Self-confidence In the Banking Workplace

Being amidst banking industry can be exciting but at the same time, brushing shoulders with so many smart and intelligent executives and officers, you could ultimately suffer from low-self esteem.

Confidence is a vital aspect of our day-to-day lives and is especially important in the banking jobs. After all, you would not be appreciative of a colleague who fumbles and trips over his words while doing a presentation. Unfortunately, not everyone was born with "built-in" self confidence. In fact, many of us had to work hard to achieve some semblance of confidence.

People with low confidence and self-esteem often feel unappreciated and find it hard to succeed. The good thing is that it can be achieved with time and effort. Rome was not built in a day, and as for banking job is concerned, so don't expect the same for yourself and do not push yourself to the limit.

You can easily distinguish a self-confident person from others. They stand tall and proud with their head held high and answer questions clearly but calmly. You will feel instinctively drawn to them because they inspire others around them. This automatically concludes that a self-confident person is often more successful than those who are not.

How confident are you to your colleagues? Take a breather and answer some of these questions to see if you need a crash course in building your confidence.

Pride in what you have achieved

Keep a log book or a diary and jot down all the achievements you have made. Perhaps you have closed a successful sales deal or have been recently promoted. Take note of praises and words of encouragement from your superior. For days when you feel down and demoted, flip through the pages and re-read some of your successes. They are a constant reminder that you can do it and are able to achieve more if you set your heart to it in your banking job.

A go-getter

Set realistic goals for yourself and stick to it. Say "I will complete this project in a fortnight" and not "I think I can complete it in a fortnight". If you make a strong reinforcement to the statement, chances are your brain will register and you will be able to meet the deadline. Also, try to set goals that will highlight your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

Receive a compliment graciously

It is a natural instinct for Asians to be overly humble when someone compliments them. Look around with those with banking related jobs. Don't be. Acknowledge that you deserve the compliment because you have worked hard for it. Smile and say "Thank you. It was really nice of you to notice my work. I'm very proud of it as well" and not "Oh, it was nothing. Anyone could have done it." The former shows that you are capable of handling tough projects while the latter says that you are a pessimist, plus it also gives the impression that your job is an easy-peasy one!
Positive self-talk

Last but not least, celebrate to rejoice in the fact you have worked diligently to bring your self- confidence to another level. Allow yourself some fun. After this, stretch yourself a little bit more. Make your goals bigger and challenge yourself more. Take it one step at a time at a pace that's comfortable to you. Some people take three months; others may take up to six months or more. You will slowly notice a difference in yourself, and able to strive forward with your rewarding banking career.

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Sales jobs in Malaysia: Listening skill

Have you ever been in a middle of an pitch or even in a conversation in that matter, when the person you are talking to just gets up and walks away? Or fiddles in the chair? Or even looks everywhere but at you? How does this make you feel? Most people feel hurt. The listener acts as though he or she is absolutely not interest in what the speaker has to say or already said. And yet, when it is their turn to talk, they expect, if not demand, attention especially when you are doing sales job in Malaysia.

Have you ever been in a heated conversation and realize that your partner has no idea what you have been saying? It could very well be the manner that you are delivering the argument or speech, or it may even be that your partner is a poor listener. Poor listening skills seem to be the majority and not the minority of fresh graduates. Since Malaysia, in particular those in the sales category is so used to being fast paced in all matters, we often forget how to slow down and just listen.

So how can one learn to be a good listener? Below are some common tips that can help poor listeners work wonders in all situations not only during interviews.

Learn to listen by using lots of eye contact:
Let the speaker know that you are interested in what is being said

Be slow to speak:
Sometimes, people speak to think out loud. Sometimes, all they really want is a shoulder to lean on and a willing ear to listen. By being slow to speak, you are allowing the speaker to work out or solve problems themselves. Also, one must think before he/she speaks

Keep the secret:
People trust you with information because they believe that you will not gossip and spread slander. Keep their trust by keeping things private; between the two of you

Be Attentive:
Learn to actively listen. Let the speaker know that you are actually listening, although you are not speaking, by saying things like, "yeah, hmmm, I know, that's true, okay, that makes sense," and so forth. This shows that you are in tune with what they are saying and also following what they are saying

Show Gratitude:
Let the speaker know that you feel honored that they were able to open up to you. If nothing personal was said, than let the speaker know that you had a great time listening and that you learned a lot. In a society that forgets to show gratitude, a simple use of kind words, can make someone's day a little brighter. Showing kindness and appreciation will also help you with the interviewer

Stay in Tune:
Do not simply disappear in the middle of any conversation because your mind wandered. Whether you actually get up and walk away or let your mind wander elsewhere, it is just being plain rude. If you find that your attention span is small, actively repeat what is being said to you as the speaker is speaking. That makes you one step ahead as someone doing sales job in Malaysia.

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Oh boys, where art thou?

Looks like we are going to, or already are, get(ting) more females in the workforce if we were to judge from the entries in our universities.

The Star newspaper reported that more girls are getting places in universities than boys and this is worrying the Higher Education Ministry.

“It is not that the ministry is against female dominance at the local universities. But it is important to ensure a balanced growth for both genders,” the report quoted the minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin as saying.

He said male students made up just 35% of the overall intake at the local universities this year.

“This problem needs to be immediately addressed,” he said adding that however, there was a “healthy balance” of male and female students for technical-based courses.

“But we need to work on encouraging male students to enroll for other courses, too,” he said.

“Other than that, we have a shortage of students enrolling for science and technological based courses this year,” Mohamed Khaled said, adding that 5% of available seats for such courses were not taken.

“We will try and fix these problems at the secondary school level and hopefully, we will be able to achieve our target in future,” he said.

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Sales job and Psychology in Malaysia

Selling is not all about talking, persuading and garnering commitments. It goes beyond knocking the doors, getting appointments and convincing the potential customer till one runs out of saliva. This applies so, no matter where, whether it's sales job in Malaysia or elsewhere.

In the knowledge era, one should eradicate the nostalgic, but thoroughly reviled memory of door-to-door salesman whose qualification is that he's desperate for the job and can talk till the cow comes home.

Note that salesperson of the days of yore are referred to as "he". The job has become sophisticated and requires nuances of a chic personality that ladies are neck to neck in competition with the old school gentleman with feminine charm, female wit and womanly power of persuasion. Sales personnel doing the job in Malaysia are just that.

Sales job has come to a point where one needs more than a selling skill, or marketing ability to get the products or services paid for and used by clients. It's not surprising that the most successful have become a sort of a psychologist themselves.

"When you use psychological (techniques), you glide ever so smoothly over people's natural predispositions that it's practically effortless for you to generate sales," says Kevin Wilke Founder, NitroMarketing.com This spells the greatest difference between the ethical form of mind control used in marketing, versus its evil stepbrother – the kind involving covert behavior modification techniques especially so for such jobs in Malaysia.

Wilke said the latter concept of "mind control” probably conjures up intrusive devices reminiscent of the "Manchurian Candidate," that coerce or manipulate people to do things against their will, or even introduce electrical impulses that affect the cerebral cortex and produce robotic behavior in human beings.  Needless to say, this is not the context of mind control that I am referring to – and neither is it the kind I would advocate nor promote in the field of sales.

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Why sell to one when you can sell to thousands?

Pssssst... Want to know the secret to quick sales success? You make your time count.

Sure there are time management sheets, activity sheets, goal setting sessions and electronic tools that help you make your time count, but they are boring. These tools don't excite you to sell more. Who wants to spend their time filling out activity sheets? The more exciting way to make your time count is...

To STOP selling just one to one. If you meet 5 customers a day for 366 days, never take a break, turn all your hair white and then end up losing your hair, you will get to meet 1825 customers a year. And by the time you get to customer 1825, you'll be crawling your way to your meeting, your customer will be so aghast with this ragged bald man trying to sell them something they will run for their lives.

What if you can sell to thousands instead of one to one? Meet more than 1825 customers in one fell swoop and do it once a month. This is a surefire way to become a legend in your industry, increasing your sales to the stratosphere. In case you’re interested, here are some tips to use the stage to your advantage.

Firstly use structure. Nothing's worse than a person with a mic rambling off anything that comes to his mind. Definite turn off and if you're a turn off in front of thousands, you are better off staying at home. Using structure is easy, at the most basic level, even for a speech 2 minutes long or 2 hours long. Have an introduction, point 1, point 2, point 3 and a close. A 2 minute speech will have less stories than a 2 hour long speech but the structure must still be evident. If you want people to remember what you say, then the speech must be structured so it can be stored efficiently in their brain.

Secondly evoke emotion. To do this, you can do it two ways, you can be yourself or you can be a very talented actress. If you're not a talented actress, then learn to be transparent, learn to be yourself and learn to stop being prohibitive on stage. If you sound boring on stage, then I can assure you, everyone else on the floor will be 10 times more bored. To do this it's simple, tell stories, lots of stories. Remember the time you were a kid, listening intently to a story your uncle was telling you? Even though we are adults, we are still the same. Stories put us into another world, stories paint a picture for us, stories makes us feel and understand the characters in the story you're telling. So, learn to tell stories.

Thirdly use your body and vocals. Variety is the spice of life and the same can be said about variety on stage. When you'e animated and you're varied, your audience becomes glued to you. There's a truth to be said about effective speaking being an entertainer first and a speaker second. So try to never use the rostrum if you can help it, try to vary your voice and try to move your body and be expressive with it.

If you use these 3 tips, you are well on your way to speaking effectively and selling effectively to a large crowd and like a wise man once said "wife one enough, audience one not enough".

More substitute teachers wanted

All because of extended maternity leave for women, especially teachers.

The Star newspaper reported that the Education Ministry needs more substitute teachers following the decision to increase the maternity leave for women.

At the last Budget session, the Government announced that women teachers are eligible to take maternity leave of up to 90 days, compared to 60 days previously.

“The number of days has increased. This means we need more substitute teachers, or an increase of at least 50%,” the report quoted Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong as saying.

He added, however, that the ministry was looking into ways to solve the problem.

He was speaking at a press conference after opening the English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC)-Teacher Education Division (TED) Conference 2011 here yesterday.

Dr Wee said substitute teachers were needed because teachers sometimes took maternity leave simultaneously.

“It is not easy to find substitute teachers,” he said, adding that although there were back-up teachers it requires careful planning and an increase in allocation.