. The accuracy of this calculator is depend on the marketing staff performance and the techniques they ploy to convince the students. There are few interesting marketing strategies which will be introduced in the later chapters to motivate your marketing team. T.F.Lai was graduated in 2003 with Master Degree of Personal, Mobile and Satellite Communication. What is the interesting thing about him is, he has creative ideas and able utilised those engineering principle to develop an enrolment model. This is what you never seen before and it really a revelation. He even used his enrolment model to train those marketing staff in his institution and the results of getting more students were massively increased.

A good enrolment is not measured by high quality of education and good services. A good enrolment is measured by a team work and how you promise your students can earn back on what they already paid during their study.
By: T.F.Lai

ii

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Enrolment Model Profit maximization Contention for Top 10 Universities/Colleges Tactical Competitor Research (TCR) Distance learning New educational package Graduation factor Develops a parent counseling programme Conducting the seminars in high school

1 16 24 26 50 59 61 71 79 81 88 106

Chapter 10 Introducing a wealth academic programme Chapter 11 8 habits to accelerate your income Chapter 12 The power of designing your destiny in your career

iii

Chapter 1: Enrolment model

urrently many institutions employ different techniques or strategies to

enroll the new students. Enrolment now becomes a refection of the value to the institutions. Many institutions did not measure the competitors at the first stage. They think they have the ability to run their educational business without second thought. Now, the market for such educational courses or programme is extremely competitive. So, with so much competition around what do you think is the usual ploy to get business. Slash prices, offer the lowest, the cheapest for what appears to be the same value? Wrong. In my perception, many education businesses do quite the opposite. They charge the highest prices in the market and yet, they run the quality education. How did they do it? Simple, the secret is in the delivery of their service. Their institution gives their clients (both parents and their children or teens), an unmatchable experience, one that far exceeds their expectations. Here is a summary of how one institution does a whole lot more than expected and creates tremendous value: Conduct a seminar/workshop every month to counsel the parents. Not only care about the students safety while they are staying in hostel, they also care about their health. Provide a scholarship (free of charge) if the students results and performance are very good. Run a lot of exciting activities each semester to encourage students to know each other. Students get a series of encouragement emails for three months that keeps them focused. Equip them with powerful skills that teach them how to succeed in their career and how to appreciate their family and friends. Liaised with many local industries, cooperate with them so that they will accept the students as their employee. Students can have unlimited free personal coaching through emails.
1

Introduce a wealth study into each discipline so that whenever students pay so much tuition fee for their study, the institution can guarantee they will earn back or more than that after they graduated.

Care about the students future. As you can see, by giving the customers an unrivaled experience and offering

tremendous value, institutions programmes are clearly the best value, even at higher prices!

Expected number of students will enroll

This section will develop an expectation model to predict or estimate how many number of students will be enrolled when you (marketing staff) doing your road show or exhibition somewhere in the populated area. Let us define some parameters as shown below: t = unit service period in hour for each marketing staff T = total unit service period = Enrolment rate S = Service factor Nsm = Number of marketing staffs involved (non-physical count) An = normalized allowance pay to the marketing staff Q= constant defined as quota k = Number of new students = Competitor factor NF = Number of main bad factors NSK = Skill factor As we know the number of students enroll is random. But we can predict or estimate how many of them will enroll. Using the probability function, let the probability of one student enrolled is defined as: P( one student enrolled in t ) = t (t 0) P (no student enroll in t) = 1 - t ( t <<1)
2

Consider a total service period for all the marketing staff and subdivide the service period into t = T/n as shown below:

Using binomial distribution: Where:

n k n k P(k students enroll in T) = P(k) = ( t ) (1 t ) k

---------- (1)

n n! = k (n k )! k!
Replacing t with T/n, equation becomes:

( T ) K P(k ) = k!

T n n (n 1) (n k + 1) T k 1 1 ----------(2) n n nk
n

Let n with k remain fixed:

T T 1 e n
n (n 1) ( n k + 1) nk 1

T 1 n

equation (2) becomes:

( T ) k T P(k ) = e k!

---------- (3)

This is a poisson distribution function and gives the probability of k students enroll on that day. To compute the mean or average of students will enroll in time T, We apply expected function:

E[ k ] =
Since

kP(k) = Te
T k =0

( T ) k 1 (k 1)! k =1

---------- (4)

( T ) k 1 = e T ( k 1)! k =1

Clearly, equation (4) will then becomes:

E[k ] = T

------------ (5)

is known as enrolment rate. This enrolment rate will tell us how fast we can enroll one student per unit of time

The can change from the range 0 . When = 0 : The enrollment is extremely bad and no students will enroll. > 0: There will be students enrolled

Service Factor
To get more students, service is one of the priorities to be implemented. When I went to the educational fair, I notice that there were some marketing people who went around introducing themselves first and getting to promote their education programme. These people exhibit the pattern of being proactive. People who are proactive are people who take initiative to make things happen. When there are no opportunities, proactive people are those that go out and find opportunities. On the other hand, there would be a people I saw that they just stand around and wait for the students or customers to come and shake their hand. These people exhibit the reactive mindset. People with the reactive mindset have the habit of waiting for things to happen to them. They tend to act only in reaction to others actions. As a result, they have a lot less control and choices over results that affect them. When no opportunities present themselves, reactive people just sit and wait for the opportunities to come to them. So taking a proactive action with some other service activities to serve our customers are very important. Since the enrollment rate is depends on how well or how efficient the marketing staff convince the students. Therefore T S But, In practical T and S are exponentially related to each other as shown below:

From the exponential graph shown on page 5, we can form an equation:

T = Ns 1 e S

-----------------------(6)

where is a competitor factor, Ns is the maximum number of students who can be served by Nsm (number of marketing staff). By research, each marketing staff can serve about maximum of 2 students in an hour, therefore:

Ns =

2 Ns m T 1+ NF

-----------------------(7)

Where NF is the number of the main bad factors from the students who do not like to enroll. Whether the students like to enroll or not is all depends on one or more factor which is called a bad factor. Here are some of the example of bad factors : Tuition fee is too expensive Staff is not friendly Too hard to study No quality of education Not recognized by world wide No interest to study

According to the example given above, we would have 6 numbers of bad factors. Therefore, NF = 6. From equation (6), the S is a service factor which is defined as:
I

S = An
Where: An = normalize allowance

Nsm Nsk
i i =1

------------------------(8)

Nsmi = number of marketing staff (non-physically count) Nski = number of skill index (Do not worry about the equation, I will give an example on how to use it)
6

Competitor Factor

Again, looking into equation (6), we see that there is a symbol. This is what we called a competitor factor. One institution facing with many or infinite number of competitors can be defined as:

competitor factor = =

1 NC

---------------- (9)

Where NC is the number of competitors. Note that: NC 0 , NC 1

The Complete Enrolment Model

Using equations (6), (7), (8) and (9), we have formed the equation as shown below:
An NC

i =1 2 Ns m T (1 e T = 1+ NF

Nsm i Nsk i

--------------- (10)

This equation is not a practical equation to be implemented. To make it more practical, we have to treat the T on the left hand side as a average service period and the T on the right hand side as a total service period. Hence,
An NC

2 Ns m TTotal working hour (1 e

Nsm i Nsk i
i=1

TService period (1 + N F )
working hour

-------------- (11)

To further simplify, we let the 2NsmTTotal become:

An Nsm i Nsk i NC i =1

/(1+NF) = Q so that equation (11)

Q(1 e TService period

------------- (12)
7

Equation (12) is known as Enrolment model. Clearly it is seen that enrolment is affected by the number of marketing staffs involved, skill applied, the number of competitor and the service period. Looking into the equation (12) again, we see that the shorter the time to convince a student, the more the enrolment rate is.

The Mood Index and Skill Index

If you take a look on equation (8), Nsm is not physically count the number of marketing staffs involved in the road show or educational fair. Nsm actually is counting the eligible number of marketing staffs who are involved in the road show or educational fair. When I say eligible means that marketing staff must be a potential staffs and be able to create more value during the road show or educational fair. This indicate that the staffs on that day when serve to the customers must have a good mood. A mood is something like emotion that will affect a persons performance. It is suggest that before going to do your marketing promotion, you must sit a mood test. There are many mood tests available in the internet like this http://mood-monitor.perbang.dk/ is an example of mood test. If you are a management, you can hire somebody to create a mood test system to examine those marketing staffs who want to go for road show or educational fair. The same thing can be applied to skill test. Now the question is how to judge a result after test? Well, we can measure the mood and skill by using percentage. Convert the percentage into an index. For example, if a person score 50% and 70% in his mood test and skill test respectively, so the index for mood is 0.5 and skill is 0.7. From my research study, a person should score about 0.7 and above to be considered as a qualify marketer to serve the customers. You may ask, Why we need all these index data? Well, if you are tertiary education manager, you need these index data for quota calculation (see the equation 7). When you apply equation (7), you can predict and estimate how many number of students will be register and enroll after sending a qualify marketer in the road show or educational fair. Take this example:

Assume that there are five marketing staffs who are volunteers to go for road show in PWTC. Before that, they all sit for the mood and skill exam. Here are the results they score: Marketing staff A = 60% for mood and 85% for skill Marketing staff B = 85% for mood and 97% for skill Marketing staff C = 40%for mood and 35% for skill Marketing staff D = 95% for mood and 98% for skill Marketing E = 75% for mood and 95% for skill Now the management set a rule that at least 2 students must be enrolled in one hour. Given that the average number of bad factor* in each of the customer is 3, the working period on that day is 10 hours and the management pay RM100 for each staff. Calculate the quota and the service factor.[ Assume that standard pay is RM80]. Solution: Before using equation 7 for quota calculation, we must know exactly how many marketing staffs are qualified to give service. For marketing staff A, the total score = 0.6 0.85 = 0.51 (not eligible) = 0 For marketing staff B, the total score = 0.85 0.97 = 0.82 (eligible) For marketing staff C, the total score = 0.4 0.35 = 0.14 (not eligible) For marketing staff D, the total score = 0.95 0.98 = 0.93 (eligible) For marketing staff E, the total score = 0.75 0.95 = 0.71 (eligible) allowance, we have: Nsm = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 The quota is:
NS = 2 N sm T 2 3 10 = = 15 1+ N F 1+ 3

=1 =0 =1 =1

Using equation 8 to compute the number of qualify marketing staff by ignoring the

Therefore at least 15 students will be enrolled. Note that this is just a quota. In reality, the number of students enrolled can higher than this figure vice versa.
9

To compute the service factor, we use equation 8:

S = An

N
i =1

smi N ski

100 [1 + 1 + 1] = 3.75 4 80

In the analysis, the higher the service factor, the more students we can get! *The number of bad factor is very hard to determine and it is random from one person to another person. The only way you can find out the bad factor (why the students dont like to enroll in your college/university) is through the questionnaire. I have prepared a soft copy of the questionnaire in three languages: English, Malay and Chinese to find out why the new students dont like your institution. Email me: frequency50HZ@engineer.com to get this copy of questionnaire for free. When you compute the total number of eligible marketing staff, which is Nsm as stated in the equation, you have to follow the rule: 1. Any score above 70% or 0.7 must set the index to 1 (good performance) 2. Any core below 70% or 0.7 must set the index to 0 (bad performance) 3. Apply this rule to compute the sum: 1 1 = 1 1 0 = 0 The plot of mood or skill index can be seen below:

10

As shown in mood index or skill index plot, the mood and skill of the marketing staff is random from time to time. There is no exact calculation to compute the mood of staff and the skill of the marketing staff. It is very hard to predict the mood/skill index of a marketing staff. The only way to predict is using PDF (Probability Density Function). As shown in the graph, is NT and x0, then we have:

Mood X )x = (t

totalobservatio time n
i=1

ti

Here is another two examples for you: Example 1 If there are 5 marketing staffs having the following mood and skill indexes. Calculate the total marketing staff actually eligible to go for exhibition. [ 1, 1, 1, 0, 1] = mood index [ 1, 0, 1, 1, 0] = skill index Solution: Total eligible number of marketing staff is = (1)(1) + (1)(0) + (1)(1) + (0)(1) + (1)(0) = 2 Example 2 Given that there are 5 marketing staffs go for educational exhibition. Assume that the standard allowance is RM80, but the college pay RM 100 each to these people. Given that the maximum number of students can be served by each staff is 2, average number of bad factors that each student has is =3, service period for each staff = 15 minutes and working period is 9 hour. There are 50 competitors. Also, assume that the staffs have the following mood and skill index: [ 1 , 1 , 0, 1 , 1] = mood [1, 1, 1, 1,1] = skill Calculate the enrolment rate on that day.

11

Solution: Applying equation (12), The actual number of staff = (1)(1) + (1)(1) + (0)(1) + (1)(1) + (1)(1) = 4 An = RM 100/RM 80 = 1.25 Quota = 2 4 9/(1+3) = 18 students
1.25 1 e 50 4 18 7 students/h our = 15 / 60

If the service period for each marketing staff to serve a new student during the enrollment is 2 hours instead of 15 minutes. What is the new predicted average number of students will enroll per unit time? Solution:
1.25 1 e 50 4 18 0 students/h our = 2

As you can see, time factor is very important. If you spend too much time talking to only one student, you may end up with no students. What is the point your company pay so much money to run this exhibition and end up with nothing? So, a proper time frame training to convince a customer must be implemented in your marketing strategy. Note that Enrolment Model only work during the educational exhibition or road show. It does not work during the registration day or open day. The reason is because there is no competitor. In the subsequence topics, you will learn the advertisement strategy under contention period to get more students in your college open day or registration. If you want to get a copy of this Enrolment Model calculator, you may contact me.

12

Practical Implementation of Enrolment Model (EM)

This section will show you how to implement the EM practically. As I mentioned before, all the marketing staffs must be qualified before going to run their exhibition. But wait. Dont forget your registration form or enrolment form. Some students attending the road shows with full preparation, some of them just come and visit to collect as much information as they can. From my research, 90% of the visitors come to the educational fair without bringing their resume or high school results. In this scenario, you as a marketing staff should prepare a registration form to let the students fill in after the students have 75% confident to choose your institution as their priority. The preparation of registration form must be make as easy as possible. Below is a sample of registration form: XXX College/University Name Contact No. Email Home address Programme interested : ____________________ : ___________________ : ___________________ : ___________________ : ___________________

You may ask, Why should I need this registration form? Well, you need this form for two reasons: (1) you need to follow up with what your customers need. You have to send them as much as information you have and guide them or convince them to enroll that programme. (2) This registration form can acts like a record to valid your EM calculator data. Who will be enrolled or not enroll can be traced from this from. If you want to use EM calculator to predict the number of students will be enrolled, I suggest that you: 1.) Use EM calculator to compute the number of students will be enrolled on that day.

13

2.) Record the number of students registered using registration form (Note that some of the students will directly enrolled without second thought. This might be because of advertisement or influence from their friends). 3.) After collecting the registration form, just before the new semester begin (enrolment day), call them one by one to convince them again. 4.) Record the number of them enrolled during the enrolment day. 5.) Compare the calculated result using EM calculator and the real result getting from the enrolment. 6.) Step 1 is repeated till step 5. Do this exercise for about one year to test the accuracy of EM calculator. I can guarantee that in future you will depends on it and love it very much to carry your enrolment exercise. The main advantages of using EM calculator are: To save cost on the educational fair or road show. To give you a guideline or picture to see the future result. To know your weakness.

14

To the end of this chapter, again I want to remind you that this EM calculator or equation (12) only work in educational fair or road show to predict the number of students enrolled. It does not work for open day. The below shows a predict number of students enrolled using EM calculator versus the actual number of students enrolled in year 2007.

Actual Enrolment versus Predicted Enrolm ent 300 250 Number of Students 200 150 100 50 0 Dec-06 Jan-07 Feb-07 Mar-07 Apr-07 May-07 Jun-07 Months Jul-07 Aug-07 Sep-07 EM Calculation Actual Enrolment

From the graph shown above, we can see that the red mark indicate the predicted values whereas the yellow mark indicate the actual values. The predicted value is done before the enrolment. Both showing the enrolment is increase in the year 2007.

15

Chapter 2: Profit Maximization

any people have asked me, What can I do to increase my institutions

profits? Here, I am going to share with you a general formula and a specific formula that you can use to double the profits of your institution.

General Profit Formula

In any kinds of education business, profits are only determined by five variables: Leads generated, conversion rate, average dollar purchase, average repeat business and net profit margins. Leads represent the number of potential students or prospects that institution generates through walk-ins, inquiries, cold calls & recommendations. Lets say that out of every ten prospects, two eventually end up enrolled, this means that institutions average conversion rate is 20%. So, if you multiply the number of leads generated a year (also known as prospects) by the average conversion rate, it will determine the number of students. This is illustrated below:

Leads Conversion Rate = Number of Students

Now, students may spend different money to study different programme and each programme has different tuition fee. So, there is always an average dollar purchase per student. At the same time, some students may only study once while others may continue to study every semester say a year. This is known as the average repeat business per student. If you multiply the number of customer by the average dollar purchase and by the number of repeat business, you will get the annual programme sales revenue of the institution. Now, assume that your institutions revenue is $100000 a year and the total cost of running the educations are $80000 (Total cost here refers to the pay of lecturers salary,

16

advertisement, printing, telephone bill, electricity bill, facilities and so on) a year. This means that the institutions Net Profit Margins are 20%. If you multiply the programme

sale revenue by the Net Profit Margins, you will get the companys net profits for the year, which is $20000. In order to create value to your institution and increase its profits, you must either increase leads, conversion rate, average dollar purchase, number of repeat business and/ or net profit margins. Now, the number of variables you can influence will depend very much on the role you have in the institution. If you are the owner or are a department manager, chances are you can take action to increase all five variables and massively create value. If you are a marketing person, then you can influence leads, conversion rate, repeat business and dollar purchase. If you are in operations, you can directly influence conversion rate, number of repeat businesses and net profit margins. If you do your well and exceed students expectations, they will keep coming back and influence the others. If you can work more efficiently and come up with strategies to improve the operational efficiency, margins will increase!

Increasing Leads
What can you do to help your institution increase leads? The specific strategy would depend on you. In general, you could take the following action: Learn how to create more effective advertisements. (Stronger headlines, more persuasive copy, i.e. text) Test new media channels (e.g. Newspaper, magazine, outdoor ads etc) Make more cold calls Use telemarketing efforts Hold seminars & road shows Increase networking efforts Hold special promotions Create a referral system or member get member scheme Start email marketingthe list goes on
17

Increasing Conversion Rate

How can you boost your institutions conversion rate? There are many strategies you could use such as. Creating a more flexible payment plan ( installment plan) Offer a quality education Use successful testimonials Create more persuasive marketing materials like brochures, videos Use NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) techniques to build strong rapport with students Innovate a new persuasive sales script that works Create a more powerful, impressive & persuasive presentation

Increasing Average Dollar Purchase

At the same time, there are many things you can do to boost the average dollar purchase of each student. I give you one great example before I show you the technique is McDonalds. What do they do? They simply ask you to buy more! Have you ever gone into a McDonalds wanting to buy only a cheeseburger? Do they just sell you the cheeseburger? No! They will ask if you want to have a combo meal. They will then ask you to upsize the meal. So you go in wanting to spend $2, but end up spending $10! They are great at getting their customers to increase their average purchase by five times. Similarly, as you are an educational manager or head of programme, what you need to do is you ask the students to take an intermediate course that may help them in their study. This course should not affect their main study. The intermediate course is something like English study, skill study and so on. In the chapter 9, you will learn the complete lesson on how to design an intermediate course to attract more students involved and hence double your institutions income.

18

Increase Repeat Business

What you can do to boost your students keeps continue study (means that from lowest level study to the highest level study i.e. Diploma to PhD)? Well, you can. Exceed their educations expectations & give them a wonderful experience Build a friendship with them Keep in regular contact Send them special occasion cards Give them a discount for their next continuation

Increase Profit Margins

Finally, how can you increase your institutions profit margins? You can: Source for cheaper supplies which are just as good Sell higher margin programme first (like Degree programme) Increase working efficiency (do it right the first time) Strategize how to reduce unnecessary cost.

The strategies that I have just presented to you are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more strategies that you could test out. In the subsequences topics, you will learn more exciting strategies!

19

Specific Formula
In this section, you will learn more specific formula to save cost for your institution and hence double your institutions profit. Let me define some parameters before we proceed, let: N = number of items (including the lecturers) available in your institution ns = number of students enrolled $$$average = average amount have to pay to the items. $$$Total = Total tuition fee $$$original = Original tuition fee $$$hidden = Hidden cost charged to the students The revenue of the institution is given by: Earning = ns $$$Total --------------------------------- (13)

The expenses or the loss of the institution is given by: Loss = N $$$average And the profit earned: Profit = Earning Loss = ns $$$Total - N $$$average -------------------------------- (15) --------------------------------- (14)

Now, introducing a hidden cost ($$$hidden) into the total tuition fee to compensate the loss and assuming that $$$hidden << $$$original<< $$$Total

20

Therefore the Total tuition fee that has to pay by students is: $$$Total = $$$original + $$$hidden Substitute equation (16) into equation (15) will yield: Profit = ns [$$$original + $$$hidden] N $$$average -------------------------- (16)

Pr ofit = n S $$$ original + n s $$$ hidden N$$$ average

---------------------------- (17)

Now, you can see from equation (17) that the expenses or losses from an institution can be compensated by making:

n s $$$ hidden = N$$$ average -----------------------------------------------------(18)

So that equation (17) becomes:

Pr ofit = n S $$$ original ------------------------------------------------------ (19)

As a result, your institution having loss at all! To help you determine the hidden cost, you may look into equation (18) where:
$$$ hidden = N $$$ average ns

---------------------------------------------------------------- (20)

21

Now, what is your conclusion after seeing all these equations? Well, I can give you a hint that to maximize the profit, the number of students that institution enrolled must be equal to the number of items invested (ns = N) or purchased (see equation 18). Only this scenario happen, your hidden cost to be charged to the students is equal to the amount you loss. In other words hidden cost introduced into the programme offered is determined by the amount you spend (loss). Let me show you an example: Assume that an institution offering four year Electrical & Electronic Engineering programme with the tuition fee is RM 30000. If the total cost of running this programme is RM 15000 due to the payment of 6 lecturers salary, 10 tables, 10 chairs, air-conditional, 3 advertisements, 2administration staffs and 3 labs equipments. What is the hidden cost that must be charged to the students in order to compensate the loss? Determine also the number of students that must be enrolled. Solution: The number of items spend = N = 6 + 10 + 10 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 35 To compensate the amount of RM 15000 spending, we need to enroll 35 students. So, using equation 20, the hidden cost that must be charged would be: $$$hidden = [35/35] RM 15000 = RM 15000 Using equation 16, total tuition fee must be charged to the student is: $$$Total = RM30000 + RM 15000 = RM 45000 The net profit earned is: Profit = 35 RM 30000 + 35 RM 15000 35 RM 15000 = RM 1050k It seems like this tuition fee RM 45000 is very expensive. Well, you can reduce the original tuition fee from RM 30000 to say about RM 20000 so that the profit you earn is: Profit = 35 RM 20000 + 35 RM 15000 35 RM 15000 = RM 700k

22

And the tuition fee for this Engineering programme is = RM 20000 + RM 15000 = RM 35000 To make the tuition more attractive to enroll more students without any loss, let us using RM 15000 as an original tuition fee, so the net profit earned is: Profit = 35 RM 15000 + 35 RM 15000 35 RM 15000 = RM 525k (you still have RM 525k of profit!) Therefore the lowest tuition fee must be launched to the market is: $$$Total = RM 15000 + RM 15000 = RM 30000 (which is your original tuition fee as stated in the question)

The Hidden Cost

What is the hidden cost? The hidden cost is actually a cost of the loss at which an institution spends on it. A successful institution when running any programmes must think about this cost. As a financial planner of an institution, you must list down the total cost consumed by the departments before specify the tuition fee in the market. For example, if your institution has five departments: Engineering, Science, Languages, Computer and Business, then you have to list down all the equipments, facilities, number of staffs involved and so on to run the programme. After knowing the quantities and cost involved, you can apply equation (17) to compute the profit earned. Remember that, the number of students that you enrolled must equal or higher than the number of items that you invested to run a programme. Only this way, your institution will achieve the maximum profit.

23

Chapter 3: Contention of top 10 institutions

any students like to study in Top 10 institutions. This is because top 10
institutions have high ranking. The top 10 institutions offering a good

service, high quality of education, has many researched activities and so on. Because the institutions are highly ranked, they still compete with each other to get more students in the market. Some of the top 10 institutions not only offering a quality education, they also offering some other services like entertainment and sports to attract more students. Now, what is the tendency for them to get the highest number of students under a strong competition? To analyze this, lets take x university/college is one the top 10 institutions. Let P is the probability that all the top 10 institutions try to get the maximum number of students enrolled under contention period, A is the probability that x university/college enroll more students compared to the others, k is the number of institutions chosen by students as their main study concern, N is total number of competitors and G is the number of institutions that represent the final decision made by the students. So, the expression for A is: A = k P(1-P)N-1 Where k = 1, 2, 3,.10 The probability that x university/college try to get more students is given by:
P= G --------------------------------------------------- (22) N

--------------------------------------------------- (21)

Substitute equation (22) into (21), we have:

A = k G G 1 N N
N 1

--------------------------------------------------- (23)

24

If the students have interest to study in all the top 10 institutions and they dont might which one they want to go. So in this scenario, we can make k = N and the maximum of students that an institution can get is:
N 1

A = k

G G 1 k N
N 1

G = G 1 N

-------------------------------------------------------(24)

From equation (24), one institution can get the maximum number of student under contention period is:
10 1

1 A = 11 10

= 0.387 or 38.7% .

Therefore, in the example that I gave, x university/college only have 38.7% of chances to get more students! Now, let assume y university/college also enroll many students and this create a competition with x university/college. So, what is the probability that they will get the maximum number of students? The answer is:
10 1

2 A = 21 10

= 0.268 or 26.8%

As you can see, the more strong the institutions compete with each other, the less the chances they are getting the students enroll.

25

Chapter 4: Tactical Competitor Research (TCR)

CR was formed in year 2006 in our institution to study the strategy how to
get rid of competition. The main objective of this TCR is to create an additional

income to the institution without compete with other institutions. There is available a veritable treasure chest of strategies to massively increase your institutions income and get you on your way to financial abundance. When I talk about increasing income, I mean that the institution have to focus on creating as many streams of income as possible. I had observed that many institutions have creating as many streams of income as possible, but they do it wrongly! This is because they only focus on internal income streams as their additional income and they never focus on external income streams. For example, if you visit many institutions around the world, you will see that many of them having a book stores, sport accessories shop, canteen, internet cafeteria, super market, computer shop and so on. Not bad. Is these are the additional incomes to your institution? Yes they are and these are called values creation. But, it only focuses internally! It only focuses on their students as their customers! The institution may earn the incomes from the rental fee or from the students. In other words, the income of any institution is determined by the amount of value it creates multiplied by the time it spends creating value multiplied by the scalability factor:

Income = Value Time Scalabilit y

Before I go into the strategy to show you how to create an external value to your institution, you have to remember that there are only two ways you can create value for your institution. Either: Help the institution increase the number of students or Help the institution to reduce costs.

This will increase the institutions profits. You must understand that all educational

26

Businesses have only one major goal, to make more profits every year. The profits you can help your institution make, the more you will be worth!

The TCR Strategy

This section will show you another strategy at which you can attract more students come to study in your institution. But you have to invest some money to implement that. Before we begin, the first think you must understand is the programmes we offered are more on education. We teach the student how to learn A to Z and how to communicate with each other, how to do the math questions, running many experiments in the laboratory, do a project and so on. All these are happening in current institutions. Therefore:

To get an external income to the institution, I slightly modify the block diagram so that:

This has show that the institution not only running the education business, but also doing some other businesses to get extra income.

27

What I aware in my researches is that many institutions do not have their own industries. So, what they do is they just liaise with industrial people and send their students to the industries for training. When student enquiries for the programme to be study, they always ask for industrial training. So if the institution offering industrial training programme, students might feel worth to study. This is because they feel that they might have a good career in future after gaining experience from the industries training. The problem is many industries are very choosy. They want the outstanding students and they underestimate those students who getting poor results in their academic performance. Because of this, it is very difficult for the institution to allocate their students in the industries. What I suggest here is why dont the institution invest a minimum amount of money to establish their own industries/factory and taking the students/staffs as their manpower to run this business? In this way, the institution can make an extra income with minimum cost of investment and the students will get benefit from working experience. If your institution has five departments: Engineering, Business, Law, Languages and Computer, then you as a leader should try to get them together to discuss what are the product need to be sell in the market to get better profit before establishing a factory. In this case, you must understand your target markets need, perform competitive research, source for the best products of the highest value, apply strong marketing, manage your cash flow, have a system to process payment and build a relationship with your customers. Wow! This may seem like a lot of work. Well, it is! But again, it is much easier than starting a brick-and-mortar business. Everything that you must do to get your business to take off is to organize it into five major steps. They are: Step #1: Identify Your Institutions Passion & Expertise Step #2: Find a Hungry Niche Market Step #3: Size up the Competition & Profit Potential

Step #4: Create Products Step #5: Making the customers buying your products
28

Step #1 Identify Your Passion & Expertise If you want your institution to be successful in getting more income, you have got to start one around your passion and your expertise. In every market where there are so many businesses competing, only the best make a sizeable profit. How do you become the best in the market? The answer is by being totally, absolutely one hundred percent committed about your particular business. The only way this is possible is if you have a natural love and passion for it. By focusing on an area of passion and expertise, you will be able to talk passionately about the topic and position yourself as the expert! You will be able to offer something better that what competing businesses are offering because you know the topic so well. Once people feel you are credible and they benefit from your free information, they will then willing to pay to get more value from you. So, Engineering department & Business department should involve this activity to discuss the passion and the expertise. Below are a few popular categories to help you along to get an idea on what kind of product should be produced: Accessories Arts & Crafts Auto buying Auto mechanics Beauty & cosmetics Books & media Child development Computers Coaching Cooking Clothing & apparel Careers Education Entertainment Financial services Food & drinks Games & toys Health & fitness Medical Sports Recipes Relationships Skin care Productivity tools Software design Teenagers Electrical appliances Traveling Weight loss Marketing Self-improvement Parenting Shopping Music Pet care Nutritional supplements

29

Step #2 Find a Hungry Niche Market

The reason people fail in business is because they find a so-called hot product that they think will sell and they try to sell it to everybody. This strategy is guaranteed to fail. Instead, you must first find an existing market that is hungry and willing to buy. Find out what they want to buy and go find or create the product to sell to them. This is the strategy for business success! In step two, you must find a hungry niche market that is related to your passion and expertise in which you identified in step one. The fist thing to take note of is that it must be a niche market not a general market. For example, a general market would be health products while a niche market would be weight loss health supplements. Why should we go for a niche market? A niche market is easier and cheaper to dominate, as it is easier to position yourself as the best in that particular category and cheaper to advertise in. Many businesses fail because they attempt to capture a big market like health products and they get beaten flat by more established players with a bigger range, expertise and advertising budgets. There are three things you have to find in step #2. They are: Find a niche market related to your topic of interest Ensure sufficient interest and demand Identify a problem to be solved or unmet needs

A great resource site to visit is http://inventory.overture.com to help you find out the various niche markets that you can focus on. Another reason why businesses fail is because many of them focus on an area where there is insufficient demand. As a rule of thumb, you have to ensure that the niche area you pick has high demand. Not only that, you must also find out what specific problems they want to solve. Or it could be needs that they are looking for solution to. People will only willing to pay you if you can help them solve a problem or achieve their goals better than other competitors.

30

Step #3 Size Up the Competition & Profit Potential

In this step, we must check out the competition and the profit potential of your chosen niche market. More specifically we need to (a) size up the competition (b) Calculate the profit potential of the market In order to capture market share and dominate your niche market you must find out how many competitors you have and exactly what they offer. You must find out whats good and bad about their products, what price they charge, how they do up their website and their marketing techniques. The best way to find out is to buy your competitors products and become one of their customers. Then, you must ensure that you do everything better, add more value and you will succeed! Step 4# Create Products Now that you have identified a profitable niche market and a common problem or need they share, you must then think of the kind of products or services you can provide that they will pay for. You must think of various revenue streams you can create for your business. Many people have asked me, What kind of product that an institution can produce? The answer is mineral water. Why? Because: Mineral water is the lowest cost that can be produced You can get the water (natural resource) easily When special event is going on like sports, conference, meeting and so on You can market your product easily Addition features can be added into the mineral water. Example, you can add vitamins or any kind of chemical substances that can boost the energy. When you selling your mineral water at the same time you can take this opportunities to advertise your institution to get more students. Below is the sample of mineral water to show how an institution can advertise its product.

31

To produce the mineral water, Engineering Department has to involve in this project. Lecturers not only teach, they must also do this research. Here are some guidelines for the jobs to be assigned to the different department in Engineering: Water Filtration Water Engineering Machine purchasing & maintenance Electrical & Electronic Engineering Building layout & design Civil Engineering & Quantity Survey Engineering Packaging Production Engineering Water quality Quality Engineering Mineral Bottle design Mechanical Engineering Communication set up system Computer & Network Engineering and so on.

32

Step 5# Making the customers buying your products

Once you have identified the kind of products that you want to offer your customers, you need to make your customers buy your product (mineral water). As I mentioned in chapter 2, you can: Learn how to create more effective advertisements Test new media channels (e.g. Newspaper, magazine, outdoor ads etc.) Hold seminars & road shows Increase networking efforts Hold special promotions

So with these few points you would be able to market your product. Dont forget your objective is to double the students number in your enrolment. Dont go too much or expend too much in this mineral water business. Treat it just like a small income to your institution Yes it is a small income because one bottle of mineral water sell in the market just cost about $2 to $2.50. However your academic programmes in the market is $20000 to $40000 or more than that!

Establishing the Factory

In the example I had shown you that mineral waters business is the lowest cost that you can afford on it. To run that business, the first thing you must consider is the cost. How to minimize the cost to establish the factory to produce the mineral water? Here are some guidelines: Identify the redundant building around your institutions compound. Basically, what we will normally see in an institution are: academic buildings, sport hall, multipurpose hall, dining hall and so on. Which building you feel that is redundant and you can convert it into a factory Use the students as manpower to reduce the cost Use the staffs as manpower to reduce the cost Use the laboratory existing equipments to make clean the water
33

You only need to invest the money is on the transportation or the logistic system. Now, to help you really involve into this factory business, I have to advise to you that you have to learn how to create the balance sheet, the profit and loss statement and statement of cash flow. This is something like a companys report card, telling you how well they are making money.

The Balance Sheet

This first financial statement you must learn to read is the balance sheet. This tells you how financially strong an institution is. Institutions that are financially strong are able to recover from recessions and business mistake the management might make. The balance sheet tells you how much an institution owns (assets) relative to how much it owe (liabilities) at a particular point in time. The difference between the two is its equity. Equity is the value of the company that the investors own.

ASSETS = LIABILITIE S + EQUITY

It therefore, tells you the financial strength & stability of the institution. For example, imagine if the institution establish a new factory to produce the mineral water at the price of $10 million. If the institution used its own cash of $2 million and took a bank loan of $8 million, its balance sheet will look like this: Asset Liability Equity : $10 million The value of the factory : $8 million : $2 million

The amount owed to the bank The amount owned by institution

=

ASSETS LIABILITY EQUITY

+

The reason it is called a balance sheet is because total assets must always balance with total liabilities + equity.
34

When assets increase, then Liability + Equity must increase to balance it. For example, in order to establish a new factory (asset), the institution must either borrow money (increase in liability) and or get more investors to invest money by selling shares (increase in equity). Similarly, when assets decrease, the Liability + Equity must also decrease to balance. Below is a simplified example of a balance sheet you might come across: xxx institutions Balance sheet ASSET Current Assets Cash & equivalents Account receivables Inventories Other current assets Total current assets Long Term Assets Plant, property & equipment Investments Intangible assets Other assets Total Assets LIABILITIES Current Liabilities Short term debt Accounts payable Payroll Income taxes owed Other current liabilities Total current liabilities Long Term Liability Long Term debt Other liabilities Total Liabilities 1874 633 169 415 $5189 1872 337 171 390 $4869 284 842 644 328 $2098 205 827 697 370 $2099 $(millions) 2002 2001

412 315 137 173 499 $1486 713 933 $3132

458 251 180 199 416 $1503 507 830 $2840

35

Share Holders Equity Common stock Additional paid up capital Retained earnings Total Shareholders equity Total Liabilities + Shareholders Equity

2 97 1958 $2057 $5189

2 97 1930 $2029 $4869

Understanding Assets
There are two major categories of assets. Current assets and Long term (non-current) assets. Current assets are assets that are likely to be used up or easily converted to cash within a year. Current assets include: Cash & equivalents, Account receivable & Inventories. The cash & equivalents include how much money the institution has in its savings and checking account. It also includes fixed deposits and one year bonds that the institution can turn into cash quickly without much price risk. Having enough cash is a good sign as it shows that the institution can easily meet its monthly expenses and keep the business running smoothly. However, having too mush cash is also bad as it shows that management is not putting its investors money to good use where it can generate a higher rate of return. In this case, a good institution should return excess cash back to shareholders in the form of dividends. Account receivables is the money that is owed to the institution by students and customers (if the mineral water is selling after established the factory) who have already purchased the institutions mineral waters or services but have not yet paid. If account receivables are increasing at a much faster rate than sales, it is not a good sign. It means that the institutions credit policy is too lax and the institution is not efficient at chasing for and collecting money. Account receivables or AR can quickly turn into bad debts when things drag on for too long.

36

Inventories
Inventories are important to watch in manufacturing and retail institutions. They include raw materials, partially finished products and finished products yet to be sold. The value of inventories must be looked at skeptically as its market price is often way below its value on the balance sheet. Having lots of inventory lying around for too long is no good because it ties up cash that could be better put to use elsewhere. Also, the longer the inventory stays, the faster its value will drop.

Long Term Assets

Long term assets are assets that are not expected to be converted into cash or used up within a year. They include property, plant & equipment, long term investments and intangible assets.

Property, Plant & Equipment

These assets form an institution or factorys infrastructure and this includes buildings, land, plant, machinery equipment and so on.

Long Term Investment

This includes money invested in long term bonds or stocks in other companies.

Intangible Assets
Intangible assets include the value of intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks) the institution owns as well as its goodwill. Goodwill is the additional value investors are willing to pay over the book value of the institutions equity. If you take Nike for example, the majority of its value is NOT in the property of factories it owns. In fact, it hardly owns any factories. All its products are outsourced to manufacturing companies. Most of its value is in the Nike Brand. The value attached to Goodwill is very subjective and should always be taken a lot of skepticism.
37

Understanding Liabilities
Again, there are two major categories of liabilities. Current Liabilities and Long term Liabilities.

Current Liabilities
Current liabilities are what an institution owes and are due to pay out within a year. They include: Account Payables and Short term Borrowings Account payable is the bills that an institution owes to individuals (like staff salaries) and other companies (suppliers) that are due to be paid within a year. It is kind of like phone bills and credit card bills we receive each month and are yet to pay. Short term borrowing is the money that an institution borrows for less than a year. This is usually made up of credit or overdraft line.

Long Term Liabilities

Long term liabilities are what an institution owes and can be slowly pay back over a long period of time. This usually includes long term debt the institution has borrowed from the bank or bonds that it has issued to the public.

Profit and Loss Statement

The second thing you must understand before establishing the factory under your institution control is how well it is making money. The profit and loss statement (also known as income statement) tells you how much accounting profits the factory is making or losing during a year or a quarter. Obviously, an institution that earns higher profits for its shareholders will have shares that will be worth a lot more. Below are the various components of the profit and loss statement.

38

Basically the formula for determining net income is: Sales Revenue Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Profit Gross Profit Operating Expenses = Operating Income Operating Income Interest expense + Interest Income = Income before Taxes Income before Taxes - Income Tax = Net Profit after Tax (or Net Income) Here is an example of simplified Profit & Loss Statement: $(in million) Sales Revenue Cost of Goods Sold Gross Profit Operating Expenses Sales & Marketing General & Administrative Research & Development Depreciation Total Operating Income Interest Expense Interest Income Income before Taxes Income Taxes Net Profit after Tax Earning per share Lets find out what all the different components really mean. $5444 $2832 $2612 $1000 $ 240 $300 $ 57 $1597 $1015 $ 27 $ 13 $1001 $ 322 $ 679 $2.78

Sales Revenue
Also known as just sales or turnover, it represents how much money the company has brought in over the period.

Sales Revenue = Price per unit Quantity of units sold

39

So if the factory sold 100000 widgets and each was priced at $10, sales revenue would be $1 million. In reality, companies have multiple products and services with price over various geographic locations and business units.

Cost of Goods Sold

In order to sell the $10 widget, the company must obviously spend money to produce it. This is referred to as cost of good sold. This represents all the expenses directly related to producing the goods or services for sale. So this could include certain salaries, raw materials, supplier costs or wholesale prices of goods.

Gross Profit
Gross Profit:

Gross Profit = Sales Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold

It tells you how much a factory is able to mark up its product or services over the cost of producing it. For example, if it takes $6 to manufacture each widget which is then sold for $10, the gross profit per unit is $4. If the factory sells a total of 100000 widgets, the total gross profit will be $400000. It is more useful when expressed as a percentage, such as Gross Margin:

Gross Margin =

Gross Profit 100% Sales Revenue

If the manufacturers who can maintain high gross margin above 25% for over five to ten years then that indicate that they have highly differentiated products and have a strong competitive advantage against competitors. This allows them to put high markups on their products, earning them higher profits. We should avoid with very low Gross Margins, as it means that the sell of commoditytype products that have little competitive advantages over competitors.
40

Operating Expenses
Besides the cost of producing its products or services, institution or factory must also incur operating expenses (also known as overheads) that include fixed running costs such as marketing, administrative salaries, research & development, depreciation and non-recurring charges/gains (also know as extraordinary items). Research & Development (R&D) & marketing are necessary expenses to ensure that the company continues to innovate better products and build its brand name. Unethical management sometimes cuts R&D & marketing expenses to boost short term profit, but in the long term the companys earnings will fall as its products & brand become obsolete. Depreciation is when an institution buys a physical asset to last a long time (e.g. factory) and expenses its cost over a number of years. For example, an institution buys a factory to run its business and train its students at $10 million and depreciates it over 20 years. So, every year, the depreciation expense is $500000. Note that depreciation is a non-cash charge as the institution does not actually pay out the $500000 every year. Non-recurring charges/gains are one off charges or gains that are not part of ongoing operations and not likely to be repeated. For example, the sale of a division will create an extraordinary profit while closing down a division could lead to a one-time loss.

Operating Income
Operating income shows the profit the institution made from its actual operations.

Operating Income = Sales Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold - Operating Expenses

Take note that besides its actual operations, an institution may make additional profits or losses from interest income (from money it puts in the bank) or from one off, nonoperational activities like selling an investment for a profit (this is known as extraordinary items).

41

Net Profit after Tax

Net Profit After Tax represents the actual profit the institution has made after deducting all expenses, including taxes.

The Statement of Cash Flows

A statement of Cash Flows record all the cash that comes into a company and all the cash that goes our. It tells you how much cash the institution actually generated and how much it has used up over the accounting period. Besides looking at the profit and loss statement, its very important to analyze an institution s cash flow as it will give you a true picture of the institutions profitability & stability. The difference between the profit and loss statement and the statement of cash flows is the result of accrual accounting. In order words, sales and profits are recorded when the sale is made, even though cash has not been received. At the same time, income taxes & depreciation are recorded as an expense, although there is no need to physically pay out the cash immediately. An institution can show a good earnings report on its income statement, but the cash flow tells exactly how much cash was received. Even if the institution makes healthy profits, it may still be a lousy institution because its customers do not pay up. Or the institution must use up a lot of its cash for the maintenance of plant & equipment. Without adequate cash flow, the institution cannot meet its monthly payments and could be forced into bankruptcy.

42

How to Attract More Students to Enroll?

With the strategy that I had just proposed, you are not only getting an extra income, but directly you can inspire more students. To implement that, the first thing you must do is to modify your programme offered. Suppose that you have four years programme for each discipline, design the third year in your programme as a need or compulsory to go for industrial training. This is the only way you can use your students as manpower in your factory that you established to train them. Train them according to what they study and prolong their study period if possible. Modify their certificate with added value. See the diagram below and look at the red sentence:

With this kind of certificate, I am sure that many industrial people will love it very much because it shows that this student has a working experience. Therefore, the future of students will be bright.

We think about the students future, we actually help ourselves

43

Using the Questionnaire to study your institutions weakness

This is another strategy to compete with your competitors. You have to design your own questionnaire and ready to be distributed to the public or high school to find out what they want. Collect back all the questionnaires and use SPSS or Microsoft Excel to plot the graphs. Analyze the data. Understand your weakness. And finally take an immediate action to improve your weakness. I have a ready make of questionnaire in three languages: English, Malay and Chinese to survey the market demand on the education and the competitors strength. Feel free to email me: frequency50HZ@engineer.com

Become Your Competitors customer

This is a best way to understand your competitors. Often, many institutions have sent their staffs to go oversea for further study. This is a good chance for them to study and explore their competitors strength. To be friendly speaking, I was sent by my superior to continue my higher degree study in Bradford University, UK in the year 2002. At that time, I was not only concerned about my study, I also did some survey on how this university can enrolled so many students. I studied their marketing strategies, teaching methods, services, researches and even their location. I jot down and record everything. I took all the information about this university and brought them back to our institution. We took about one year to study this universitys enrolment strategy, quality of education & services, management and weakness. You see, you can do that also. The best way to know well about your competitors is to become their customer. Try to observe what they do not offer and you can propose a new offer to your institution. Doing this way, you can compete with your competitors.

44

A Unique, Sustainable, Competitive Advantage

In order to become one of the best in the educational line, you have to conduct business in a totally different way. When I talk about being different, I am not just talking about having a different brand name, having more snazzy education, lower price or slightly modified versions of the same service or programme offered. All these perceived differences that universities/colleges attempt to create are superficial and not powerful enough to keep the competition at bay. What you must create for your educational business is a unique and sustainable competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is a special way of doing business that sets you apart from the competition. However, for it to be effective, it has to be unique and sustainable. What this means is that it must be an advantage that cannot be easily duplicated by your competitors. Example of unique competitive advantage is building a factory to produce some products which already mentioned. The following points are the ideas to help you stay away from direct competition and represent untapped market: Target your educational programmes to those bad results students. Run some improvement coaching programme to coach them and create miracle! If your college or university can create miracle, such as turning students results from D to A and making those students to become a celebrity person, then your enrolment can boost up and your university/college name will be proud! Target your educational programmes to those operators who working in industries. Tell them why their salary is low? This is because of lack of education. So, convince them study your programme through part time. Make sure your part time programme is designed in such a way that it can suit to their time. Establish more coaching programme to help the high school students improve their learning and create miracle results. You must liaise with some of the high schools to do this business. If the students really create the miracle, they will TRUST your programme and hence continue their study in your university or college. To attract them enrolled to your university or college, give a discount of x% in the tuition fee.
45

Follow up again and again. I know many universities and colleges having a

alumni. But many of them did not fully make use of this alumni as a lucrative business. Many universities and colleges only call their alumni during a special event. Some of them never follow up. Dont assume that students walk out your university or college, you have lost the sale. Many students may be genuinely interested to continue study in your university or college but are not able to commit on the spot for a variety of reasons. Many marketing experts have found that by continuously following up with the graduate students after a few days, weeks, months or years, you can significantly boost your conversion rate (your sale). May be out of 100 students graduate in lower level education, 25 would sign up and continue their higher education in your university or college. So this give you 25% of conversion rate. To boost your conversion rate in follow up strategy, you have to: define a strong unique competitive advantage and communicate it to your students, provide a wide selection of programmes or services to meet every variety of needs, offer 6, 12 and 24 months interest free installment plans, give x% discount for continue study, accept different methods of payments like credit cards & NETS, come up with a list of reasons to study in your university or college, invest in professional and impressive brochures and collaterals, train your staff in programmes knowledge, customer service sales techniques, create impressive programme packaging, train staff to be warm, friendly with positive energy, print comparison chart against competitors and give lots of good free advice so they feel compelled to study. Create attention grabbing screen display. This technique is very useful for those marketing staffs who work in road shows. My advice is try to give 15 minutes show on how your programme how to help people achieve their dreams work and making more money. You may create a humor which making everybody laugh. Publish a book and make royalty. This is most of the universities or colleges did not do that. You did not know how important it is. I can tell you, when you
46

write your book about good things of your university or college you actually making income from royalty and the income from advertisement (indirectly). Of course, the very first time you write your book, the sale may not be so good. So, to boost up the sale, you have to conduct many seminars and give an interesting talk to provide benefits to your customers. You can see how Lilian Too (Feng Shui Master) does that. You can learn from her strategy. This is how you promote your institutions to your customers. Liaise with industries. This technique is to co-operate with industries to provide a training programme. You can find out what is the niche from industries. Find out what they want from the employees. Then you may create a programme or a course to train their employees. You may get the industries invest some machineries in your universities or college to run this training programme or to do some research. Increase the research activities. This is very important to broadcast your universitys name or colleges name around the world. I know many universities and colleges have encourage their academic staffs presenting papers in the conference and writing journals. These activities may seem to be normal and every institutions are doing that recently. But, one thing they have not done yet or seldom do it is marketing. Many universities and colleges sending their staffs overseas just presenting paper or present their research without doing any marketing jobs. I tell you, conference is a chance for you to promote your university or college. In other word, it is an indirect marketing. As you can see, all the above mentioned points are the key to set you apart from the direct competitions. Let me give you a few examples of successful companies who have created a unique, sustainable, competitive advantage. In the US, there is a huge market for home delivered pizzas. Many parents who come home from work dont have the time and energy to cook dinner for the family and the most convenient option is to order pizza. Sure enough, there are a large number of pizza outlets that compete for this lucrative pie, the strongest player being Pizza Hut.
47

However, one company came along, created a unique competitive advantage and as a result took the largest market share and established itself as the leader in home delivered pizzas. The company I am referring to is Dominoes. How did they do it? First, they asked themselves, what is the biggest frustration that customers face in ordering pizza? In conducting research, they found that the most customers had to wait too long for their pizza and, when it finally got delivered, they would be getting a soggy pie. Dominoes knew that if they could find a way to deliver their pizza fresh and fast and guarantee such a speedy delivery, they would have a truly unique competitive advantage. So, they spent time developing a system where they are able to receive the phone order, cook and deliver the pizza all within 30 minutes. This became their trade secret/specialized knowledge. By creating the selling proposition of Your Pizza delivered within 30 minutes or your money back, Dominoes enjoys huge profits in an industry that is extremely competitive. Another example is the Federal Express (FedEx). When Fred Smith (a Yale graduate) wrote a team paper about his idea of starting a postal company, his professor gave him a C grade and everyone thought he was crazy. The postal market was dominated by the US mail services run by the government and prices were very competitive, making profits very low. However, Fred Smith knew that he could build a billion dollar company and take away market share if he could build a unique competitive advantage around a key frustration that most people had in sending mail and packages. He found that the biggest complaint that people had was the lack of efficiency. If you wanted to send a package via the US mail service, it would take at least 3 days within the USA and at least 4-5 days outside the USA. And delivery was not even guaranteed. There was no way you could send a package on a particular day and expect it to arrive at its destination the next day. So, he developed a system for receiving, sorting and delivering packages in the most efficient way and made the selling proposition that FedEx would guarantee delivery of packages by the next day. By having this competitive advantage, Federal Express became the market leader in the industry. Whats more, instead of beating the incumbent service provider by offering lower prices, speedy and trusty FedEx
48

was actually able to charge higher prices and still beat the lumbering US mail service. The final example that I want to give is the LensCrafters. In the 1980s, a group of friends noticed a frustration in the eyeglass industry. Typically, if you wanted to buy a new pair of glasses, you would have to go into an optical shop, select your frames, have your eyes tested and wait for several days for them to be ready for collection. The frustration was that people had to not only wait a whole week without proper glasses but they would have to suffer the inconvenience of returning to the shop. So, Dean Butler, a former P&G marketing executive, together with his ex-colleagues decided to start a shop (which they aptly named LensCrafters) that would find a way to reduce the whole process to less than an hour! They achieved this by building a lab at the shop itself and systemizing the lens cutting and fitting process, so they would not need professional opticians to do the job. By making the promise of your glasses made and fitted within an hour, they created a powerful competitive advantage that made them stand out from the competition. Even though their prices were higher, most people were willing to pay since they could now enjoy the convenience of getting a new pair of glasses fitted with their lunchtime! Within 5 years, they sold their entire business for $394 million.

49

Chapter 5: Distance Learning (DL)

guess many of us know what is Distance Learning all about. Distance learning is the learning of the courses at far distance through Internet without face to face

meeting with each other. What I can suggest to many institutions is that this DL actually can create a semi-passive income to them. What is semi-passive income? A semi-passive income is the income that will keep coming, whether you get out of bed in the morning or not and you just do a little bit of work. This is different from active income at which we are all doing now. In the active income, you are trading your time for money, no job, no money. In this chapter, I will show you the technique to create an online learning system without chatting with students, face to face meeting with students or even marking the exam and assignment papers. Hence creating something quite similar to passive income and I should call it semi-passive income. So, once you finish creating this online learning system, you can launch it into the internet to get more students register. The learning system that you created can run the courses from Diploma level up to Degree level. You only need to create one time, and launch it! Once the students get attracted by your DL, they will pay the fee for registration. When you receive your payment, you can auto generate the password to allow the registered students download all the learning materials. Follow the learning schedule that you designed to them to give a test or quiz if you wish. All the assignments, tests and exam questions can be downloaded from Internet too. But, dont let the students download the assignments, tests and final exam questions at the beginning of the lesson. They have to undergo their lesson first before come to the final. At the end of the course, if they pass, they are eligible to receive a certificate. Therefore, you must make sure that all their home address and contact number given are right because you have to post them a copy of certificate after completing the course.
50

Most of the distance learnings students are working adults.

Design & Build Your Website For Distance Learning
Like a traditional business that needs an office address, you must register an Internet address, called a domain name, for your business. The domain name (or URL) you choose is really important because it will affect your ranking on the search engines and the ease at which browsing students can find you. Some important points to consider are Your domain name should be easy to spell and remember. If you have a name like www.zephidorm.com, you bet lots of people are going to forget and key in the wrong name like Zefidom or Zephidome and you will lose valuable traffic. Also avoid addresses with creative names that involve number like www.Okay2U.com. Again when people hear your name from friends, they will not be sure if they should key in O.K. or Okay or whether its a two or a numeric 2. It is best if your domain name contains the main keywords that your potential students use to search for you. Since many institutions have their own name, then they can put all the different keywords as sub-domains which their programmer can create for them for free. Just as a store needs to be housed in a building owned by a landlord, a website needs to be hosted on a server that is run by a web host. Web hosts are companies that offer a service where their server stores your web sites HTML files and graphics. Their server allows your web site to be accessed and viewed over the Internet. Web hosts charge a monthly fee anywhere from US$4 a month to US$35 a month, depending on the package you get. Not bad, if you compare this to a traditional business where you have to pay a couple of thousand dollar in rent, a month.
51

Just ensure that the web host you engage is a professionally run company with fast & secure servers, strong customer support and at the same time offer you sufficient memory space so people can view your website and download file easily. Check this www.namesecure.com and www.godaddy.com to offer you web hosting packages. To build your website, the most important thing to bear in mind is the design. So many people make the mistake of spending time and money to do a snazzy, flashy website that dazzles and entertains but doesnt get the viewer (students) to click on the register or apply online button! So what are the elements that get a surfer to have the confidence and interest to register on your course or programme? Many people think that impressive graphics, a beautiful designed layout and flash presentations are a must for a good website. Unless you are a design or creative company, all the above elements serve no purpose! In fact, they tend to distract the surfer and reduce sales! If you study the most profitable websites in the world, they are very simple created with no fancy designs. Check this website: http://www.intimal.edu.my .

About Us Page
You wouldnt study or register to the college/university from someone who you do not know about right? In this page, it is important to give the background of your institution. When you give specific details and include pictures of your institution, office, a successful students and hostels, it will all add to your credibility and visitors will trust you enough to register from you. See the example of About Us page below:

52

Contact Us Page
Again, this is an important page to establish trust and credibility. You want to show your students that they can contact you easily should they have any questions or problems with their purchase. Always provide contact information like a phone number and a registered office address.

A Strong Headline
Like an advertisement, the first thing your students should see is a strong headline that attracts their attention and presents the most important benefit (or solution) your website offers. Like a shop needs a good salesperson to show customers around and convince them to buy, your website should have powerful educational programmes that draws visitors into the site, explains the benefits of your programmes offered and direct them to take action!

Powerful Pictures & Graphics

Pictures grab attention and are worth a thousand words. Pictures add colour, excitement and life to your website. You should have lots of attractive pictures of your institution, spokesperson, models if necessary and satisfied customers.
53

A clear Navigation Bar

All websites need a navigation bar that allows people to navigate through your site and enter the various pages that you have. It should include links to About Us, Contact Us, FAQs, Terms and Conditions, Registration Page and of course a link back to your Home Page.

Registration Page
Unquestionably the most important element is a registration page where students can fill up their payment details and your website can process the registration. So how do you accept money over the Internet from students all over the world? While there are numerous ways, accepting payment by credit cards and PayPal is more than sufficient. As an e-retailer, you must accept all major credit cards or prepare to lose over 85% of your potential business. Giving your student the option to pay by credit cards gives them a fast and hassle free way of making their registration. Internet surfers by nature are impatient and if you require them to write a check, fill out details and put it all in an envelope and mail it to you and wait a few days for their registration to be processed, they will most likely abandon the idea and register from your competitor. Not only do credit cards allow you to capture the majority of students who register on impulsive, but it also adds a lot of credibility to your business. By accepting credit cards, it gives the impressive that you are a reputable business.

Today, there are hundreds of online payment solution providers who will be able to give you full turnkey package that will allow you to accept and process credit card payments in a short period of time. For package price, they will provide you with a merchant account, a secure server, a payment gateway and a registration cart.

54

A merchant account is an account that will allow you to accept and process all major credit cards online. A secure server is a computer server that will encrypt and protect your students confidential information from hackers while it is being sent for processing. A payment gateway is a software that will integrate your website to your merchant account. Using the secure server, it will allow the secure transfer of credit card funds from your student to your merchant account. Finally, a registration cart is a software that allows your student to add or delete programmes that they intend to register while they browse your website. It also calculate the total tuition fees and passes all this information to your merchant account when the student confirm his/her registration. Usually the student will register only one programme to be study. In this scenario, registration cart would not be necessary. All you would need would be an registration page where the student would have to fill up all his/her confidential information and click the register now button. All this would usually be provided by the payment solution provider you choose.

55

DL Development
Distance learning system like other enterprises needs to start with their revenue budget for the year. In commercial systems income derives from student enrolment fees and/or materials sales. In publicity funded systems the resources come from government or from a mix of government, student fees and materials sales. In some cases government money is generated largely from student numbers, with the government in effect providing a per capita grant for each student enrolled. Because the cost structure of distance learning is very different from that of traditional education, not least because of the very considerable investment that needs to take place to develop the materials before a single student can be enrolled. This is a crude approach to funding distance education. Some funding regimes therefore separate the funding of course development, course presentation, student support and overheads. Such an approach has the advantage that it explicitly recognizes the fact that distance education involves high fixed costs (the costs of developing materials and administering a system of a certain size), and low variable costs (the costs of reproducing the materials, and of supporting and assessing students), while enabling the funding agency to control not just the size of the student body, but also the size of curriculum and the rate at which it is replaced. In this approach the course load was in effect a function of three variables: the total number of courses presented in any one year, the average life of each course, and the total number of courses to be developed each year. A funding formula could thus be derived: E = f + iD + pC + vS E = total expenditure f = fixed costs of the institution (ie administration) i = the direct course-related cost per course of developing a course D = number of courses developed in any one year (eg costs of staff to develop the course, costs of copyright clearances for third-party materials used in the course) p = the direct course-related cost per course of presenting a course in any one year (eg cost of broadcast transmissions, fixed costs of printing materials for that year)
56

------------------------------------------------------- (25)

C = the number of courses of a standard time presented each year v = the variable cost per student (eg costs of tuition, assessment, postage of materials to the student etc) S = the number of students (attracting a standard support and assessment package) and where the number of courses in development (D) is equal to the total number of courses presented I divided by the average life of the course (ie number of year a course would be presented before it is withdrawn or remade) (L), such that:
D= C L

---------------------------------------------------------------(26)

The overall budget structure in a distance learning organization can be summarized as shown below:

57

Keeping Cost Down

To keep the cost down, you have to design a system that can: Auto sending, receiving and marking the assignments, test and final exam paper electronically (Use the multiple choice questions will be more benefit) Auto updating the questions every year or every semester electronically Doing this way it can reducing your printing cost. For the project, you may ask the student post it to your institution. Ask the students come and present his/her project at the end of study. You can see the example of few universities/colleges to see how they running their distance learning courses. Some examples are: UK open University, Maryland University College, SUNY Empire State College, Fern University and the University Oberta De Cataluntya (Spain). All these institutions as mentioned above currently emerging as part of the digital transformation of our world. They make it possible to work in digital learning environment that profits from a combination and integration of several advanced information and communication technologies, the most important ones being computer technology, multi-media technology, network technology and telecommunication technologies. Student may work offline or online; use CD-ROMs with distance learning courses in hypertext form, data-file courses or just databases; and may take part in virtual seminars, workshops, tutorial and counseling meetings, tuition or project groups, and chat with their fellow students. The greatest pedagogical advantage, however, is that the students are challenged to develop new forms of learning by searching for, finding, acquiring, evaluating, judging, changing, storing, managing and retrieving information when needed. They have the chance to learn by discovery and to be introduced to learning by doing research and becoming autonomous and self-regulated learners.

58

Chapter 6: New Educational Package

LL right! So far so good.. Take a deep breath and get ready to engage into
this chapter. In this chapter, I will show you another strategy to get more

students enrolled into your institution. Before that, let me ask you a question, Have you been going to shopping mall and what you can see around the shopping mall? Well, you may see a lot of people walking around the shopping mall, buying their needs, talking to each other and so on. All these people going to shopping must have their purposes. If there is a big sale, you see that even more people will going until the whole parking is full. Just a big sale which can attract the customers! Similarly, if you offering an attractive tuition fee with high quality of education and services, you might going to attract more students! How to attract the students through the tuition fee? The first thing you have to do is make your institutions reputation and ranking as high as possible first. Then through the correct strategy, students all around the world will be get attracted. Here is some guideline for you to make an attractive tuition fee for those new students just graduated from high school: Make a discount of x% of tuition fee for those who score 4 A and above Make a discount of x% of tuition fee for those who score all A in their academic performance in your institution This is might be going to be challenging isnt it? When the students see the advertisement that you put on, they will get attracted. There are several advantages when giving such a discount in the tuition fee: You enroll the top and brilliant students into your institution. This might be good to your institutions reputation in future. When the students perform well in your institution, their names or photo might appear in the press. Hence, your institutions reputation will get improved. You encourage students study hard. You motivate the students

59

Below is an example of advertisement that you can show during the road shows:

You may design this into your brochures, flyers, letterheads, posters, website and so on. If you want to look for pictures and graphics to illustrate your design, you can find a wide range of images and graphics at website: www.photos.com www.freegraphics.com www.coolarchive.com www.gotlogos.com

At the same time, you would also need to get software (like Adobe Photoshop) that allows you to design your advertisement. Here are some more website to guide you in your design: www.carsecretsrevealed.com www.cuddlebugbaby.com www.buywithnocredit.com www.smartcover.com
60

Y
bottle

Chapter 7: Graduation Factor

ou have been learned the amplification factor in your physics or your
science study in high school. What is the amplification factor? Take the

electronic transistor as an example: we define the amplification factor is the process of linearly increasing the amplitude of an electrical signal and is one of the major properties of a transistor. Similarly, we can also double the number of the students when the enrolment is weak. In this chapter, I am going to share with you in a shock that even your enrolment is poor, you still can double your institutions income! Before I introduce this secret strategy, let me give you one experiment, you do it now and give me the answer after your finish your experiment. The experiment is: Observing the number of stones left in a Observing the number of stones left in a bottle Material requires: 300 different sizes of stones, one big size bottle of mineral water (empty) as shown on the right and one knife. Procedures: 1.) Use the knife chops the bottom of the bottle. This is shown below:

2.) Remove the cover of the bottle. This is shown below:

61

3.) Turn the bottle up side down as shown below:

4.) Now, put your 100 different sizes of stones into the bottle from the top (try to avoid using the big size of the stones). 5.) Shake one time and observe how many stones remain in the bottle.. 6.) Next, adding another 80 stones into the bottle, and shake one time again. Observe the number stones remain in the bottle. 7.) Repeat by adding another 60 stones, 40 stones and 20 stones into the bottle, shake it one time and observe the number of stones remain in the bottle. Here is the table to help you: Number of stones added 100 (initially) 80 60 40 20 Number of stones in the bottle

So, what you getting? Is there any increase or decrease of the stones inside the bottle? You have to do this experiment at least three times. After the experiment, you will aware that the number of stones in the bottle is actually increased! The increase of stones is because of the Power Of Accumulation (POA) even the input is getting less and less! The POA that you observed is mainly because of the different diameters of the bottle. Because of the smaller diameter, it actually can control the number of stones drop from the bottle. So, what you learn from this experiment?

62

Using the POA to double the number of students while the Enrolment is poor
To apply the POA, your institutions have to gingerly control the number of students enrolled and the number of student graduate. As we know, the graduation will cause the loss of students. Graduation will make the total number of students less. If an institution did not improve the enrolment, it might get axed! Therefore we have to circumvent them. Before I show you the technique to control the graduation, lets look at the experiment you did using the mineral waters bottle and we make some similarities of the comparison like this: The length and size of the bottle = The study period The number of stones = The number of students The different sizes of the stones = The different capabilities of the students The ratio of smallest diameter of the bottle to the largest diameter of the bottle programme) If you know how to implement and apply the graduation factor, then you will know how to accumulate the number of students in your institution. I will teach you how to design an effective academic programme in such a way that it can accumulate the number of students in your department. = Graduation factor (the ratio of the final semester to the number of the semesters in a

Graduation Factor
Use Graduation Factor (GF) to control the number of students graduate in an institution is a savvy way to manage the income and profit. Since the students have to undergo the first semester and the final semester to complete their study. In a nutshell, there is always an input (entrance) and output (exit) for the overall study. If you take the number of final years semester divided by the total semesters that the students undergo will give a factor which is called Graduation Factor. I define in this way based on the experiment you did from the mineral waters bottle.
63

Therefore, the definition of Graduation Factor is:

GF =

Final Semester Total Semester

------------------------------- (27)

Usually the number of final semester that students have to study is =1. To simplify the equation (27), we have:

GF =
S and S 0

1 S
k

------------------------------- (28)

where S is the total number of semesters that students have to undergo. Mathematically, The loss of students due to graduation = GF where N = number of students

N
i =1

The remaining students available in the institution is =

=

N
i =1
k i =1

GF

N
i =1

N (1 GF)
i

The Income of an institution = ($$$

= $$$

i =1
k

N i ) ($$$ GF

N )
i i =1

N (1 GF)
i i =1

------------------------------- (29)

To maximize the profit, we can let GF = 0. So the profit earned and equation (29) becomes:

Pr ofit = $$$

N
i =1

------------------------------ (30)

But wait! GF = 0 is not possible to be happened in reality! If it is happen, that means there will be no students graduate from the institutions.

64

Since GF cannot make to zero, but we can minimize the GF to control the number of students graduate. Here is the overview of the picture to see how GF is in action to control the number of students graduate so that the POA is achieved:

To sustain the number of students available in an institution, it is suggest that Input >>> Output and GF must be at the reasonable value. Let me give you one example how to use GF to control the number of students graduate (Note that students dropping the programme will not be counted because it is a minor case): Suppose that xxx college wants to apply the POA technique to massively improve the number of students under poor enrolment condition. The college is running English Improvement programme which having total of 3 semesters to complete the programme of course. What is the Graduation Factor for this programme? What happen if the college extend the period of study to 6 semester. Compare this with the 3 semesters study and what is the total number of students available in the college if the first enrolment in semester 1 has 200 students, second enrolment in semester 2 has 150 students, semester 3 has 100, semester 4 has 50, semester 5 has 25 and semester 6 has 10 students (every beginning of the new semester must have an enrolment exercise to get new students). Solution: For 3 semesters study plan, GF = 1/3 = 0.333 Using equation 29, the total number of student remains in the college is: N = 200(1-0.333) + 150(1-0.333) + 100(1-0.333) = 300 students Total number of students enrolled in this 3 semesters are = 200+150+100 = 450 students As you can see, even the number of student is drop for every semester, we still have 300 students available, which making us only 150 students loss (graduated).
65

For 6 semesters study plan, GF = 1/6 = 0.167 Using equation 29, the total number of student remains in the college is: N = 200(1-0.167) + 150(1-0.167) + 100(1-0.167) + 50(1-0.167) + 25(1-0.167) + 10(1-0.167) = 446 students Total number of students enrolled in this 6 semesters study plan are = 200+150+100 + 50+25+10 = 535 students As you can see, even the number of student is drop for every semester, we still have 446 students available in the xxx college, which making us only 89 students loss (graduated)! *Note that, you must make exactly the number of students graduated according to your calculation. Only when you do this, then the POA will work and hence bring you a maximum profit. In the example given above, 89 students must graduated from the English Improvement Programme whereas 446 students will be repeat their study or continue study other programme offered by your institution. * What is the conclusion you can make from this example? Well, as the number of students dropped in every semester, then the number of students available in the institution is increased! Hence, the POA is achieved. Now you may ask, How to implement that into a reality? Well, it is simple. The following steps will guide you on how to implement the POA technique using GF.

Step 1# Determine the period or the number of semesters to be study

As the example given, you should know that the longer the period of students study, the more profit we will earn. Before you launch or suggest to run any kinds of programme like Engineering, business, law, finance and so on, you must know how long or how many semesters that the students should study.

66

It is encourage that you must prolong the study period to achieve the POA. Usually this can be done by introducing the internship programme (industrial training) which is many institutions are now doing it recently. You can design your programme which run for one year (about 3 semesters) or even 2 to 4 years. The number of year to completely study your programme is not a matter. What is important is that you have to increase the number of semester and each semester must have an enrolment exercise to get the new students. Here are some guidelines to help you to determine the number of semesters for each programme running in your institution: Types of programmes Diploma Degree Master Degree PhD Year of study 2 4 2 3 No. of semester 6 12 6 9

Step 2# Identify the number of the students to be graduated

To achieve the POA, this step is the tedious work for those admin staffs. What you need to do is you have to record the students academic performance at the first semester to estimate how many of them will be graduated at the end of the course or programme. Here is an example: Suppose that you are running computer course for 3 semesters. Assume that at the first semester, you enroll 100 news students. So before knowing their academic performance you will need to allocate 1/3 100 about 33 students to be graduated at the end of the course and 67 will be failed to graduate. This can be done by setting a very difficult examination questions. Let the 67 students repeat the course. In the second semester, if there are 80 new students enrolled in your course, then you need to assign 1/3 80 which is about 27 number of students to be graduated. In the third semester or final semester, if your enrolment is still poor and giving you about 70 number of new students, then you will have to assign 1/3 70 = 23 number of students to be graduated.
67

Therefore, the total number of students will be graduated is = 33+27+23 = 83. The remaining of the students who repeat your course is = 67+53+47 = 167. To compute the

total amount of tuition fee you earned, and assume that the course is $2000. So you earn $2000 167 = $334000 for the three semesters enrolment! You lose$2000 83 = $166000. The total earning before the students graduate is = (100 + 80 + 70) $2000 = $500000. As you can see, this will give you about 66.8% of the earning even though the enrolment is bad or the number of new students enrolled drop to 30% of its first enrolment. I know that some you might question me like this, Hey, Lai why we need to fail the students in order to achieve the POA? Is there any other method where we dont need to fail the students in order to achieve POA? Certainly Yes! There is another alternative way where you dont need to fail your students in order to achieve the POA. See the next step!

Step 3# Sub-Programme Study

In step 2#, you have asked me on how to implement the POA using graduation factor without failing much students. Well, there is a method where you can massively double the student number in your institution while you are implementing the POA technique. This method is called Sub-programme study technique. Before I show you the sub-programme study technique, let me give you one great example. Have you ever gone into a KFC wanting to buy a set of meal? Do they just sell you on what you want? No! The staff there will ask if you want to have an extra chicken, drink, ice-cream and so on. Finally, they will ask if you would like to have a dessert added in your meal. So you go in wanting to spend $10, but end up spending $20! They are great at getting their customers to increase their average purchase by five times (see the MacDonald example that I had gave you in chapter 2).

68

So, the same things that can be happen in your institution where you introducing intermediate courses for your students to study while they are taking the main course. This intermediate course is known as sub-programme study.

The sub-programme is a small course that is designed to encourage students to gain extra learning, knowledge and skill. Some of the small courses that can be implemented into the main course are: Basic Microsoft Word learning (teach the student how to used Microsoft Word to write their thesis), Basic Microsoft Excel learning, English learning, and so on. For engineering, you can introduce some technical skills into your main programme studied. Example of sub-programme implementation can be seen below: Electrical & Electronic Engineering Diploma programme Subjects Semester 1 Pure mathematic Basic Electronic General Computer knowledge English study Semester 2 Mathematic II Electronic devices & Principle Measurement & Transmission Computer networking Semester 3 Industrial Training Semester 4 Telecommunication Fundamental Electromagnetism Power system Project Microsoft Word Optional subjects

Soldering Skill Repairing course

69

As shown in the example, Microsoft Word, Soldering Skill and Repairing Course are the example of sub-programme that you might ask your students to study. The tuition fee for this sub-programme should be more attractive and reasonable; of course the tuition fee

must be less than the main programme studied. You as a marketing staff or head of programme should convince your students taking all these courses. Of course, at the advertisement, you should not let your students know this sub-programme! You only allow them to know when the time they already enroll or they already pay the tuition fee for the entire programme. Sub-programme can acts like a hidden study to them. To inspire more students taking the sub-programme, there are four important points you must considered: Tell the students about the advantages of taking sub-programme in their career Release an attractive certificate after taking the sub-programme There should be no exam conducted in this sub-programme Make the sub-programme study in such a way that it will not crash with their main study Therefore, the more the sub-programme you implemented, the more the income your institution can earn. Hence POA is achieved without failing the students! Up to this stage, what do think about this idea? Isnt it similar to the example of MacDonald that I had mentioned? Well, student after taking the sub-programme will not end up with what they just pay for their main tuition fee. They will end up paying more! Think about it. As a conclusion for this chapter, I can say that:

Think! How can you massively increase your total worth by focusing on the activity that creates the most value to your institution...
70

Chapter 8: Develop a Parent Counseling Programme

his is another powerful strategy which I aware many institutions did not take
part on it. Currently many institutions only give counseling to the students. They never bother the parents! I tell you, if you have such mindset, your institution will not outlast for another 10 years! Let me ask you question, Who is the one paying the students tuition fee? Who is the major finance determination? Who has a continuous income in the family to support their childrens education? of course is PARENTS. I know someone 75ight say, Hey Lai, you are wrong, how about some of the students support by themselves? Well, if you did the survey in your institution, majority of the students do not have affords to pay their tuition fee. Many of them rely on their parents. In our institution, about 90% of the students paying the tuition fee which is given by their parents. 5% of the students using their own saving and another 5% of them are taking loan from somewhere else. As you can see, parents are the major factor to make the financial decision. So, YOU as a marketing staff or head of the institution must take this opportunity to target the patents. Only through the rapport between institution and parents, your education business will be credibility and more and more students will enroll if you give a better service or council to parents. In this chapter, I will be going to show the technique that you can make a strong rapport between you and your students parent. Why we need a strong rapport? Because when you concern your students family, they will feel safe to study. Apart from this, because of your passion, they might going to introduce other people come and study in your institution. Isnt it sound better? Before I show you my technique on how to council the parents, lets us undergoes the real definition of counseling.

71

What is Counseling?

The term counseling is used in a number of ways. In one dimension, it is related to the people who counsel. Other considerations for defining counseling include viewing it as a relationship, a repertoire of interventions, and a psychological process.

Counseling as a Relationship
This is what I am going to emphasize throughout the whole chapter. Virtually all counselors agree that a good counseling relationship is necessary to be effective with customers. Some counselors regard the counseling relationship as not only necessary, but sufficient for constructive changes to occur in customers. One way to define counseling involves stipulating central qualities of good counseling relationships. Suffice it for now to say that these counselor offered qualities, sometimes called the core conditions, are empathic understanding, respect and acceptance for customers current states of being, and congruence or genuineness. Terms like active listening and rewarding listening are other ways of expressing the central skills of the basic counseling or helping relationship. Those viewing counseling predominantly as a helping relationship tend to be adherents of the theory and practice of person centered counseling.

Counseling as a Repertoire of Interventions

Most counselors would regard the counseling relationship as neither sufficient in itself nor sufficiently expeditious in its outcome for constructive customer changes to occur. Consequently, they set store by a set of interventions in addition to the counseling relationship. Alternative terms for interventions are counseling methods or helping strategies. Counselors who deploy a repertoire of interventions need to consider carefully which interventions to use, with which customers and with what probability of success. Counselors repertoires of interventions reflect their theoretical orientations: for instance, psychoanalytic counselors use psychoanalytic interventions, rational emotive behavior

72

interventions and Gestalt counselors use Gestalt interventions. Some counselors are eclectic and use interventions derived from a variety of theoretical positions.

Counseling as a Psychological Process

In many studies, the word counseling is used as a shorthand version of the term psychological counseling. Whether viewed either as a relationship characterized by the core conditions or as a repertoire of interventions derived from different theoretical positions, counseling is a psychological process. There are various reasons for the fundamental association between psychology and counseling. The goals of counseling have a mind component in them. In varying degrees, all counseling approaches focus on altering how people feel, think and act so that they may live their lives more effectively. So the process of counseling is psychological. Counseling is not static, but involves movement between and within the minds of both counselors and customers. In addition, much of the process of counseling takes place within customers minds between sessions and when customers help themselves after counseling ends.

Credibility
Before your departments establish the counseling centre to council the parents. You have to follow the laws of credibility. This credibility is very important to keep a strong rapport between your institution and your customers (parents). Credibility basically refers to walking the talk, being honest, having a high level of integrity and delivering on your promise. With higher credibility, you will develop a much better way to branch out into other places and spaces. Hence more students will enroll. I can tell you that with all the corporate problems facing directors who get charged in court for fraud and deceit, it will take them a long time not just get out of jail, but also to regain any fragment of reputation back. Herein I will give you seven laws of credibility so that you can leverage your credibility to help the parents while scoring a few points for yourself. The seven laws of credibility are:
73

LAW 1# Social Power Social power refers basically to your ability to interact effectively with people and to bring the best out of them. If you are able to interact, socialize, negotiate and communicate, you are pretty much basing your credibility on social power. When overdone, it may appear like sucking up to someone. So watch the balance! LAW 2# Expert Power Expert power is the kind of power that you will in professors who have a combination of legitimate and information power. They are experts in the field for an extensive area of knowledge. So you tend to respect them. Most of the lecturers in the institutions can establish themselves as expert according to the subject they teach. So the lecturers can provide lots of information to the parents. Watch out, dont let your lecturers appear to be arrogant when they share their knowledge to the parents. LAW 3# Information Power Information power is the kind of thing that lets an individual be a gatekeeper of some piece of information that is scarce. It doesnt make you expert, but it merely makes you valuable by virtue of the fact that no one else knows that secret. I highly recommend that you must your lecturers to council the parents. This is because your lecturer holding much more information than you! Lecturers also always keep upgrading their information sources and their power will grow into expert power eventually. LAW 4# Charisma Power Didnt think you could be charismatic? Charisma seems to be left for the guys who wield power. But wait a minute power comes from charisma. If you knew the strategies to influence and generate that charisma through that influence, you could be able to be more powerful. Charisma, however, is sometimes going to be interpreted as arrogance if you dont play it well.

74

LAW 5# Referent Power When you refer to something, it associates with you. By hanging around a bunch of police officers after work for a drink, you are associated with them, and the reactions associated with that. If you hang around a group of beautiful models, you are associated with them too. So, the same thing happens when you talk about something. For instance, you talk about the fact that you went out with Bill Gates for lunch, that puts you in close proximity, and your reference creates power. Watch out when you refer to people who may be credible but are unknown. LAW 6# Legitimate Power When you are put in a formal position of authority, you have legitimate power. As a parents counseling chairman, you must have legitimate power. You must get the permission from your institution or government to run this counseling activity. Legitimate power is good sometimes because credibility is automatic, but ONLY that group of people who recognize that authority. So dont assume that just because you are a boss of 15000 people that others will automatically listen. LAW 7# Reward Power If I give you $1000, would you like me more? Most probably! Reward power has an issue in that you need to be FAIR. So as a counsellor, you can give out some free bonuses, win customers over then help to build a long term relationship with them. Do beware such power is only externally motivating and doesnt always help in a long term relationship. Its just a start!

With the seven laws in your mind as a counsellor, you can get a massive avalanche of future students enrol in your institutions.

75

Well, lets us continue to discuss on how to counsel the parents. There are two strategies which are shown below: Conducting a seminar Conducting a workshop

Conducting a Seminar
Any seminar you can conduct to the parents. But the topics proposed must be related to their careers and their current living style. You can give a talk on, Effective Parenting Techniques, Financial Planning, Motivating Your Child, How to become a good Father/Mother, How to success in your Life, How to invest, How to massively increase your income without quitting your Job and so on. The kind of seminars you conducted must be interesting. Only the interesting topics will attract more parents to turn up. Beware that you seminar should not run for 2 hours only! It must be in half day or whole day. Refreshment must be provided during the seminar. You may ask me, Why the seminar cannot conduct in 2 hours? The reason is some of the parents might stay in far distance from your institution. That is no point that you invite them come to your seminar, listen to your talk in two hours after that dismiss and go home. What kind of seminar is this? Wasting the time and petrol only So you have choose an appropriate time to conduct this seminar. A suitable time is on Saturday and Sunday. Since many institutions open on Saturday every week or once a month, so I suggest that you fully utilise this opportunity to run a seminar. WARNING: DO NOT CONDUCT SEMINAR EVERY SATURDAY. If you do that, this might going to be annoying people. What I suggest is once a month.

76

Conducting a Workshop

Those institutions having a laboratory will be better to conduct a workshop. The kind of workshop you conducted must be interested by parents. What you need to do in the workshop is you train the parents do some practical skill such as repairing the radio, TV, computer, water flow system in the house, wall and vehicle. These are things which they might undergo during the family day (Sunday). If you can help them solve their problems and exceed their expectation, then they will introduce their friends to study in your institution. A suitable time to conduct this workshop is similar to the seminar. Choose Saturday as a day to run this workshop. Some people suggest that seminar and workshop can be conducted together at the same time. Yes, I do agree with them because this can extend the time frame. How to conduct seminar and workshop at the same time? Well, it is pretty much easy. In the morning section, you conduct a lesson on some topics and in the afternoon section, you teach the parents to apply whatever they learn from the morning section into practical. For example, you propose a seminar and workshop with the title of How to repair your home radio? So, you teach the parents on the knowledge of radio wave propagation, how the radio wave is generated from the station and how the radio wave is detected by your radio. Things like that can be teaches in the seminar during morning section. During the afternoon section, you can bring the parents to the electronic laboratory and show them how to repair the radio if one part of the radio is damage.

Jobs assigned to the Lecturers to teach the Parents

Since your institution have so many lecturers in different fields. You can utilise these lecturers act like a counsellors or expert (credibility LAW #3 Information Power) to teach and train the parents. Here are the few examples of seminar/workshop title at which you can assign to your lecturers to do it:

77

Repairing the common electrical appliances Lecturer from E & E department

Repairing the water system in a house

Lecturer from Water Engineering department

The crack of the wall/purchasing of house Lecturer from Civil Engineering department Repairing the computer English, Chinese and Malay Language study Criminal issues Share or stock investment General health issues Financial problem Family problem Lecturer from Computer Science department Lecturer from Language department Lecturer from LAW department Lecturer from Business department Lecturer from Pharmacy department Lecturer from Business department Counsellors

Now you have see that with a proper planning of seminar/workshop running in your institution plus your passion and counseling, the parents will get more advantages and they will know what their children do in your institution as well.

The Cost of running the Seminar/Workshop

If you are the leader of the institution, you should give this seminar as free of charge to the parents. To reduce the cost, you can take your institutions infrastructures to run this seminar/workshop. The infrastructures here refer to the hall, classrooms, LCD projector and the laboratory. If the parents have an intention to come but no transportation, so you can arrange a bus to go and fetch them. Please note that, this is only applicable for near by residents.

78

Chapter 9: Conducting the seminars in high school

oing to give seminars in the high school is one of the best ways to let every
one knowing your institution, knowing your institutions course, research,

quality of education and the services. Hence indirectly inspiring the students and give you a best source of potential income. When you go the high school, you have to know how to set-up your seminar. All the respective departments must bring one representative to give a talk to the students. For example, Engineering department send one representative to talk on the research and current development of the technology, Business department send one representative to talk on the business strategy and current research, computer department send one representative to talk on the latest technology developed in the computer field and so on. In this chapter, I will going to show to you how to set-up the seminar and the contents of the seminar that your staff have to present.

Set-Up the Seminar

Before you set-up your seminar in a high school, try to target the rich school first. Then write a formal letter to the headmaster of the school to inform him that your team will come and give a seminar. To best place to give a seminar is in the auditorium. Make sure you have to bring your Laptop and LCD projector because some of the high school may not provide such equipments.

The Seminar Program

In your seminar program, make sure you have the following points: Welcome and Introduction on the important of education Overview and history of your institution Introduction on the success that your institution had achieved
79

Introductions on the research & technology by the respective departments

(Engineering, Business, Computer, Science & Mathematic, Law, Language and so on) Introduction on the programme offered. Introduction on the facilities that your institution has like: Library, Introduction on the services like: students services, accommodation, Introduction on the students activities like: LEO club, Electronic club, IET Distribute the free seminar handout Questions and Answer

Laboratories, Dining Hall and so on securities, scholarship and so on club, adventure club, religion club and so on

(If your presentation added with video camera, then it will make the whole seminar going to be interesting) Other thing you can do is: pass out your business cards and circulate the additional info sheet. You may ask those teacher enroll in your institution to get higher degree for better career. You may also conduct a simple game in the high school to keep a close relationship between the students and your institution. Give a small gift after the game section to encourage them to continue their study. Note that, if there are some students interested to study in your institution, you should bring along with your registration form as I already show you on chapter 1. Jot down their contact number and the address. Give a special discount or offer of the tuition fee if the student registered on that day.

80

Chapter 10: Introducing a wealth academic study

o you still remember how I define a good enrolment? A good enrolment to
inspire more students does not determined by the ranking, high quality of

education and high quality of services of an institution. A good enrolment means that you are enrolling more students compare to the competitors and yet giving a promise that students will guarantee earn back on what they paid during their study. Well, this is what the majority of the institutions did not take into consideration! The current institutions only know how to get the paid from students and release the students through graduation. Thats all They never care whether the students getting a good income in their career or success in future. They just know how to make profit. If you are a leader of an institution having such mindset, you will be facing bad enrolment in future. This is because you never do something exceeded the customers expectation! You did not know the customers pay so much money come to study in your institution is a kind of investment! You did not know that they want a good income in future after they graduate. The good income here refers to MONEY, MONEY and MONEY! Do you know that? In this chapter, I would like to share with you the important of wealth academic study and how this can be implemented into your institution to get more students enrolled.

Isnt better or to be proud that if all your students released from your institution are get rich after few years? Think about it and think about how this factor can affect your enrolment.

81

Wealth Academic Study

Basically this wealth academic study is to help the students to get rich after 5 years of their working or even less than 5 years without quitting their job. The success is depends on how fast they implement it. If I ask you a question, Would you like to study my engineering programme and I can guarantee that you will become a millionaires and success in your life after 5 years graduated from the engineering programme? Would you take action to study? Of course, you will and I will take action to study as well. Because this is a promise! You should enroll to study. This is something at which other competitors cannot promise. When I present this wealth academic study in general herein, YOU WILL FEEL THAT IT IS WORTH TO IMPLEMENT and you will blame yourself why you did not discover it earlier? Why you did not implement it into your institution? There are seven lessons for wealth academic study in general that I discovered which is suitable for an institution to teach its students. The first one is Adopt the positive mindset. The second one is Set clear financial goals. The third one is Create a financial plan. The fourth one is Massively increase the income. The fifth one is Manage the money & Reduce expenses. The sixth one is Grow the money and the last one is Protect your fortune.

Adopt The Positive Mindset

This section of wealth learning will train the students think very differently and take different actions to produce vast different results. As we know the rich have a different set of beliefs and habits that allow them to see opportunities where others see problem. The rich see learning experiences, where Mister Ordinary sees failure. The moment the students adopt the beliefs and habits of a rich, their perception of the world will change completely and they will realize that there are money making opportunities in their career. So this topic basically teaches the students think positively while they are working in the society.
82

Set Clear Financial Goals

This topic will teach the students to set their own financial goals before they become a professional employee. As we know wealth never happens by chance. It always begins with a clear goal in mind. At one point of time in richs life, rich always make a decision to become richer. However, wherever I ask most students what their financial goals are after graduate. I often get a blank stare. When I ask my students to write down their target income or how much they want to be worth, the standard answer I get is as much as I can get. This is a major reason why many students will never achieve any level of wealth after their study and they have no clue what it is. Unless the students have a specific figure to focus on, they will never be able to develop a strategy to achieve it. If a successful student is earning $2000 a month for his first job and set a target to earn $4000, it is not just about working two times harder. It is a completely different strategy. Similarly, if the student chooses to earn $6000, it is again a totally different strategy! Only when they are specific about how much wealth they want to create, then they will come up with a practical plan to execute it. No matter where they are now financially, any target is possible as long as they use the right strategy.

Create A Financial Plan

Once the students have set specific financial targets of how much they want to earn and how much money they want to accumulate, they can then develop an effective plan to achieve it. Goals by themselves are nothing but pipe dreams. Only when student create a plan, then they can make their goal a possibility. The moment they start taking action on their plan, their dream becomes a reality. For example, if their goal is to accumulate a $1 million portfolio by a certain date, then they must develop a plan as to how much they must save and invest each month, the rate of return they must get from investments and the estimated time it will take them. Things like that institution should teach in the class. But so sad that the institutions never teach students how to create the wealth from their study!

83

Most fresh graduate students never achieve their financial dreams simply because they have no financial plans and havent got a clue as to how to create one. Even they learn the financial planning from their institution, they just learn how to manage and plan the finance of the company but not individual financial planning. Because of this they just work hard and hope that everything will be okay one day.

Massively Increase The Income

You must teach the students how to increase their income by creating more values to the company after they work in the society. In the previous section, we have discussed about the development of the financial plan. After developing the financial plan for some times, most fresh graduate students tend to become initially disheartened after working few months. They look at their plan and realize that with the amount they are earning and saving in the future, it will decades before they see any big money.

84

It is therefore important that they have to learn how to accelerate and turbo charge their financial plan by taking steps to massively increasing their income. When I talk about increasing their income, I am not talking about a 5%, 10% or even 20% increase, I am talking about doubling, tripling or even increasing their income by five to ten times? Is this possible? Yes! And it is definitely achievable without quit their job or risking a lot of capital (their saving) in a venture. So, you as a institution leader, you must look into a suitable course or technique which can double the income. This is worth to be taught in your institution and I am sure many students will enroll. Example of courses that can make money is the option trading, investment and online business. You have to teach them make MONEY, not just introducing the whole courses and do nothing about it. I know many institutions have such courses, but the lecturers are lack of skill to teach their students to make money. They just teach the students how to score in their final exam. Thats it.

Manage The Money & Reduce Expenses

This section, I guess many institutions did not teach their students how to manage their money and reduce expenses after the students work in a society. Many people think that by increasing their income, their wealth will automatically increase. Unfortunately, increasing income is only one side of the wealth equation. After all, there are people who earn $2000 a month who are broke and there are those who earn $20000 who are still broke. The reason is because when we dont manage the money we earn, our expenses will always rise to our level of income, wiping out any surplus we have! Or worse, we start spending on credit lured by easy repayment schemes. The rich is not because of how much they earn, but rather how much they able to save and invest.

85

This is a good lesson that your institution should teach the students how to save their money and invest their money after getting their first salary. Many fresh graduate students I notice currently just spend as much as they can when they get the first job. They dont have a habit of saving and investing. When you talk the investment to them, they just say, I am getting the first salary, still under a low financial situation. I am not really for that investment. Well, if they dont look into a way to get extra income for long term, they might get trouble in future. Hence your institutions name and reputation will be spoiled. Why? Because they are getting poorer and poorer and many public will laugh on that.

Grow The Money At Millionaire Return

This section of wealth academic will teach students how to increase their income and reduces their expenses after graduate from the study. Institutions must teach their students do this because many students after graduate and getting the first salary no matter how hard they work and save, they will never be able to create phenomenal wealth unless they learn how to put their money to work for them. Through the power of compounding learned from the wealth academic, they will be able to take small sums of money and built it into huge returns over time. Majority of the rich attributes a huge part of their wealth to their investments because they know that just working for money will never make them rich. There is a strategy that will be taught in the wealth academic on how to invest with minimal risk. This must not be the same like they learn in normal investment.

Protect their Future

There are many people who have taken decades to build their fortune only to see it wiped out by an accident, unforeseen illness or through an unexpected lawsuit. Wealth academic study recommend that people have to engage such professionals who will help them use a variety of tools like insurances, trusts, offshore accounts to ensure no one or nothing can touch their wealth once they built it.
86

Implementation of Wealth Academic into the Programme studied

Here is an example shows you how to implement the Wealth Academic study into the programme studied. Electrical & Electronic Engineering Programmes

The design of the academic programme depends from one institution with the other one. The problems you may face or consider before introducing the wealth academic study are: The approval of this programme by ministry of education The quality of the lecturers The length of study The number of subjects Examination questions Course work marks How to measure the success of one students after study this wealth programme
87

Chapter 11: 8 habits to accelerate your income

his chapter will going to show you how to accelerate your income by changing your personal attitude and mindset.Well, it is the way we perceive the world. It is the way we frame, filter and make sense of the events and experiences in

our life. To double your income or to promote you as a senior, you have to change your mindset. Although two people may experience the exact same event, they will invariably perceive it and think about it very differently because of their different mindsets. Their different thoughts will result in different actions and different results. Let me give you an example, imagine if you had to take an important early morning flight to New York but due to unforeseen circumstances, the flight got cancelled and you are stranded at the airport with a hundred other passengers. There is no other flight out that day. What would you think about? How would you feel? What would you do? Would you (a) Just wait for news of the next flight out? (b) Lodge a complaint with the authorities? (c) Hang around with the other disgruntled passengers and complain? Well, it depends on your mindset. Most people would think of the situation as a problem they cant do anything about. They would feel frustrated and angry and take one of the three above actions. What would someone with a positive mindset? Well, this exact same situation happened to Richard Bronson in 1980 (founder and chairman of the Virgin Group).While vacationing on Beef Island (part of the Virgin Islands), Richard Branson and his wife were stranded when the local Puerto Rican flight got cancelled. There were no other flights out that day. Instead of seeing it as a problem, Bransons mindset got him to see it as a challenging opportunity. As a result, he took a very different set of actions. Branson got on the phone to a few aircraft charter companies and managed to charter a private plane for $2000. Knowing that there were many stranded passengers who needed to catch a flight out badly, he borrowed a blackboard and wrote Virgin Airway $39 Single Flight to Puerto Rico. Within an hour of walking through the airport terminal, with the blackboard in his hand, he had sold every single seat!
88

After successfully flying everyone back and making a cool profit, he mulled over what one happy passenger had casually said, Virgin Airway isnt too smarten up the service a little and you could be in business. Up till that moment, Branson, the builder of Virgin Records and a Hot Air Balloon adventurer, hadnt given any thought to getting into the airline industry! But Branson, ever the bold adventurer, lost little time in launching Virgin Airways, taking on the British Airways and the rest is aviation history. Today, Virgin Airways is a global budget airline and one of the most profitable in the world. The amazing thing about Branson was that he did not use any of his money to solve his problem. He used his mindset and thinking to turn a problem into an opportunity, which not only solved his problem, but made him even more money. So, if you are not creating tremendous wealth from your career, it is because you are not taking the right actions. In other words, if you want to massively change the results in your life, you have to take different actions. To take different actions, you have to differently. And of course to think differently, you must have a different mindset. Now lets go onto learning the 8 habits to accelerate your income. Follow them strictly, then you will be promoted and the money will flow into your hand.

Habit 1: Always Exceed Expectations

Before I explain what this first habit means, I want you to list down in the spaces below, at least five reasons why you want to work? Unless you know why you want to work, you will never have the passion to go for it. Take as much time as you need to list down the reasons: 1.______________________________________________________________________ 2.______________________________________________________________________ 3.______________________________________________________________________ 4.______________________________________________________________________ 5.______________________________________________________________________ 6.______________________________________________________________________ 7.______________________________________________________________________
89

Now, let me ask you a question, How many reasons did you write down? Did you write down less than five reasons, exactly five reasons or more than five reasons? Your actions are a direct reflection of your thoughts and actions in life! I have discovered that people fall into three categories. In the first category are those who have the habit of doing less than what is expected. Their patterns are reflected in the fact that they probably write down three or four reasons. When you ask them why, they usually come up with excuses like, I could not think of more or I had no time. Because of this pattern of thinking and action, these people do not add any kind of value to their company or department. In fact, they tend to reduce the value their company creates. These are people who, when asked to do ABCD, will end up doing just A and B, forgetting or screwing up C & D. Although they are paid say, $2000 in salary, they only give $1500 in value. As a result, they are liability, a burden to the institution. There are always a couple of these individuals in every organization. Have you encountered one before? Now, let me ask you question. Is this persons salary to be regarded as an investment or as an expense to their institution? Of course it is an expense! Will their institution give them a raise? Unlikely. By increasing this persons salary, the companys expenses will increase and profits will decrease. Since all institutions primary aim is to increase profits each year, these people will find themselves working for years without getting a raise. In fact, whenever profits drop for whatever reason, management will tend to layoff these people first, to save costs! Obviously, if you operate from this pattern you will never achieve success and wealth! DO MORE THAN EXPECTED Create Value

Indispensable Asset & High Return Investment to the institution Dispensable Asset & Low Return Investment to the institution
90

DO EXACTLY AS EXPECTED Sustain Value

DO LESS THAN EXPECTED Reduce Value

Liability & Expense

to the institution Then there are people who fall into the second category, those who have the habit of doing exactly as expected. This group will obediently write down five reasons as the instructions were write at least five reasons. The will just do the least. The majority of people in life think and act this way, and that is why they are not success and rich. Be honest with yourself and ask, are you currently displaying this pattern? Did you just write down five reasons? People who do exactly as they are expected sustain the value of their department or institution. They are responsible people who get the job done, nothing more and nothing less. They clock in at nine in the morning and knock off exactly at six in the evening. If they are given an enrolment target of 1000 students, they will hit that 1000 and consider their job done. Now, are they an investment or an expense to their institution? Well, they are what I call a low return investment. By paying them $2000 a month, they will create $2000 to $2600 worth of value, so the institution gets a 10% - 15% return on their investment. Will people who fall into this group get promoted and pay increase? Of course! Since they are responsible people who get the job done, they will be given more responsibilities as the company expands. As their job scope increases, so does their position and pay. However, this group will only be promoted up to a certain point. They will eventually hit a ceiling. This ceiling is normally that of a manager. Why? Because they can only take orders and get things done. They lack the attitude to do more! Although they are considered assets, people in this category are dispensable assets. In other words, they are easily replaceable. Because of this, many would get retrenched the moment they reach a certain age. When the institution finds that they can hire someone else at half their age and at half pay to do the same job, they will get displaced. As you know, many middle managers suffer this fate when they reach their mid forties. Again, if you choose to be in this second category, you will never have financial security and freedom.

91

Did you write down more than five reasons? If you did, then you belong to the minority of individuals in the third category, the value creators. Value creators end up as the

successful and wealthy of our society. It is not something you are born with it, it has got nothing to do with your academic qualifications but it is a habit of choice that anyone can adopt. Value creators have the habit of doing a lot more than expected. If they are paid $3000, they will work as if they are being paid $20000. If they are expected to generate $10000 worth of profits, they will create $30000 worth of value! They are called value creators because they create value for institutions. It is through their efforts, that the institution makes more and more profits every year. As a result, their income is not considered an expense to the institution, but a great investment. Even in periods of downturns, when everyone else is getting retrenched and pay cuts, they get pay increases, bonuses and stock options. The institution knows that for every dollar they invest in them, they will return triple the value. These people are the high flyers who get promoted super fast and get their incomes doubling and tripling in a few years. So, you as a marketing promoter, you have to create more values to your institution. If your institution wants you to get 5 students to be enrolled, you have to get more than 5 students enrolled! Then you are considered a value creator. In the past, income was based mainly on seniority and loyalty. The longer you stayed, the more you were valued. In todays world, income is based entirely on the amount of value you can create. It is not uncommon to see people who are much younger, with a lot less experience directing businesses and earning lots more than senior workers who have been with the institution a lot longer. Value creators are indispensable assets to their institution! They are very hard to replace. And that is why institution will pay them more and more and offer them partnerships to retain them. Value creators are never out of a good job. They are usually head hunted by other institutions all the time, the head hunters offering to double their income if they join them. So, the first unbreakable habit of wealth is to do a lot more than expected.

92

As an en entrepreneur today, you must do a lot more than expected in order to run a successful business and create wealth! In the past, economies were a lot less competitive. In the past, when a business performed below customers expectations, they would make

good profits. If a business exceed their customers expectations, they would become a market leader and would earn huge profits! Why do over 90% of business fail today? Its because markets have become so much more competitive. If you start a retail store, you are competing with hundreds of the others, both locally and internationally. Today, if you perform below customers expectations, customers will never come back and you will go bust! Today, if you meet customer expectations, you will still be struggling to survive! Why? This is because hundreds of other business can also meet your clients expectations and some of them do so at half your cost. You will find that you will be competing on price most of the time and will earn so little that it is hardly worth your while. I have seen so many business owners struggling to break even simply because what they offer is the same as every other business in their industry. In todays marketplace, if you exceed your clients expectations, you will only earn nominal profits because many businesses already do their best to add more value to their clients. So how do you make huge profits to your institution or to yourself? The answer is that you have to go way beyond your clients expectations. Try to implement the method that I had mentioned in Chapter 10. You have to give them an unbelievable experience where they will keep coming back to your business and tell all their friends about you. You must set your standards so high that they will never go to anyone else for that particular service. When you highly exceed your clients expectations, you can change a premium and make huge profits.

93

Habit 2: Be Proactive

I had mentioned already. People who are proactive can make things happen. So, in this section I will give one example of a person who is very proactive. His name is Chris the owner of an event management company. When the recession hit, the number of potential projects in the market dropped by 80%! Many event companies which just waited for projects to happen lost lots of money and eventually folded. Again, it is because owners and managers who were reactive led them. However, Chris had the proactive mindset. He packed his bags and went to countries around the region to find new projects. When he found that there were still not enough projects being offered by clients, he took the next step of creating his own events! if there are not enough clients who will hire me to manage their events, I will create my own events! He went on to create a series of highly successful education and computer exhibitions which account for over 70% of his companys revenues today! By having the proactive mindsets, you put yourself in the position of power and choice. You are in command and will take action that leads to wealth and success. However, when you act in a reactive pattern, you will find that your finances will never be within your control.

Habit 3: Take 100% Responsibility

Successful people take 100% responsibility for their career. They believe that they alone create their success through their strategies and actions. As a result, they know they have the power to change their success by changing their strategies and actions. It is only when you live by this habit will you have the power to exponentially multiply your income and wealth.

94

Habit 4: Delay Gratification

What keeps most people from becoming rich is the habit of wanting instant gratification. Instant gratification is the habit of always wanting to enjoy now and not having the patience to wait for future benefits. As a result, these people spend a lot more than they invest. By spending on that new car, new widescreen television set or designer watch they get instant gratification. When it comes to investing in books, seminars, stocks or insurance products, they will think twice as they have to wait for future benefits. It is precisely for this reason that whatever money comes into their hands will soon be frittered away and not multiplied. People who want instant gratification will always look for quick and easy ways of making money rather than building a sustainable business that adds value to (repeat) customers. They tend to cut corners on quality and deliver shoddy services to save money and boost short term profits. As a result, their profit rarely last and they will soon go out of business. At the same time, those who desire gratification lack the patience to allow their money to grow and compound through investing. When they dont see huge sums of money in a few weeks, they abandon their investments and never get to reap the benefits. They have no patience to wait for the seeds they sow to grow into huge money trees that bear fruit. You see, there are only two ways you can used your money. You can either spend it or invest it. When you spend $100, you get gratified from whatever you bought but that $100 is gone! You get zero returns. When you invest that $100 in a seminar, books or stock, it will grow into $120, $200, $500 or even $1000, depending on your rate of return. HABITS OF THE POOR
Instant Gratification Spend > Invest

HABITS OF THE RICH

Delay Gratification Invest > Spend

95

On the other hand, all rich adopt the habit of delayed gratification. They have the patience to wait for greater abundance in the future. Whether in business or in investment, you must have delayed gratification in order to create massive wealth. People with delayed gratification invest a lot more than they spend. Again, they know that by spending a dollar, they may feel good for an instant, but their future wealth will be destroyed. When it comes to spending money, they are extremely frugal. However when it comes to investing, they do not think twice about writing a check for a few thousands dollars. They know that through patience, the money will multiply into future fortune. The rich or successful people never take shortcuts in business. They look at always giving the best value to their customers, even if it means earning less at present. They know that by building their reputation, it will lead to huge profit streams in the future.

Habits 5: Do What You Love

The most common question that people ask me about getting rich and successful is what is the best career or business that will make me the most money? Should I go into education? Food? Insurance? Network marketing? Healthcare? Options trading? Property? Whats the best industry to be in right now? Well, you will find that in ANY industry, there will be a minority who will be making plenty of money, while the majority will be struggling to survive. The majority of business in education are struggling to survive. So my answer to that question is that you can become a successful person or rich man in ANY INDUSTRY, only if you are one of the best! If you are not one of the best, you will never successful or rich in ANY industry. You can become a successful person or rich in insurance, property, options trading, education, pest-control, retail, food or Internet marketing ONLY when you are one of the best. So, how do you become the best in the market? The answer is being totally, absolutely one hundred percent committed towards your particular career or business. People become the best at what they do only because they eat, sleep, talk and think their

96

business or service eighteen hours a day (sometimes, they even dream about it as they sleep). In other words, they are obsessed with doing what they do and are constantly finding ways to do it better. And the only way you can become totally obsessed and committed towards something is when you have a love and passion for it! All successful individuals have one thing in common. They love what they do. And because they have such an intense passion for their particular career or business, they do not distinguish work from play. Their work is their play and vice versa. As a result, they spend every single day and every waking hour working and that is why they become so good at it that they become market leaders and experts. DO WHAT I LOVE MAKE MONEY CONTINUE TO DO WHAT I LOVE

Many people have the belief that successful people are those who just naturally more motivated, disciplined and focused. The truth is that when anyone does something he or she loves, the motivation, focus and discipline always comes naturally. If you find that you lack the motivation and discipline to become successful in what you do, the reason is very obvious. It is not your passion! Think about it. Do you have a natural passion for something? Do you have a hobby? Like playing golf? Looking at beautiful women or men? Computer games? Football? Playing with children? Havent you noticed that whenever you are doing what you love, the energy never stops? Its like no matter how tired you are, you will always find the energy to do what you love. Well, this is the secret that will lead to your success and wealth! You have to find something you are extremely passionate about and build your career or business around it! When you do, you will find that you will be naturally focused, committed and energized to work at it. When you give your best to whatever you are crazy about, you will become the best!

97

You see, many people have the mindset that they have to work very hard in life in order to become rich. They have got to force themselves to be disciplined and motivated. They believe that when they eventually make enough money, they can finally do what they love to do and enjoy their lives. This is a recipe that is guaranteed to make you struggle in stress and misery all your life. When you do something purely for the money and not because of passion, you will find it very difficult to stay motivated. After a while, you will burn out and give up from the stress and exhaustion. Instead, you must do what you love to do now! Not only will you begin to enjoy your life and be happy but you will suddenly find the natural energy and motivation that will drive you to give your best and become the best. When this happens, the money will automatically follow. Whether you have a passion for computer games, gorgeous women/men, knitting, cooking, surfing, trading, people, children, fish or even iguanas. So start asking yourself What do I love to do? What would I do even if I didnt get paid? If I had all the money in the world, how would I spend my time? Who are people who have made their fortunes around this passion I have?

I guarantee you that when you start looking for them, you will find no lack of role models you can learn from. Remember, do what you love and you will never work another day in your life!

98

Habit 6: Acting With Integrity

Many people have the perception that the fabulously rich and powerful are dishonest and unethical. And who can blame them after hearing stories of how rich executives rip off their shareholders in scandal after scandal on Wall Street? Think about Enron, China Aviation Oil, WorldCom, ACCS, REFCO and the list goes on. Certainly there are unethical & unscrupulous rich people around, but the truth is that most rich share a common habit of personal integrity. What is integrity and why is it so important to long term wealth? Integrity is about being honest with others and adhering to high moral standards. It is also about doing what you say will do. When act with integrity, your customers, colleagues and staff will place their trust in you. They know that you mean what you say and that you will not let them down. They know that you will give them the best quality for their money and they know that you will not cheat them.

Habit 7: Be 100% Committed

Let me ask you this question, Do you want to be success?, Of course, thats why Im reading this book!, you may say. Let me ask you the next question, Are you 100% committed to be success? You see, there is a very big difference between wanting to become a successful person and being 100% committed to become a successful person. When you merely want, wish or hope to achieve a goal, it will rarely ever happen. Think about it. Everybody wants to be financially free, but very few ever make it happen. Studies after studies have shown that people who achieve phenomenal success and wealth did not just want it, they were 100% committed to achieving it. When you are 100% committed to a goal, it is no longer a wish, a hope or a want..it becomes an absolute MUST. You see, when something becomes an absolute MUST to you, it gets you to operate from a totally different frame of mind.

99

When something is a MUST, it will become your number one priority and nothing will ever come in its way until that goal is accomplished. When something is a MUST, you will do whatever it takes to get it! Even if it means stretching way beyond your comfort zone and investing time, energy or money, you will do whatever it takes. I believe that when you are willing to do whatever it takes to get something, you will always find a way. And if you cannot find a way, you will make a way. For example, when George Lucas wanted revolutionize film-making by creating the special effects required for the space battle scenes for Star Wars, the technology did not exist. Everybody told him that what he wanted to do couldnt be done. Instead of accepting the comfort of reality, his total commitment to making his dream come true was to set up his own company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) to create the special effects required for his own movie. However, when you merely have weak wish or hope for wealth, you will never attain it. Why? This is because the path to achieving any goal and creating wealth is never easy. It fact, it is extremely challenging and difficult. I can bet you that when you begin on your path to financial freedom, there are going to be huge obstacles and challenges that will get in your way. All the problems that you can possibly think of will come to test your faith and endurance and to stretch you out of your comfort zone. You will find that at certain points of time, you will lack the time, lack the money and lack the energy. You may encounter people discouraging you, friends leaving you and things not going as planned. If it is merely a wish that you have to become success, chances are that you will eventually give up and find lots of excuses of why it cannot be done. This is because those that merely wish for success are never willing to stretch beyond their comfort zones and do what ever it takes to overcome all their challenges. In addition, when something is merely a want, you will find that your mind will be filled by a dozen other wants that will take away your time and attention. After a while, you will find yourself being distracted by other things that come your way. Has this happened to you before? So, the only way you will ever achieve your goals of becoming success is to make it a MUST for yourself.
100

The trouble is that when something becomes a must, it is often too late. For example, I know a friend who set a goal to quit smoking. He knew that it was doing him harm and he really wanted to. Sure enough, he kept procrastinating year after year. Suddenly, in 2003 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and told that if didnt stop, he would die in six months. He hasnt touched a cigarette since. You see, when something is a must, anything can be achieved. At the same time, when you make financial freedom and security a must for you and not just a wish, you will achieve it. When something is a must, our brain gets us to tap fullest potential to make it happen. The only reason that the movie Star Wars came into existence is because George Lucas was 100% committed to making his dream come true. Many people have the perception that Lucas was just a genius who was fortune enough to dream up this naturally successful movie. If you read about the history of Star Wars, you would know that up to the day of its release, everyone believed that it would be a major flop, including the actors! During production, anything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong. At the end of sixteen weeks of filming, everyone had every reason to believe it would fail. The movie had grossly exceeded the initial budget, it had overrun the filming schedule, the special effects unit could not create the desired effects and everyone had the opinion that it was a kiddy movie. As a result, 20th century Fox studios wanted to pull the plug and gave Lucas three days to finish two weeks of work that was lost. What made things worse was that Lucas suffered severe chest pains in the middle of all this and was warded for severe stress and exhaustion. Most directors would have given up and cut their losses, knowing that it was impossible to achieve it all in three days. If Star Wars had been a wish, it would have failed there and then. But to Lucas, it was a must..he would do everything to make it happen. Lucas hired a triple crew, divided the stage into three sets and directed three scenes concurrently. Three days later, Star Wars was delivered and the rest is history. By the end of its first theatrical run, Star Wars became the most successful film in North American history. It grossed a total of US$ 290 million and George Lucas cut from the box office was more than US$50 million. As a teenager, Lucas set a goal of becoming a millionaire at the age of thirty. He was off by two years: Lucas made his millions by the age of twenty-eight.
101

However, you dont necessarily have to risk all your money like Lucas to get totally committed to your goal. There are other ways of putting yourself on the line. As for me, I personally put myself on the line by making public commitments. Whenever I set a goal, I would announce to everyone my plans because I know that the moment I do so, there would be no turning back. I had to make it happen! So before moving on to the next habit, I want you make a decision to be 100% committed to your success.

Habit 8: The Ability to Turn Failure into Success

The final habit is the ability to accept failure and to turn it into success. Most people have the impression that successful people never fail and that millionaires never lose money. As a result, many people fear failure and shun those who have flopped. This is a huge lie and distortion that prevents people from becoming rich. The truth is that everybody fails at one point or another. In fact, millionaires fail more times than anybody else because they take so much more action. I have made countless stupid mistakes, lost a lot of money and have failed so often that I have lost count. So mark my words, you will fail many times before you ever succeed. Whats important is what you do about failure. This is the critical habit that makes the difference between the rich and the poor. There are three ways people respond to failure. The first group of people get so disappointed by their failure that they just give up! They would say, I tried it but failed or I tried investing but it didnt work for me. They see failure as the end of the game, as the final verdict that they are not meant to succeed. They give themselves reasons like Maybe I am not good enough or its just too difficult. Have you ever been guilty of doing this before? Sure enough, this way of responding to failure will see many dreams fade away.

102

The second group does not give up that easily. When they dont reach their outcome, they would say, Let me try again. Lets not give up. So they quickly get on their feet and try again. If their business fails, they go start another business. If they lose money investing in the stock market, they will go and try to buy different stocks. Will they eventually succeed? The answer is No. Why? It is because this group may try and try again but they dont change their strategy. They keep making the same mistakes, doing the same thing again and again. Sure enough they keep getting the same disappointing results. So what happens after a while? They eventually get so frustrated and tired that they too will throw in the towel. Some may even begin to accept mediocrity and fear to dream of anything better. Do you know anyone who has been caught in this trap? Have you ever done it yourself?

Success is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgment
By Anthony Robbins The rich and the successful person approach and perceive failure very differently. When they dont reach their goals, they do not see themselves as having failed. Rather, they see themselves as getting a learning experience! To them, failure is not the end, but only a detour. They see it as feedback that they are not using the right strategy. They then take this feedback, learn from the experience and change their strategy! If changing their strategy still does not get them the result, they will once again get more feedback, change their strategy and take action again. They keep doing this again and again until they get the results they want! They will do whatever it takes UNTIL they succeed. By doing so, they turn their failure into success!

103

Very seldom do the rich achieve their success on the first go. Many achieve their financial dreams only after countless learning experiences and setbacks. However, many agree that if not for those learning experiences, they would never found the solutions to their outcomes. Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technologies did not succeed until numerous business failures. His first idea was to develop and sell the Cubic CT, the worlds first multimedia PC. After spending countless hours and hundreds of thousands of investment dollars on the product, it turned out to be a dismal failure. Instead of beating himself up and finding lots of excuses, he saw it as feedback that the market was just not ready for the product. It was just too expensive and complicated for its time. What did he do? He went back and changed his strategy. Eventually, after even more failures, he eventually came up with the idea of a low cost sound card called the sound Blaster. And that one idea turned Creative Technologies into a billion dollar global company. You see, all you need is only ONE great idea that will make you your fortune. However, that ONE great idea hardly every comes the first time around. It comes after lots of bad ideas. Another great example that never fails to inspire me about turning crushing failure into resounding success is the story of Steve Jobs, the founder and current CEO of Apple Computers. Steve co-founded Apple at the age of 21 in 1976. Within four years, the company was listed on the stock exchange and Steve was worth US$217 million at the age of 25. As Apple continued its phenomenal growth, it was decided that professional management had to be hired to run the huge organization. So in 1983, Steve hired John Scully to be the CEO. However, within two years, the CEO and directors at Apple could not get along with Steve Jobs (he was known to be an erratic and emotional manager) and stripped him of all his duties, forcing him to resign from the very company he founded in failure and disgrace. To make thing worse, Apple sued Steve for neglecting his duties.

104

While those in the business world wrote him off, Steve who possessed the millionaire mindset, took it as a huge learning experience and took the proactive action of starting a new and better company called NeXT computers. He believed that he could develop a range of hardware and software that would be even better than that at Apple. Did he success? Unfortunately, NeXTs hardware division became a huge failure. Undaunted, he again took the feedback and went on to found Pixar Animation Studios, which became a huge success in creating the first breakthrough fully digitally animated movie Toy Story. In the meantime, Apple Computer was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1995 after suffering from internal mismanagement and lack of new product innovation. The company was making losses of $800 million to $ billion a year and its share price dropped from a high of $18 to $3.80. Believing that he could save Apple, Steve Jobs agreed to return as CEO for a nominal pay of $1. When Steve took over, he fired all the unproductive executives and spearheaded the launch of revolutionary products like the iMac, iPod and iTunes. The revolutionary operating system (OS) he developed at NeXT was then evolved into the highly popular Mac OS X. As a result of these successful products, Apple turned its $1 billion loss in $1.3 billion in profits by 2005. Its share price rose from $3.8 to a high of $75! Looking back, Steve realized that if he never got fired from Apple, he would never have founded NeXT and Pixar Animation. If not for Pixar, he would not have became a pioneer in digital animation and if not for NeXT software he developed, Apple would never have the Mac OS X operating system that has made Apple a huge success today. It is for this reason that successful people believe that everything happens for a reason and that adversity is often opportunity in disguise provided you learn from your experiences and continue to take consistent action!

My policy is to learn from the past, focus on the present, and dream about future. Im a firm believer in learning from adversity.
By Donald Trump

105

Chapter 12: The power of designing your destiny in your career

elcome to the final chapter of this book. I am sure you agree that it has been fantastic journey discovering the many paths towards a success of getting more students and incomes. I am sure that you have been inspired by

the many examples and stories of how ordinary people have successful in their career and how you can do the same! Over the last eleven chapters you have learnt so many ideas. You learnt how to massively increase the number of students and how to create multiple streams of income for your institution. You have also learnt the art of managing your cash flow and creating your own plan. So with all this knowledge and tools, you must begin to design your successful career in your institution. You must ask yourself the fundamental question, What kind of life do I want to create for myself when I work in an institution as a leader, marketing staff or even a lecturer? Where do I see myself in the next five, ten or twenty years? Imagine that you are a builder who now has all the tools, equipment and raw materials to build the most beautiful mansion. Before you can start building this mansion, you must have a vision of what it would look like when it is finally complete. You must have a clear picture in your mind of how many rooms there will be, the location of the doors, the windows, the colour of the roof, the number of stories it will have and so on. It is only when you have the blueprint of the mansion that you can begin to built it. Can you imagine someone building a house with no plans and with no idea of what the end product will look like? Sounds crazy right? Well, amazingly this is how most people live their lives! They work everyday of their lives with no clear idea of what they are working towards. Its like a builder who places one brick each day not having a clue of what he is building. The places he lays his brick is dependant on where he is standing on that day. What do you think is going to happen in the end? He will end up with something that he never expected, like a wall!
106

I believe that you are not someone who wants to leave his destiny to chance. I believe that you want to have the power to design your destiny.and you definitely have the power now! You see, unless you have a clear outcome in mind and start taking massive action toward it, the power of the knowledge you have acquired will never be realized. When you set clear goals about what you want, it allows you to channel all your energy in a specific direction. Setting specific goals will then allow you to develop a specific strategy and action plan to reach there. For example, if your goal is to achieve financial abundance in five years with a $20000 a month lifestyle, then the strategy and action plan you will have to take will be very different than if your goal were to retire in fifteen years with a $10000 a month lifestyle. To achieve the first goal, you would need to create a lot more income streams, target a higher rate of return on your investments and invest a greater amount of time and energy each month. However without a goal, you will have no clue of how and what should be done.

The Power of Designing Your Destiny

Let me illustrate to you a very well know example of the power of goals. In 1952, there was a research study done on the impact of goal setting on the graduating batch of students at Yale University. When asked how many of them had clearly specified and written down goals, only three percent respond. The remaining ninety seven percent, despite being highly intelligent and hardworking, had no road map where they would be five to ten years after graduation. Twenty years later in 1972, a follow up study done on the same class of 1952. What they discovered was shocking, the combined income of the three percent who had clear goals was greater than the entire income of the ninety seven percent combined! Was it just a coincidence or does having clear goals really have an impact on a persons personal and financial success? If you were to study the life stories of the most successful people in history, you will discover that their achievements didnt happen by chance. At a certain point of time in their lives, they dared to dream about something they wanted to create. They then allowed this dream to guide their actions until they made it reality.
107

What if you no clue as to what business or career path to take? Well, it doesnt matter! Sometimes, just setting a specific financial goal will get your mind thinking and guiding you towards the right path. Before George Lucas left his hometown for college, he already predicted that he would be a millionaire by the time he was thirty. However, at that time, his passion and dream was to make it as a racecar driver. It was after he suffered a terrible crash that he began to change his mind about the career. It was only after that accident that he decided that he wanted to become a filmmaker. As a result of his focus on pushing himself to be the best in anything he did, became a millionaire by the age of 28.

The Five Keys to Designing Powerful Goals

There are five key characteristics that your goals must posses in order for them to be achievable and motivational. Dont expect to just scribble a couple of new years resolution and a piece of paper and expect it to happen. In setting your goals, you have to ensure that they are/have: a. Specific & Measurable One of the main reasons why most people never achieve what they want is because they are not definite about what they want. Whenever I ask people what they want to achieve in the next ten years, I normally hear very general, vague and non-committal answer like I want to have more money, I want to get a better job, I want to be free from worries, I want to retire early!. The question is, how much money specifically? By when? What new career do you want to succeed in specifically? What income do you demand? What kind of lifestyle do you want to retire to? How much cash flow would you need a month? These questions I ask usually draw a blank stare with the usual I dont know response. Either they have no clue what they want or they have a fear of making a commitment, because they have been disappointed before.

108

When you have a vague goal like make more money..as much as I can, there is NOWAY you can achieve it. How do you measure more? How do you know when you have achieved it? When you goal is not specific and not measurable, you will have no clue as to what you have to do to get it. Should you get a new job? How much do you need to invest each month? How many new income streams do you need? There is no way you can come up with a plan and take any sort of action. However, if you set a very definite goal like Earn an income of $20000 a month by twenty four months, you can start developing a plan to get there! For example, if you are a marketing staff and your current income is $1500 today, you know that you must find a way to create $18500 more value! It will drive you start thinking and doing things differently. Remember that everything is possible, it is only a question of using the right strategies. For example, you may learn that there are people in your institution who a earning $9000 a month! You could start modeling their strategies and finding out how they generate leads, how many leads they generate each month, the number of sales appointments set up in a day, the kind of students they target, their style of presentation, the way they close, how they follow up and so on.Even if you happen to be in a fixed salaried job, you can set a target to get promoted to a more senior position or to ask for an incentive scheme, then find out exactly the kind of results you must produce to get there. Remember that when you set a goal, you must not always achieve it the first time around. It doesnt matter. What matter is that you have made progress and moved towards your goal. As long as you take feedback, improve your strategy and continue taking action, you will eventually reach your desired outcome. b. Stretch & Challenge You What do you find more exciting? To increase your income by 10% or to double it? Does the goal of attaining financial freedom in ten years sound more motivating or fifty years? What would motivate you more to wake up in the morning? The thought of earning enough money to pay your bills or to go out and build ten new income streams that will allow you to live the lifestyle of your dreams? The reason why most people dont get motivated towards their goals is because their goals are not exciting enough.
109

People are lazy simply because they have got puny, uninspiring goals. When you set big, inspiring and exciting goals and fantasize yourself achieving it, you will start to feel the excitement build inside you! So, you have to set big and exciting goals that ignite your imagination and passion! Setting challenging and inspiring goals also forces you to think out of the box and stretch yourself out of your comfort zone. For example, if you set an incremental goal of increasing your income by ten percent, what are you likely to do? You will probably work a lot harder and hope for a raise. However, if you were to set a goal of doubling your income, you know that it will be impossible to achieve if you were to keep doing the same thing. In order to double your income, you will be forced to think of new and innovative strategies to make it happen! And I am sure with all the techniques you have learnt in this book you will be able to come up with at least a dozen new ideas. Again, does it mean that you will always achieve the goals you set the first time around? No! But if you aim for the moon, and fall short, you are still going to be among the stars. But if all you dare to do is to aim for the horizon, you are going to hit the ground. The most common excuse people have for not daring to aim high is the fear that they are not being realistic. Well, do you think it was realistic for me to set a goal of achieving my first million by twenty six? Was it realistic for eight year old Woods to aim to become number one in a sport dominated by whites at the time? Was it realistic for the Wright brothers with no formal background in engineering to think they could build a flying machine? Whether a goal is realistic or not depends on the strategy you employ. Just because something hasnt been done before or is rarely accomplished doesnt mean it is not realistic. It simply means that not many people have had the conviction to find the right strategy.

110

c. Driven by Powerful Whys Another main reason why many people lack the motivation to achieve their financial goals is because they are not clear about WHY they want it. Many participants I meet keep telling me that they want to make a million dollars or that they want to achieve financial abundance. When I ask them the question, why is it important to you?, I find many lack a compelling reason. Many give very shallow responses like, to buy what I want. You see, unless you find a strong enough reason why you want something, you will never be motivated to get it. I am sure you dont want money for the sake of having lots of coloured pieces of paper. You want money for what money as a resource can do for whats important in your life, like your family, your health, your spirituality and your personal happiness. As human beings we are primary driven by emotions. Everyone has got different key emotions or hot buttons that drive them. These key emotions are called our values! Some people are highly driven by the value of recognition and winning. What drives Donald Trump is that he is an extremely competitive person who hates losing. The thought of betting and winning on huge deals is what fires him up everyday. The money he earns is just a way he measures his winnings. Some people are driven more by the value of security. I guess the fact that Warren was born in a family that suffered financial difficulties instilled in Warren the importance of security as a value. This value is a key driver in his motivation to earn lots of money. Others are driven by the value of contribution. Take George Soros. What drives this billionaire investor is not making money to finance a lavish lifestyle. His purpose for making billions is for political philanthropy. He uses his money to export democracy, as he believes that is the key to improving lives. So you have to ask yourself what key values drive you in life? Are you driven by recognition, security, freedom, family, God, friendship, love, power or sense of contribution?

111

d. An Action Plan

You can set the most inspirational goals with the most powerful whys but if you are not able to come up with a concrete action plan of HOW you intend to make it happen, your goals will always be unrealistic. Goals are nothing but dreams. When you come up with a plan, that dream becomes POSSIBLE. When you take action on your plans, it becomes a REALITY. e. A Deadline Only when you commit to a specific deadline will you be able to develop an achievable plan and have the sense of urgency to make it happen.

Designing a Personal Road Map

So, what should you do with all these goals you have set? The typical person would get excited for a while, then put it aside and its all forgotten after a while and go back to living their life the way it always was. If you want to stay focused on these goals, then you have to look at them every day. They have to be at the top of your mind! What I personally do is to pin my goals up next to my computer desktop so I am reminded of them whenever I turn on my computer.
112

Final Thoughts

With this last paragraph, we come to the end of this book. However, do remember that this is by no means the end of your learning journey. It is only the beginning. No matter how much you learn and will achieve, always remember to stay hungry for success and stay foolish for new knowledge. With all the knowledge, lessons and strategies you have acquired in this book, the only thing that will stop you from achieving unlimited success is the lack of consistent action. So, take massive action immediately and I guarantee that your income will multiply.

Your Truly, T.F.Lai

113

References
Ian A. Glover., Digital communication, (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004)

Allen, Robert., Multiple Streams of Income (NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2001) Bach, David., Start Late, Finish Rich (NY: Random House Inc, 2005) Boyett, Joseph & Boyett, Jimmie., The Guru Guide to Money Management (NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2003) Hansen, M & Allen R., The one minute Millionaire (Australia: Random House, 2002) Kiyosaki, Robert., If You Want to be Rich & Happy Dont Go to School? (Fairfield CT: Asian Publishing, 1992) Allen, Robert., Multiple Streams of Internet Income (NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2001) Stanley, Thomas., The millionaire mind (Kansas City: Andrew MacMeel Publishing, 2000) Trump, Donald., The art of Comeback (NY: Crown Business, 1997)

114

Published by: Address:

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of T.F.Lai This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Copyright 2008 Secrets of Enrolment strategy to massively increase the number of students First print,

DISCLAIMER
This book contains the ideas and opinions of the author toward the enrolment strategy. The ideas and opinions presented in this book are new and have not been discovered and applied yet. The common strategies like how to improve the services and quality of education in an institution will not be presented in this book. This is because these two strategies are found to be inferior. Although I have made the best efforts to provide the most accurate and up to date information, no warranty or guarantee is given regarding the accuracy, reliability, veracity or completeness of the information provided herein. The author and publisher disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk, which may arise as a consequence, directly or indirectly, from the use and application of any of the ideas, strategies or techniques in this book.