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Treat Business Like You Treat Your Friends

I earn on average, $2,700 to $2,900 a month, from business alone after expenses. Considering that I run my business alone, that’s quite a lot of money. I probably never regretted being terminated from my previous employment as a .Net developer, and I’ve since stopped having nightmares about my previous employer.

A friend is someone who cares for you, who looks after you in time of need, who supports you in your endeavours. I’m sure a lot of you have friends, but friends who matter count for only a few. I had lots of friends when I was employed a couple of years ago, but friends who really cared and looked out for me were probably very very few or none at all.

I’d stick out my neck for them. Spoke up for what I believed in, and eventually, lost my job despite building literally the entire web-based infrastructure by myself.

No one wants to lose their jobs. In the office, you share gossip with your workmates, and in a medium sized company, especially one with “foreign talent”, they split into cliques.

I was a senior developer in the team, I had qualifications. I had expert knowledge. I had valuable experience and insight. I imbued a sharing culture in my team, although it seems, the only one willing to share was me. I tried to create a desire to learn and contribute in my team, but it seems such a culture cannot be created in many Singaporean companies.

Why?

Simply because, everyone’s interested only in themselves. They’d protect their backsides, prevent work from being dumped on their desk, and speak nicely to the boss and give this plastic smile.

If anything, I’ve been known to dish out criticism when I see it fit. I don’t care who you are. You can be some director, or a high ranking officer. But when I think something requires redress, I will say it. I try to be polite yet honest. But sometimes, people tend to mistake that brutal honesty to bring you down.

Here’s an advice. If I’m honest, I care. Because friends don’t tell you what you want them to. They’ll tell you to wake up your freaking idea!

I’ve learnt a lot about myself, and in all my trials and tribulations, it seems that I realised I am mostly unselfish. I’d put my neck out on the line way too often than I really should. I remember fondly of my teenage years in the mosque, when I was secretary-general of the youth. I was often in loggerheads with the then-chairman of the mosque, who also happened to be a very high ranking staff in MediaCorp and the chairman of the Malay Journalists Association.

After a heated debate for which I realised no one in the LPM had balls to speak up against, I tendered my resignation as the secretary-general. the youth wing which often hit the headlines and the internet, sufferred dearly and could never pick up itself again.

Thankfully, there are friends who care about you, who’ll stick with you through thick and thin.

You see, business works the same way. The old saying, “It’s not personal, it’s just business”, would be wrong. Business is always personal.

I don’t do business with just anyone. I do business with people I tacitly trust at the very least.

Unfortunately in business, there’s hardly a way to regain trust if you made a mistake. As I said, business is always personal. And grudges often remain for a long time.

That’s how businesses survive. They’re menacing and tenacious, and they’re not afraid to bite you. Because if you give an inch, they’ll ask for a yard.

If you really want to succeed in business, treat business like you treat your friends. Go the extra mile, because your partner or your customer is your friend. They will appreciate it, and will return you the favour.

In the office, if you’re an employee, and you go the extra mile, your boss will appreciate you. But if you’re the sort that will give criticisms like me, get out of a job, and be your own boss. Honestly, I find that people who are generally comfortable have nothing to say. They’ll have complaints, but their way out more often than not is to find another job.

But if you’re fiercely independent, and speak your mind, you’re a leader. A job is not your cup of tea.

Friends also should know that you don’t date your exs. In business, it means that if you know someone who started a business, and you know him well enough to call him a friend, don’t compete with him. Don’t start a business and then literally copycat his every move.

It was very frustrating to see whom I thought was a friend enter into reseller agreements with nearly all the people I myself worked with. True, they say that copying is a kind of flattery, but in business, copying means you’re asking for a fight.

You just don’t do that. If you must enter into a business that’s of a similar domain as a friend of yours, one should cooperate. Not compete!

Unfortunately, businesses that don’t make it, are businesses that are selfish. And friends, they’re not selfish.

One might argue that the market is there for the taking. It’s fair game. But when you’re a small startup, the last thing you need is competition brewed by someone you know.

I failed in business once. I made a lot of mistakes. I had the wrong team dynamics. I trusted a cheat. I lost some money. I never took more action. I probably also entered into business at the wrong time. Perhaps, then, I should have started out getting a job.

6 months after I closed down, I started up again, with a much clearer vengeance. I didn’t try to wow. I just focused on one thing and one thing only.

In the past 2 years of running Verbeter Group, it is today the biggest avast Antivirus distributor in (yes, I dare say) all of Southeast Asia and South Asia.

I have my own network of resellers, at least 10 of them, and the biggest of the lot is NCS Pte Ltd. Imagine a small business owner like me, having a GLC as a partner.

My reputation has grown so much, I don’t need to find new products, companies who want to push their products, come to me.

My clients are not only in Singapore. They are in India, and the Maldives and also Malaysia. In Malaysia, a client that uses my products is the biggest cinema chain and film distributor in Malaysia, Golden Screen Cinemas.

In the Maldives, I have the Government of Maldives as my client.

In India, I have Web Synergies Indian branch office.

How did I do this? By building friendships. Not customers.

In the next week and onwards, my schedule is going to be filled with meetings with top management from some of the biggest companies in the world in the IT security business. Buoyed by my successes in 2008, Verbeter Group will expand and diversify.

Does this mean I will employ anyone anytime soon? Yes. But probably none in Singapore. I’ll be setting up base overseas, with a small team in India and the Phillippines. I will also be looking at greater expansion into Malaysia and India.

Will my reseller base grow? Exponentially. My resellers will grow 2-fold next year.

What are the kind of things Verbeter Group will be doing in 2009? Basically, we’re looking at how to improve internet experiences. We’re talking to a few partners (ie. some of the biggest IT security companies in the world), and we feel that we offer a very unique 3-step solution to improving internet experiences in business and leisure.

These are the kind of things I am able to do when you treat your business like you treat your friends. Success will come to you. I’ve only been in business for 2 years. I haven’t reached my first 100,000 yet. But next year, I can just feel it. The momentum is growing very fast. I don’t even want to talk about a million. I think setting such a goal is wishy washy. For me, I set it much lower. I think when you do that, things become so much easier to attain.