Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Have you been invited to join various specialized Facebook groups lately?  For example, “Malaysia Badminton Network” for badminton lovers and “Malaysia Web Designers” for web professionals?

Yes, I have been joining some of these groups. Also learning about this new way of making money – building recommender community groups on Facebook.

Correct me if I’m wrong. But it works like this:

1. Decide on your passion, such as table-tennis or reading books.
2. Create a Facebook group around your passion, such as “Malaysia Table-Tennis Network”. Decide on what you can offer your group members.
3. Invite your friends on and off Facebook to join your group. Aim for the number.
4. Keep posting useful messages to group members to build your credibility, and make sure they get something beneficial out of joining your group!
5. Once you have reached a critical mass, such as 1000 members in your group, start leveraging the number to make money!

For example, you can contact sport organizations and companies to sponsor events, contests and prizes for your table-tennis sport group. You can help these sponsors sell their products. In return, you may get a cut of the profit.

Another example I’ve witnessed a book love group are doing. They leverage on their high number of members to negotiate with MPH to gain discount for their members.

I don’t know exactly yet how to translate number of members into profits, since I’m not there yet. But since you are leading your many group members now, you have the influence over the group members and “recommendation power” to talk to businesses interested in your group as their target customers.

And once you have achieved success with one niche group, start another group (better be related, I supposed), and leverage on the first group to promote the second!

Just announce to the first group that you have created a second group, then many of them will join you since they already trust you!

Does this business model work? I don’t know. But according to one Internet guru, building recommender community groups is one of the most profitable ventures on the Internet.

And what do you think?

I just started a new chapter in life by enrolling into the Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme with Graduate School of Management in Universiti Putra Malaysia (GSM-UPM).  And I feel excited about it! 

Coming from a technical background in software engineering,  I worked as a programmer and software developer, later started my own business.  But the problem is, there is a whole lot of difference between a business run by a technician, and a business run by a business person.

In trying to cross over from a technical person to a business person, there are many skills and expertise I need to develop, including problem-solving, presentation, public speaking and networking, among others.

Certainly no MBA will be the magic bullet to provide everything I need to learn in business.  But it will give me a good foundation in both knowledge and business skills, knowledge being the know how in different functional aspects of business and business as a whole, which I never learned in a class.

But most importantly, it’s the business skills that I’m looking for.  I would not have gone for any academic course in business, if not for its student-centered learning, problem-based learning and self-directed learning approaches by GSM.  Their unique positioning in how they impart knowledge and skills to the students attracted me, apart from being one of the top business schools in Malaysia and Asia.

I’m taking only two subjects per trimester (school term or semester as they call it, as there are three semesters in a year), which is the least number of subjects possible, in order to spread the whole course over 2 years. My subjects this trimester are Organizational Behaviour and Accounting For Decision Making if you are interested to know.

I don’t want to rush as I still have a business to take care. I also think it’s the learning and development process that counts, not just the end result.  Moreover, I don’t need to finish the course quickly in order to get to the job market fast. I’m not interested in job anyway

So I’m glad to be an MBA student now.  It will be an important part of my learning and development plan in realizing my dream in business. I’m going to learn, develop, network and enjoy in the whole process!

Much thanks to my long time customer Ms Alison and business partner Tim for being kind and supportive referees to recommend me for the course.

If you are a current MBA student in GSM, I want to know you! Please add me as your friend on my Facebook page! (Please do introduce yourself when adding)

What do you think of MBA? Feel free to share

One year ago, a customer who had been hosting with me for a few years, decided to hire a new web designer.  The web design company was a reputable one and customer was very satisfied with their work.

However, this web design company insisted the customer use their web hosting service.  Web hosting was part of their web development package for the customer.  Not being a technical person and not having been briefed clearly, the customer unknowingly agreed to the deal.

Later the web design company called me up to get my “cooperation” to transfer hosting to their server.  I sought clarification from customer but he said he never wanted to switch hosting provider.  He still wanted to host with me.

But the web design company was very adamant that the customer must host with them.  They claimed that they had set up everything about customer’s web site and database on their own in-house server, and so it was very troublesome to move their work to my server.  They said it was “easier” for them to develop the web site by hosting on their server.

Luck was on my side, though.  Customer insisted to host with me and gave them official notification to the web design company to host their works on my server.  Long story cut short, the customer is still happily hosting with me until now.

By some discovery later on, I found out that the web design company was actually using hosting from third-party hosting provider.  So they had not been very honest by saying the customer must host on their own “in-house server”.

From my experience, it is generally not true that you must host your web site with your web design company.  No matter where you host, as long as they get hold of the details on how to log on to the server, they can do their work.

It is also generally not true that it’s “easier” for them to develop your web site on their server.  No matter where you host, they work on your web site using pretty much the same ways – uploading and downloading by FTP, web-based administration using cPanel and PhpMyAdmin, and so on.

But I know of some cases where a customer’s web site makes use of special features available only on the web designer’s server.  Then in such cases, you have no choice but host with them.  But these cases are rare.

Web design and web hosting are two different services.  These two services can be separated and provided by different providers. But a web design company often bundle web hosting in their service, and this is perfectly good strategy.  But it is not good when they are not being honest and transparent with you.