Saturday, April 16, 2016

Event Organiser

Q.
I have a small group of like-mind people who wants to come to a biz meeting but no proper place. Do you have a solution for that?

A.
This usually is settled by a meeting in a kopitiam. However, big company goes to hotel and convention centre. The concept is space, food & beverage and audio-visual facilities (AVF).

In fact, there is a cheaper way to do this by offering a mixture of space and necessities in the Internet. They do webinar.

But still, nothing can be compared to meeting up face-tp-face because emotion and response is instantaneous. For this, many are willing to pay a price.

So, I aspire to set up a 'kopitiam' to facilitate our group 'my-realestateforum' and other groups who are in need of this meeting facilities.

Who are the other groups?

Multi-level marketing, mushrooming enterprenuer, university groups, professional associations who does not have a space, and etc.

Medicines can cure illness.

Still, it needs a delivery system. That is medicine has to be applied to the patient. It is similar here.

A space is medicine for a meeting (need to solve problem). However, what is the delivery system?

In medicine, there is e.g. nanotechnology, like the chemo drugs being delivered to the tumour by a medium or being coated onto a nanoparticle.

So, how a meeting space is being delivered to, say a Multi-level brand or professional association?

This is the core discussion of this article.

Food and drinks (beverages) can be the bridging agent.
Entertainment (Karaoke) can be the agent too!
Seminars (educational) can be the value added service.

Food and beverages

This is simple and straight forward. Good food and drinks will attract patronage. Repeat patronage if excellent food at reasonable price.

A concept of bakery with good coffee or tea which is served in the ambient of air-conditioned boardroom is not over doing. Furthermore, some background classical music would be inviting for a small business meeting.

Of course, everything comes with a cost. Higher cost would be levied on certain food servings and duration of use would also determine the price. It is like cyber cafe.

Entertainment

Karaoke would be good if after some meeting, some people would like to let the hair down, so to speak to enjoy the company of friends with songs and musics. Despite, this profiling may incur extra cost and limited by restrictions due to local regulations.

Seminars

A good way to enhance the delivery system would be conducting selected seminar in the vacant space and time when it is underused.

As the space is used for meetings, similar purpose can be organised for the public. In such case, the branding of the space is really spelled out in its core competence - space for rent and seminar for rent.



Monday, February 22, 2016

Founded the Blog!

22.02.2016 - I founded this blog while flying from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu.

I have been dreaming to own a commercial property since many years ago - probably even when I was a school kid.

It was unimaginable as I had no idea how much shoplots would cost. My family had no one who owned a shop, needless to say who operated a business in a commercial outlet. Shop or commercial property to me was something of an astronomical figure. I was fully convinced in my life time that it was near impossible for me to own a shoplot. And yet, now I actually own one! Opph! Allow me to rephrase, own it in name but owe money to bank! But, it is rather extraordinary for me! (Consolation to myself)

However, since my young age - before primary school, I remembered my father who used to visit his old friend who owned a sundry business in a shop fronting the Sekama Road. We used to play on the first floor of his shop which was wooden on top and concrete at the ground floor. It gave me a vivid experience of a shoplot. At that time, owning a shop was like being 'boss' and you take no orders from others! My father's friend used to boost about how early he woke up and how late he worked on his accounts that his thriving business was.

From the outlook, my father was more of a Worker bee, and he was the Soldier bee. It was something which I did not quite understand, but yet look up to. Not as a fathery figure but as some form of comparison, inevitably, for the contrast that a government primary school teacher were against a thriving business owner.

There was another friend of his - who came to Kuching in the same boat, was also a businessman. He was involved in sundry business too! Both of them made their money while my father was salaried till retirement to good old age. This uncle is still alive but his children squandered his money and he is now left penniless living in a rented house. So, "life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." - a saying in the Forrest Gump movie.

Though not obviously seen, my father owned a single-storey house and a beetle car - good old Volkswagen. That old uncle did not need to own any car. He had a small lorry to ferry gunny sacks of rice to his customers. Therefore, to the small mind of a kid, the businessman would anytime win over a primary school teacher. Not because of any material variables, but the ownership of business.

It was like a sense of security, a true-on-the-ground feeling. Probably I was naive then, and really looked up to the taukei who passed away much younger after a heart attack, than my father (who is still alive kicking at 88 years old at time of writing). In my mind, in fact beginning till now, I thought it must be lots of enjoyment and lavish lifestyle - high cholesterol food and wine and women - something that you are fond of when at young age. Anyway, who's not young before? And, as I surpassed 45, (and started Estate Agent Exam) thing gets really rusty, and I realized time is no more on my side. I had to quickly decide what I need to do in 10 years to be able to retire at 58 - if ever I do live that long!

So, having said that I am actually quite lucky to be the first in my family of three siblings to own a strata shop. The type that in fact, costs less than a new semi D house in Kuching nowadays. Yet, I am pretty contented and proud if it. At least it is a place to carry out business. At last, I can start a business no matter how small or pathetic it is or rent it out and be taukei of some kind!

Maybe, just maybe my ambition is now achievable, so I am at peace with myself. In spite of echoing with rigor over my head, I had to restrain myself silently at heart. You can never know what is installed for you in life. And, ironically life is too short to live, so you just have to start doing something despite the risks involved.

In view of my gradual realization that corporate world is not my cup of tea, I had to look for some retirement plan too. So, that is it - a small startup of chain property agency firm with the concept of mixing leisure and work together.

I aspire to nurture a band of property enthusiasts who can come join me in the ambient of fragrance of coffee and tea - called 'ProperTea and Kopi'. It will support My-RealEstateForum - another blog with more consultative nature.

My hope is that the group of my eventual agents and negotiators would find this place a meeting of like-minds, a common place for sharing, learning and growing together.

Let us hope that this idea will flourish to become a brand of itself!

Thomas Sim
B Boss Inn,
Bundusan, KK