Its Been a Long Time : Working From Home

Its been a long time i haven't visited this blog. Blog seems to be less famous compared to social media platforms nowadays. Youtube, facebook and instagram are more preferable today. Most young people go there to express their aspirations.

I am a bit old fashion, so let me continue using this blog to express my thoughts.

2020 we are living in a pandemic era. Sudah tiga bulan #dirumahaja, alias kerja dari rumah sejak mid Maret 2020. Ga kerasa sekarang sudah di pertengahan Juni. Lebaran yang biasa rame, tahun ini bener-bener sepi. Lebaranpun bener-bener #dirumahaja.

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What a Life

Suatu pagi di pinggiran Jekardah,

Matahari orange tersenyum perlahan muncul dari ufuk, menyembul di antara pepohonan kering yang daunnya mulai berubah kecoklatan…….

“D*mn*d!!udah jam lima lewat lima belas menit!!! Ga boleh telat, haduuh, gaji bakalan dipotong lagi Bulan ini”, Keluh Kendi di dalam hati. Terbangun dengan muka yg agak kusam karena sudah terbayang bakalan kena “diskon” gaji dari induk semang….

Panas, emosi karena hampir kesenggol motor sebelah, marah karena kesalip sama bebek tua yg cc nya cuma 100 begitulah perasaan Kendi saat  tiba di parkiran kantor. Ga cuma itu, Kendi harus lari mengejar mesin absensi yg kalo dibandingin sama jam tangan yg nempel di lengan kurusnya dia masih punya waktu sekitar 4 menit supaya enggak telat. “Yup!!musti berlari demi gaji yg full dan reward 500 ribu!”, semangat dia berlari melewati mesin scanner di depan KPPTI.

First Business Trip To Japan

Today is June 24, 2014

Day 1

I am sitting in front of my laptop in Keio Presso Inn, Ohtemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. It's my first trip to Japan. I left my home since June 22, 2014 at 6pm. I took a cab to the air port. It was sunday and the traffic at that time was not too crowded. It just took less than 2 hours for me to get to the airport from Sawangan. I used Taxiku to take me there. The highway fare is free when you use Taxiku. They will pay it for you.

I paid the cab for about 170K rupiah including the tips for the driver. I use to get the airport by dawn, but that Sunday i left my home right after Magrib prayer (at arround 6pm Jakarta time). I am here for business. I met my friends in the air port and checked into Garuda check in counter. We used economy class which the ticket had to be redeemed at around 760 USD/person. It was quiet cheap compared to the previous day's price which was around 890 USD.

The World Ain't Sunshines and Rainbows

Iseng-iseng cari motivasi di google, akhirnya saya jatuh pada pilihan kata itu. Again, youtube inspired me with its motivational video. Dan saat ini, sebetulnya banyak sekali sumber-sumber yang dapat menginspirasi kita bahkan di hari terburuk yang kita punya. Langsung saja saya kutip kata-katanya Rocky Balboa dalam film Rocky yang saya liat di youtube.

"Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain't sunshine and rainbows. 

It's a very mean and nasty place, and i dont't care how tough you are,
It will beat you to your knees and keep you there if you let it. 

You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward".

Listened to the words above, i remember one of my friends. He had got beaten by life for many times. There were so many problems came into his life. I imagined, if i were him i might not be able to handle the problems. He is a tough guy, but again, it's not how tough you are. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

I Wrote The Same, But Different Words

Tulisan ini terinspirasi oleh penjaga penitipan sepatu di masjid RS Fatmawati, Jaksel. Tepatnya masjid yang berada di depan gedung Teratai. Sore kemarin saya, istri, anak-anak dan kedua orang tua saya mengunjungi seorang teman yang sedang sakit di sana. Kami tiba di sana jam 1647 WIB dan terlihat pengunjung sudah ramai menunggu pintu rumah sakit terbuka untuk para pengunjung. Rumah sakit ini sedang berbenah dan salah satu sisi pembenahannya adalah penertiban jam kunjungan.

It was 1700 WIB when the doors were opened finally. My wife and children waited for us in the lobby. I and my parents went upstairs to meet my neighbour who is sick. I asked my parents where the room was but they have no info about that. We were in 5th floor when i decided to ask a nurse about the room. "Sus, boleh tanya ruangan di mana pasien berada?", i asked.

Jangan Lupakan Pelanggan Anda

 Adalah bu Rogayah, pelanggan kami yang berprofesi sebagai guru TK di wilayah Depok yang merupakan pelanggan setia kami. Awalnya saya dan bu Rogayah tidak saling kenal tentunya. Suatu hari minggu beliau berkunjung ke lapak saya dan melihat produk goodiebags yang saya jual. Dia tidak membeli satupun goodiebags saat itu.

Beberapa hari setelah itu, bu Rogayah mengirimkan saya sms dan menyatakan berminat dengan goodiebagsnya namun untuk harga yang lebih murah tentunya. Saya terpaksa menjawab bahwa saya tidak bisa menurunkan harga reseller karena harga yang saya berikan sudah merupakan harga terbawah. Cukup alot hingga akhirnya saya putuskan untuk memberikan produk yang standarnya menurut saya kurang bagus, namun harganya pas dengan yang diminta si Ibu.

Just Show Them

THE AGATE

I was preparing my stuffs when bang Sandy came to me and gave me 6 pcs of rings. He said that i have to sell this and bring him some amount of money. Agate ring is something new to me. I don't even know what make it precious.

I took picture on those rings and put them in my blackberry's display picture. I was not really sure if i can sell those rings. My friends are mostly young but agate is identical with old man :P

To me it's not about sell or not to sell, it's more about try. Lets give those ring a try. They deserve it.

How to sell these goodiebags? -- Ideas

If you have put your reptilian brain on the bed, it's now your turn to think about how to sell these goodiebags?!

There are many ways to grab good ideA. You can just lie down your body and think or you can go to the toilet and think. You can think even when you ride a bike!

The most known method to grab ideas is brainstorming. You may ask your partner, husband, wife or family to think about how to sell these goodiebags. The more brains involve in this brainstorming the more ideas you get. But please don't MAKE any mistake. Before you ask them to join brainstorming session, please ask them to put their reptilian brain on the bed.

How to Sell This Goodiebags? -- Reptilian Brain

Mungkin anda yang sudah berkunjung ke toko kami akan bertanya tentang bagaimana cara menjual goodiebags ?! dan kira-kira, inilah sejumlah pertanyaan yang mungkin ada di benak anda saat berfikir untuk menjadi reseller kami :

"Kalo gue ambil ini, gimana gue dagangnya?",

"Emang laku?"

"Kalo ga laku, rugi dong?!"

"Ke mana ngejualnya?"

"Di Kantor??? Oh...please deh, temen2 udah pada jualan semua"

"Di rumah?? Tetangga pada kere semua, mana ada yg beli?"

And many more questions should be in your mind. If you think one step ahead, you will come to us and buy a dozen or half. and you will say "Oke deh, gue coba. Semoga laku yah...."

Tell Them About Your Expertise

Banyak cara untuk menjual, baik barang maupun jasa. Mulai dari memasang iklan di internet maupun di depan lapak. Membuat kartu nama, brosur dan booklet, semuanya adalah cara menjual atau memasarkan produk.

Untuk sebagian orang, menjual berarti ada barang yang harus dia jual, tidak peduli apa barangnya, bagaimana kualitasnya, intinya barang tersebut harus dijual. Seperti tukang sayur yang biasa lewat di depan rumah, pastinya kebanyakan mereka akan membiarkan ibu-ibu mengerumuni dagangannya dan membayar. Karena apa? karena mereka sudah terlalu lelah untuk menjelaskan produknya, bagaimana kualitas ikan dan sayur yang mereka punya.

Linchpin

Have you ever thought about to be a boss?! a director or an owner of a company?!

Linchpin is one of Seth Godin's book. I brought it couple weeks ago in Gramedia Cinere. Yup, i am trying to increase my reading interest. I bought three books to read but i have just completed reading one of them. Linchpin is the second one. I am in the middle of it now.

If you have ever dreamed about to be a boss or the one who's indispensable, the one who is really needed by a company, then you are dreaming a "linchpin".

Dalam bahasa Indonesia, "linchpin" berarti "pasak pada As roda". Pasak dalam setiap konstruksi merupakan hal yang penting. Bahkan coba anda bayangkan jika sebuah rumah pasaknya tiba-tiba runtuh???that's linchpin!

Lihat Celah di Samping Sang Gajah

Pernah terdengar oleh saya seorang teman mengatakan bahwa hidup adalah kumpulan masalah. kenapa? karena setiap hari, kita akan dihadapkan kepada masalah demi masalah, baik itu masalah yang kompleks maupun masalah yang ringan. Contoh saja, katakan sekarang anda hidup di siang hari, pekerjaan yang anda lakukan butuh penyelesaian, itu adalah salah satu contoh masalah, macet di jalan saat pulang, itu masalah lainnya....mungkin itu adalah alasan teman saya mengatakan bahwa hidup adalah kumpulan masalah. bahkan pada saat dia mendapatkan proyek besar, dia bilang itu adalah masalah.

Positifnya, teman saya itu berkata : "proyek ini adalah masalah yang harus diselesaikan, dan itu adalah tantangan, indahnya hidup ini", begitu kira-kira katanya.

Sekarang mari kita bayangkan masalah sebagai seekor gajah purba yang besar yang ada di depan mata kita. ke mana kita memandang saat ada gajah besar di depan kita?!tentu saja perhatian anda akan tercurah kepada besarnya si gajah yang nongkrong tanpa dosa di depan anda, bukan?!

week#5 Tell Them That It's All For Sale

we got a good lesson last week : "earlier you come to the market, better spot you get"

so this morning i woke up earlier and prayed to Allah "ya Rabb, lariskan dagangan saya"

it was about 5AM in the morning when i arrived at home after morning pray in musholla. my wife had prepared everything we need for selling goodiebags in sunday market last night. goodiebags were packed, hangers were also packed in another bags.

0520AM i went to the market alone. i brought two huge red bags and wuuussss.....

i arrived at the market at about 0540AM. The other sellers were preparing their store but i hadn't brought my team. My wife was still at home trying to wake up Mima and Baim, both children are so hard to be awakened. So, i just put two mats on the ground and the bags on the top of it. You know the risk, the bags could be stolen by anyone. Alhamdulillah, the bags and the mats were still there on the ground and complete when i arrived with my wife and children. Still i had to ask my Dad's help to bring another bags (maklum, masih pengendara sepeda montorrr).

Brochuring is Easy (Resulting)

so, you already have a nice brochure template, printed it into hundreds or thousands copies and spread them in some points. what's next? yup, the result!!

THE RESULT

you must wait a while for the brochure to work and show you some good result. i was very happy to have first short message from my reseller candidate at the first day i spread the brochure. It was bu Sarah who sent me sms, she was my first reseller gained by brochuring. She told me that she had my brochure from her daughter who went to the sunday market this morning. She booked a dozen goodiebags that day and i delivered them after lunch.

actually, we had sold 6 pcs goodiebags in the sunday market at the sameday and the brochure gave us another one dozen. it had happened in our 2nd week of selling goodiebags in sunday market.

Brochuring is Easy (Spreading)

setelah anda selesai membuat brosur yang cantik, pastikan semua informasi yang terkandung di dalamnya benar dan sesuai dengan harapan anda. pastikan tidak ada salah ketik, terlebih lagi pada bagian kontak yang tertuju kepada anda.

tugas berikutnya yang juga mudah adalah menyebarkan brosur ini ke seluruh penjuru dunia. ya, penjuru dunia. terlalu berlebihan?tidak juga! ada banyak cara untuk kita menyebarkan brosur yang telah kita buat hingga brosur ini bisa sampai ke Papua atau bahkan Norwegia!

ONLINE

cara paling mudah adalah dengan menggunakan internet! jika ada sudah memiliki kontak yang baik di belahan bumi lainnya, anda kirim brosur anda sekarang juga! send the brochures via email! brosur yang baik akan tetap menawan meski dikirim via email. cara kedua untuk memanfaatkan internet bagi penyebaran brosur anda adalah dengan membuat website di mana anda simpan brosur tersebut di salah halaman pada website tersebut.

jadi, singkat kata, you already have two online marketing tools : email and websites.

actually nobody will go to your websites if you don't tell them to. so, you can put you website address in your  email signature, publish them via sms, email and many other media you can use. You can use your facebook account to announce your website address.

anytime you need to post on it, put your website address in it. no only facebook, you can also use yahoo messenger to announce your website address. send broadcast message to your contacts and make sure you use nice words to announce it. tawarkan nilai lebih dari broadcast message anda semisal "konfirmasi hari ini, dapatkan voucher gratis Rp. 10000 untuk setiap pembelian 1 lusin goodiebags!"

Dan masih banyak lagi cara untuk menyebarkan brosur secara online dengan memancing para calon pembeli menuju ke website anda. Layanan iklan via sms bisa digunakan dengan biaya yang cukup murah. Saya sendiri belum coba hal itu karena website saya baru saja rampung tadi malam. Dalam waktu dekat, insya Allah saya akan gunakan media iklan tersebut dan lihat berapa hits kunjungan per hari menjangkau website saya.

Jika anda perhatikan paragraf di atas, saya mentautkan kata "website" di atas dengan website jualan saya. whenever you click on it, you'll be brought to my website. There are so many ways to bring customer candidates into your websites. be creative!

OFFLINE

You may have seen my pictures when i spread the brochure in my previous posts, that is one of hundred ways to spread the brochure offline. To perform nicely when you do it offline, you have to pay attention on how you look, your words and smile.

when you spread the brochure online, you don't worry about your face and appearance. it will be different when you face the people directly, face to face. they will look at your face and smile, they will observe you from head to toe. wear nice clothing, brush your teeth, practice your words and smile before you go down to the real crowd.

one thing you may not forget, bring your product samples when you spread the brochure offline. sometimes people ask you something related to the product and product sample is the real answer for their questions.

look at the picture on the left, i bring two product samples. so i can explain what is inside the brochure.

how effective is the brochure for selling your product? you'll find out the answer on my next post insya Allah...

agbtopmarketer

http://www.agbdistro.blogspot.com/ | YM:agbisme

Brochuring is Simple (Starting)

SALES RESULTS

i had started "brochuring" since my 2nd week of selling goodiebags. it was triggered by negative sales result we had on our first week. there's nothing new about brochure.  i am sure that  you have known this marketing tool since you were born, maybe :)

but sometimes we're just too lazy to create a good brochure and spread them to our customer candidates. or else we don't have any idea on how to make a good brochure, we don't know where to spread them. think!

SIMPLE

you don't have to be a photoshop expert to create great brochure. just use your imagination, play some words and colors. that are some tips from me to create your first eye catching brochure. remember the words : imagination, words and colors.

weeek#4 and its more challanging

jualan di lapak pasar kaget memang unik. di sini biayanya cukup murah, namun untuk tempat, siapa berani jamin?! anda masih di tempat yang sama dari minggu ke minggu?!. pengalaman kali ini, kami terlambat setengah jam dan tiba-tiba lapak kami "disambar" orang. siapa cepat dia dapat. walhasil, kami harus bergeser ke lapak sebelah yang untungnya masih kosong.

itulah mungkin hikmah dari bangun pagi. supaya rejeki ga "dipatol" ayam... :)

sejak jam 0630 AM saya membagikan brosur dan sesekali saya kembali ke lapak melihat perkembangan kepadatannya. hanya saja, lapak terlihat agak sepi kali ini. tak lama saya kembali ke gerbang dan kembali membagikan brosur hingga jam 0745 AM. Lapak masih juga terlihat sepi. saya coba amati sekeliling dan melakukan analisa singkat. berikut hasil pengamatan dan analisa saya terhadap situasi pasar di pagi hari ini :

Goodiebags Challenge : 10000 goodiebags soldout by the end of Dec 2012

terdengar sangat tidak masuk akal? atau justru sebaliknya? semua itu tergantung persepsi, pengalaman dan sikap mental anda mensikapi tantangan yang saya sebutkan di atas.

Desember 2012 masih jauh, masih 7 bulan lagi! dan saat ini kami sudah hampir menjual sebanyak 3000pcs of goodiebags. jadi, untuk mencapai target tersebut, setidaknya kami harus membukukan penjualan sebanyak 1000 goodiebags per bulannya. mungkinkah???

impossible is nothing or nothing is impossible?!

week#3 it works!

it was April 29th, 2012, 

on week#2 we made it, we had sold out 19 goodiebags. 6 pcs were bought by end user and the other 13 were bought by reseller. it was awesome!! the reseller called us and told me that she had had the brochure from her daughter who went to the market. amazing! why??

she didn't even go to the market but she got the brochure! so, don't be so selective to your customer candidates, spread the brochure to everyone and let Allah "ping" their heart to come to you.

this story is about our 3rd sales activity in UIN Sunday market. 19 is a good number for beginner, but as a human being, 19 is not enough, LOL. that was why i have to make something new in my brochure, something attractive. what is it?? discount!! i discussed this strategy with my wife and she agreed to give customers a discount. what's the rule ? 

"everyone who comes with our brochure will get a Rp. 2500.-/pc discount!".

after setting up the store, i move to the gateway and spread the brochure. not only brochure, i brought two sample of goodiebags so that people will see the products. 

"silahkan Bu, toko kami di dekat parkiran motor. Bawa brosur ini dan dapatkan diskonnya", i told the customers. the strategy seemed to work, many people were interested and they came to me asking for the brochure. it was fascinating when you feel your strategy works. i brought about 150 sheets of brochure and spend almost one hour to spread them infront of UIN Sunday market.

"Apa ini pak?", a mom asked.

"Ini tas anak, bu. Bagus...", i answered.

"Bisa kita berbisnis?", she asked.

and the story went so far up until now, i had sent 5 dozens of goodiebags to Sulawesi. that's the result of week#3.

i run out of the brochures so that i got back to the store and took a rest. i let my wife and sister to assist the customers. it seemed that we had a lot of customers today. we closed the store 30 minutes later than usual. it was 0900 AM when we finally closed our store.

"dapat berapa kita hari ini?", i asked my wife.

"lumayan kayanya, 36 pcs, kalo ga salah", she explained.

"mima!!papa berhasil!! hari ini kita menjual banyak!", i told my Fatima.

and then we discussed our glory on the way we got home. 

"Alhamdulillaaaah", i praised Allah for His blessing today.

so, the total sales of our offline selling in UIN Sunday Market is about 17-20 dozens. if we count in detail, its about 3x1,5 hours. quiet effective? go to the market, now!

agbtopmarketer

www.tokopedia.com/topmarket