Voices // Friday, July 7, 2006
ISay
TANG LI
WITH so much being said about sex or the lack of it in Singapore, I've been reminded of my friend Sam.
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I met him when I was studying in London. Although Sam was considerably less educated, I learnt more from him in one drinking session than I did from all my university professors in three years.
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I have to be blunt. Sam was everything one would not want to be. He was physically unattractive, jobless and unsophisticated to the point that he did not know the difference between email and the Internet.
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He couldn't be described as a sports jock, either. Yet, Sam managed to pick up 167 beautiful women in a single year.
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I wasn't the only person to be baffled by this. My neighbour, who was studying for a PhD in psychiatry, and my sister with her female intuition, spent hours trying to figure out what those women saw in Sam. Then one day, Sam and I found ourselves at the same bar.
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Looking back now, I realise that Sam was right — if Singapore is serious about creating entrepreneurs, it will need many more people like him.
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Let me sum up Sam's messages:
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Listen. He may have been uneducated, but Sam understood one basic human trait. People are selfish and prefer talking about themselves rather than listening.
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"Men," he said, "like to brag, thinking it impresses girls. Actually, it's a turn-off." Sam argued that a man improves his chances when he listens to the woman more than he talks. That way, he is able to tailor his message to his audience.
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Imagine how much more successful we would be with prospective customers if we entered their offices eager to listen to them and understand their concerns instead of trying to dazzle them with our brilliance.
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Be confident. Sam, for all his imperfections, exuded confidence. He approached women with some of the worst chat-up lines, such as, "Do you believe in fate? I do. It's fated that we meet."
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The number of women who fell for such lines was staggering. Sam said: "I ask 20 women to go out with me every day and two accept." Only a 10 per cent success rate, but how many of us would be confident enough to approach 20 different women a day?
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The same can be said of job hunting and client prospecting. It's hard work, rejection is likely, but if you don't have the guts to try, you get nothing.
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Learn the art of "packaging". Sam knew how to package himself. I'm not the only person to describe him as ugly, but to his credit, he knew how to achieve a "funky" look.
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His fashion sense was definitely out of place in Buckingham Palace, but it suited London's Soho culture. The beauties who flocked to the area found Sam's style irresistible. Now, if only someone would teach us how to get the right look for those job interviews.
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My sister and I could not resist telling our mother about the "ugly man" and his 167 women. Mother must have gotten so tired of listening to all of this that, one day, she could only tell us: "Boy, he must have been really awful for 167 women to go through him."
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But here lies the most important lesson. A good business needs a decent product or service. Bill Bernbach, the legendary founder of advertising agency Doyle Dern & Bernbach, expressed it best: "The magic is in the product."
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Aspiring entrepreneurs or graduates looking for their first job would do well to learn from my friend Sam. It's funny how our culture dismisses the guys who seem so successful with women as "playboys".
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Shouldn't we be learning from them a trick or two that can be applied to the various aspects of our daily lives?
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This is contributed by a
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freelance writer.
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What's your view? Email us at
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news@newstoday.com.
Copyright: (C) MediaCorp Press Ltd 2006
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