We Are In Fully Booked’s Business Bestseller List!

Less than two months after we launched Secrets To Dominate Your Niche in the Philippines and we have made it into one of the besteller lists! To all our readers and supporters in Manila, and especially to the guy, Nikko Lim, who made it all happen… a very big THANK YOU!

It is true and we have the photo to show it. Thanks to our dynamic book “representative” Nikko, and also to all the readers who suppported us by buying the book, Secrets To Dominate Your Niche is now #7 on Fully Booked’s Business Bestseller List!

Secrets To Dominate Your Niche In Fully Booked’s Business Bestseller List

That is really amazing considering that we did not manage to do much marketing for the book. So we know that it is because of the people who have made it happen. Also, we would like to thank all the bookshops who have placed their faith in our book and made the order. We hope that we will continue to do you proud.

Where You Can Buy Our Book In Manila

It has been about less than a month since Secrets To Dominate Your Niche was launched in the Philippines and we have been very happy to have had the great support of the major bookstores in promoting the book. If you are in Manila and would like to get your hands on a copy of our book, then do check out National Bookstore, Fully Booked and Powerbooks.

If you are looking to get from National Bookstore, then the outlets where the books are available are:

- Cubao
- Glorietta
- Greenbelt
- SM Megamall
- Shangri-la
- Market!Market!
- SM Mall of Asia
- Robinsons Galleria Bestseller
- Rockwell
- Trinoma

The books are available at all 10 of Powerbooks’ stores as well nad of course at Fully Booked outlets.

We recently had one review from another business leader in Manila who said this:

Edwin C. Mapanao
Certified Professional Marketer (

Asia Pacific)
Marketing Director, UNAHCO

 

We hope to hear more from readers there and would love to interact with you if you are based there. You can also join the Facebook group of Secrets To Dominate Your Niche, which was set up by the guy who brought our book to the Philippines, Nikko Lim.

 

A Business Tip A Day, Keeps Competitors At Bay

For the month of June, listeners of radio station 938LIVE got some practical business tips from Sant in one of their lifestyle features segment called Positive Business Minutes (PBM). Stanley, who is the Senior Producer-Presenter for 938LIVE’s The Living Room programme, had kindly invited Sant to be the presenter for PBM after the authors came on as guests on his show. Basically, PBM contains “bite-size business nuggets, each lasting about 2 minutes per capsule), that are specially catered for busy corporate leaders and executives. These 2-minute slots were played 4 times in one day and each day’s slot would contain a different tip.

 

Since the month of June had 21 weekdays, Sant created 21 business tips covering a wide range of topics. Some of the topcis he shared included effective closing sales techniques, how to overcome the price factor to get your customer to buy, using scarcity to create demand, admiting a flaw to establish trust with your customers, and many other practical marketing strategies.

Though we didn’t publicise the fact that Sant was doing this, we had quite a few friends and business associates telling us that they heard Sant on the air and found his tips really interesting and useful. So we thought it would be nice to also share some of the tips here for you. Some of the tips are short excerpts based on the strategies that can be found in detail in Secrets To Dominate Your Niche, while others are more direct marketing based.

Here’s one of the direct marketing based tip that Sant talked about.

How To Get The Upper Hand In Price Negotiations

Many entrepreneurs find that they can’t make the sale when it comes to price negotiations. But do you know that there is a way to overcome this $$$ barrier and make the sale? One of the best ways to gain the upper hand in such situations is to first recognise that price is just a number–in your mind and in your customers’ mind. Price is relative to the perceived value that you are providing for your customer through a product or service.

One of Sant’s strategies that he personally uses for himself and his clients is to increase their prices. The interesting thing is, even though he increases the price, the number of customers actually shoot up instead of dropping. This is because Sant focuses on creating massive value for the customers and draws their attention on that instead of the price. He explains, ” When you focus on building the perception of value and the desire within the propects, then it price will matter less.”

Another point to remember when you are negotiating a deal with the customer and it is all just coming down to the numbers, is to bring in emotional elements into the discussion. Always remember to AVOID getting stuck in price negotiations because once you start talking about numbers, then all your customers care about is pressing the numbers down. 

Sant then shared about friend in real estate who was trying to broker a deal. But the buyer and seller were at a stalemate on the price of the house. Neither of them wanted to budge even though everyone wanted to move on to close the deal. When the friend came to Sant for advice, he said, ” Get the seller to focus on the reasons why they wanted to sell the house in the first place and get the buyer to focus on why they wanted to buy the house so badly.” When his friend followed his advice and posed the respective questions to the seller and the buyer, the deal was closed within the week!

So when you start to focus on building the value of your product or service, then the price that you are asking for in exchange will matter less to your customers. Try that the next time you are closing a sale and let us know how it went.

A Case Of Mistaken Identity

In the book, the authors focus on sharing various differentiation strategies to show how a company can dominate their niche market and as a result, create a strong brand for themselves. While many benefits can come out from that, there is also one pitfall that you will need to look out for when your company’s name become THE strongest and most associated name for a particular product/service or industry. When that happens, people may mistakenly associate bad feedback or news with your brand name. Thomas once shared about how this happened to PestBusters some time ago. He told us the story of what you are about to read below, when Sant gave him a Mont Blanc pen to commemorate the first print of Secrets To Dominate Your Niche.

Thomas showing the Mont Blanc pen given by Sant to commemorate the first edition print of the book. 

While admiring the beautiful packaging of Mont Blanc pen, the authors got to talking about branding and how sometimes having strong brand can backfire if the company does not take care to protect the brand from bad publicity that is generated from the public’s ignorance.

When Anything To Do With Pest Control Became Associated With PestBusters

There was a particular gala dinner that Thomas attended a while back when he met the head of one particularly large corporation that owned a building. While everyone was happily networking with each other and making conversation, Thomas was sharing with the head of this company and some other people within the group about what business he was in. When he mentioned that he was in pest management and that his company is PestBusters, this company head immediately cut him off halfway and loudly proclaimed, “Oh! PestBusters! I know your company. You do the pest control for my building and it was done very badly!”

Of course Thomas got a shock. He asked the head what he meant and requested for some details of the company’s building so that he could find out what the problem was. After that conversation, Thomas checked to see whether that company was one of their clients and whether the negative feedback that the company’s head had talked about was true.

As it turned out, the company’s building had never been serviced by PestBusters before. When Thomas called the company’s head to clarify, he sheepishly said, “Oh. I clarified with my staff and it is actually another pest control company that did that bad job and was servicing us.” Of course the company’s head apologised to Thomas for his case of “mistaken identity”  but the “damage” was already done because his remarks were already heard by some of the people at the dinner. 

That is one of the so-called “bad” part about such famous and strong brand name because people automatically associate your company with the industry that you operate in, without first clarifying the details or seeking out the real truth. That is also why Thomas is very protective about the PestBusters brand i.e. implementing stringent rules and regulations within his company to ensure that his brand is well-regarded and represented such as having trained technicians, using cutting-edge pest management strategies, etc. (You can find out more by reading Chapter 12 and 17 of the book.)

When Pampers Really Means Drypers

However, a case of mistaken identity is a good problem because it means that you have successfully dominated your market. That can only happen when the public takes your brand as the generic name for a specific product or service, such as the usual suspects like Pampers, Xerox, Colgate and so on.

When Thomas was sharing about his story about PestBusters’ mistaken identity, he also talked about the time when he had his own mistaken identity case many years ago. That was when his wife asked him to buy Pampers for his baby daughter on his way home from work. Like the doting father that he is, he dutifully went to the supermarket to pick up a large pack of diapers, as requested by his wife.

When he got home, he passed the diapers to his wife and got “scolded”! As it turned out, Thomas had bought Pampers (which his wife told him to buy over the phone) BUT what she actually meant was Drypers, because his daughter was allergic to Pampers. Of course Thomas knew that and he also knew that they have been using Drypers for his daughter, but as he says, “Even though I knew that and I knew that my wife meant Drypers when she said buy Pampers, it just slipped my mind when I was buying it. Because I was just thinking, I need to buy Pampers.”

I’m sure these are not the only two interesting stories of mistaken identity and if you have your own story to share, we would love to hear them.

Article On Secrets To Dominate Your Niche Book On Yehey.com

Since Secrets To Dominate Your Niche was launched in the Philippines, we have received so much support from the entrepreneur community there. As mentioned in one of the previous post, on Thomas’ first night there, he met with Donald Lim, the President of Yehey.com. Donald was also at the book launch at Fully Booked Bonifacio Branch on 10th July.

Just recently, Nikko from the Philippines alerted us to an article that he saw on Yehey.com’s News section, sharing some of the strategies that can be found in the book. You can read the full article titled Singapore’s Bestselling Business Business Book Launches In Philippines. The article contains some of the secrets that are highlighted in the book, including how you can dominate your niche by Being A Specialist, Polarity Positioning, Differentiating By Design and cites some examples.

If you would also like to know more strategies from the book and some other additional tips from the authors, then be sure to check in frequently in the next few weeks. That’s because we will be sharing some differentiating strategies that the authors have shared with different audiences during their talks to various organisations, as well as some interesting insights from Sant’s Positive Business Minutes sharing on 938LIVE during the month of June.

Students Of Today, Entrepreneurs Of Tomorrow

This post is specially dedicated to the student volunteers from the Business Management Society (BMS) of De La Salle University–Manila (DLSU). Or as Thomas has come to call them, “supermen and superwomen”. More than 10 students from this organisation enthusiastically signed up to help in the book launch when Nikko first approached them about a week before the launch. Nikko told me this:

I showed them the book about a week ago, and mentioning the book launch. I ask them if they want to volunteer for the book launch. They didn’t think twice, they said yes right away! Not only that. They did really an amazing job. Ushering the guests, fixing up the venue of the book launch, took care of the registration, take pictures and videos and many more! I didn’t even have to supervise them, they know pretty much what to do. These students have a lot of passion and drive! The book launch was smooth sailing and even the guests were impressed with the work the students have done.

Let me think… one week, school work and other activities later.. and this is what they still amazingly manage to come up with! Take a look at the organised team working so hard behind the scenes of the book launch and you’ll understand why everyone, including Thomas, was so impressed with these group of students.

Even though I was not personally there to witness them at work, the photos that I received really ’spoke a thousand words’. In fact, the photos were taken by one of them. There were two assigned photographers for the evening and one videographer who captured the evening’s festivities for posterity. The two photographers are featured below, Dom (left) and Ivan, who is posing with Thomas.

 

It really says something about an organisation when its members epitomise the very values that the organisation was set up to be. In this case, the BMS of DLSU, which aims to develop technically capable and socially responsible Christian entrepreneurs, should certainly be proud of its members. From the authors and myself, thank you very much for showing us the spirit of young entrepreneurs in the making!

Here are more photos of this group of special students

Students from the BMS turned up in full force for the launch, helpers and supporters alike!

 

I hear the student volunteers loved their IDs (sample on left) & asked Thomas to autograph it for them.

 

Showing off their autographed Secrets To Dominate Your Niche IDs.

 

Angel (photo on left) of BMS, who helped to head the group of students volunteers for the launch. And Yan (photo on right), who also helped to head the group and went to check that everything was in order the night before the launch!

Book Launch Takes Off In The Philippines

It was time! But it was also raining heavily. The launch of Secrets To Dominate Your Niche was supposed to start at 6pm but because of the heavy rain, they delayed the talk to an hour later. But it was still great news for those who arrived on time because they got to meet with Thomas and had their books personally autographed by him. The launch took place on the top floor (aptly named Top Shelf) of Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street branch. And I must say that Nikko and his group of students volunteers from the Business Management Society (BMS) of De La Salle University–Manila did a fantastic job dressing up the place, with the little time and resources that were given to them.

The display at the speaker’s table.

As the launch was held after work hours, we wanted to provide some food for participants.

   

Thomas looking pumped for his upcoming talk for the launch. And here, seen with the man who made it all happen, Nikko Lim.

This is what Nikko had to share about the launch:

Registration for the book launch started 6:00 pm, those who were at the book launch early got the chance to have their book signed already by Thomas and got an opportunity to take pictures with him. Program started around 7:00 pm, it started late because it rained hard, and some were late. First I started to thank the guests for attending the book launch and told my story on how I came across the book and how it ended up being launched here in the Philippines. Then I introduced Thomas and he gave his talk about the book, differentiation strategies and niche domination. We had some question and answers after and more book signing and picture taking after.

 

There certainly seemed to be a lot of photo-taking and autographs. In fact, at one point, Thomas was telling me that he was talking to people while autographing the book! Talk about multi-tasking… but everyone looked like they were having a great time. Some of the new friends that Thomas made also came to support him at the launch, including Donald Lim of Yehey.com and members of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation–Philippines, who were invited by Benjamin So. We are also very appreciative of some other business leaders and press members who showed their support for the launch with their presence, namely, Kamela Crisologo-Seen, owner of the highly successful Plato Wraps and Wilson Lee Flores, writer for The Philippine Star. Wilson had also left us a message on the Secrets To Dominate Your Niche Facebook account, saying, “I enjoyed attending your successful book launch at Fully Booked in The Fort, it’s also an excellent and very interesting book which I recommend all business-oriented people, professionals or entrepreneurs should read!”

Thank you Wilson for that message!

 

 

Kamela Crisologo-Seen, Thomas, Nikko

Thomas, Wilson Lee Flores, Nikko

 

EO Philippines’ members show their support for their Singaporean counterpart–Thomas

 

Thomas was later hosted to dinner by Benjamin So and fellow EO members at an Italian restaurant and I hear there was great food, flowing conversation and wine, a fitting end to a successful launch in an extremely hospitable and enterprising country called Philippines.

 

Thomas Meets Some Members Of The Philippines’ Press

It sure was a busy day for Thomas as the book launch of Secrets To Dominate Your Niche was preceded by a series of interviews by 3 different publications. Even before any of the interviews took place, Thomas had the pleasure of having lunch with Joey Concepcion at 12pm. And then it was off to the very first interview of the day with Jan Vincent Sarabia Ong of Entrepreneur Magazine at 3pm. 

As it was a really packed day, each interview session that Nikko had arranged only went on for an hour before Thomas had to meet with the next interviewer. Though judging from the photo, you would never have guessed that Thomas was suffering from a flu the day before and was well into half of a long day ahead. Next up at 4pm was an interview with the students from the Business Management Society of De La Salle University–Manila. (I have more to say about this group of students but to do them justice, I’ll leave it for another post.) Seeing how engrossed they are in the interview really makes me interested to hear what Thomas was sharing with them. But I guess I’ll know more when I read the write up.

Finally, the last interview at 5pm with Dennis Estopace of Business Mirror. Now, there is one thing I would like to point out in the photo below. If you read some of the earlier posts where I talked about Differentiating By Design: The First Impression Is The Only Impression, you would know that we put a lot of effort into creating a consistent look for the book’s brand. So before Thomas left for the Philippines, his staff helped to put together some press kits to be passed out to the media. We printed the front and back covers of the book on A4 paper and pasted them on the front and back of normal paper folders. You can see the press kit on the table circled in red.

  

Inside the folder, we included a summary of the book, profiles of the authors, press clippings and some other pertinent information. The reason why I’m highlighting this press kit is because I realise that some people think that it costs a lot to make their marketing materials look good. Actually, all it takes a some effort (to think about how you want to create an impression and be consistent in your image/look) and some imagination. The folders can be bought cheaply at any stationery shop and you can do some colour printing on normal or fancy paper at any shops that offer such services. Most of the things that we did to in our ‘branding’ activities can easily be incorporated into any marketing outreach activity to create maximum impact with minimum cost. 

Hope this post leaves you with some ideas and thoughts on what you can do for to create an impression for your marketing outreach. :) 

Joey Concepcion Promotes Our Philippines’ Book Launch

If you are residing in the Philippines and in her capital of Manila, then I’m pretty sure you would know who Joey Concepcion is. As it so happens, in his weekly column in one of the city’s top newspaper The Philippine Star, he helped promote the launch of Secrets To Dominate Your Niche in Fully Booked today. That’s right, today is the day that we are having our book launch in Manila–10th July 2008. Exactly 2 months and 12 days after the book was launched in Singapore.

When Nikko was arranging for the launch activities in the Philippines, he had also arranged for Thomas to meet with various entrepreneurs there to see how they could help to promote the book after it was launched. One of the prominent member of this inspiring entrepreneur community that Nikko managed to arrange a lunch meeting with was Joey. He was kind enough to host lunch for Thomas at the Manila Polo Club and had also invited along a few other distinguished guests as well, namely Pax Lapid, Dean of the Entrepreneurs School of Asia and Mon Lopez, Executive Director of GoNegosyo. Take a look at the exciting lunch they had:

Top: Myra Lorredo, Programs Development Manager of GoNegosyo, Nikko Lim, Mon Lopez, Executive Director of GoNegosyo, Ted Francisco, PR and Communications of GoNegosyo
Bottom: Joey Concepcion, Founding Trustee of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship, Thomas Fernandez, Pax Lapd, Dean of Program of the Entrepreneurs School of Asia

It was timely that they were having lunch today, just before Thomas got busy with his round of interviews with the some of the press people and then the book launch at 6pm. Joey was kind enough to write about the launch and invite readers to join in the activities at the launch.

Since my very first interaction with Nikko, I have constantly been amazed by the level of support and generosity of the Filipino people. He has singlehandedly gotten the bookstores in Manila to order the books, arranged for the book launch, organised the helpers, planned the programme for the launch night, invited like-minded business people to meet with Thomas and even set up interviews with the press. And now to have someone like Joey write about the book launch in his weekly column and even promote the event, it is really something that touches our hearts deeply. As Thomas said, “Just reading this morning’s article by Joey has given me the impetus for action and I’m just ready to rock and roll for the launch at Fully Booked tonight!”

And I tell you, if you have ever met Thomas or just sat in one of his talks, he certainly doesn’t need much impetus for action because he is a force of energy and action himself. So if he’s getting all fired by this article, then I only have one thing to say to the people attending the launch tonigh… be prepared! I can’t wait for the photos and update of launch and hope to upload some exciting photos and details of the event here for you!

Prelude To A Philippines’ Book Launch

Finally, the day that Nikko and I have been arranging for via email for the past 2 months, came to pass. As Thomas had to go to the Philippines for business, Nikko had been working fervently with Fully Booked to hold a book launch while Thomas was in town. And on 8th July, Tuesday, Thomas flew into Manila and was greeted at the airport by our niche dominator reader, Nikko Lim. (You can read the previous few posts below to find out more about Nikko.)

I asked Nikko to provide me with some details about Thomas’ activities and some photos so that I could update their movements on this blog. So for the next few days, you will be going a ‘tour’ in Manila as Secrets To Dominate Your Niche prepares for its launch there.

Apart from organising a book launch in the biggest bookstore in Manila (the 5-storey Fully Booked building), Nikko had also arranged for lunches and dinners with several prominent businessmen. The first of these meetings took place on Thomas’ first night in Manila. In the dinner party for the night was Edwin Mapanao, Marketing Director of Unilab Animal Health and President of the Certified Professional Marketers’ Society of Philippines, and Donald Lim, President and CEO and Yehey.com and President and Founding Member of of the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of Philippines.

Donald Lim, Thomas Fernandez, Nikko Lim and Edwin Mapanao

I thought it might be nice to hear directly from Nikko on the various activities that they are doing over there. So here it is:

I was able to pick up Thomas in the airport 5:30pm, arrived at The Renaissance Hotel around 6:10pm. It’s great to finally meet Thomas. He is really full of energy! I can sense it! We talked about his book, his business, other future plans.

We left Thomas’ hotel around 6:45pm, just 15mins walk to Greenbelt

5, where we will be having dinner with Edwin and Donald. We had dinner at Fish Out of Water. We had fish, ostrich, wild boar and some free desserts courtesy of the chef! Because the owner of the restaurant is a good friend of Donald Lim.

We talked about possible tie-ups with Philippine Marketing Association, and Yehey.com, about the book launch, about PestBusters, and others.

Thomas and Nikko are still meeting with a lot of other prominent people from the business community in Manila and there are quite a few surprises in store! So if you want to find out who else they will be meeting with over the next few days, do stay tuned.

Honestly, even though I’m getting my updates via email, I can feel the electrifying energy of like-minded people working together for the same cause. In this case, the cause is getting the book out to the people in the Philippines. And I’m really thankful that Niko has managed to muster up such great support from the business community over there. He has even roped in volunteer students from his ex-univeristy to help in the book launch. Amazing… thank you all!

Ahhh.. that must have been a wonderful dinner and an even better networking session!