Count Your Blessings Day #8

Assalamualaikum everyone, how are you?

For today’s Count Your Blessings story, I would like to share a bit about my team. I am truly blessed and grateful to Allah for granting me such wonderful teammates whom I can rely on. For today’s story, I would like focus on the Business Development and the Growth & Marketing team.

If you follow my stories, I actually came from the Engineering background, and dived into the IT sector in 2009. I really enjoy doing Marketing and Business Development activities. These are the 2 teams that I work closely with on daily basis.

I am grateful to have such a strong and closely knit team – From left: Haslan, Nisa, Pak Ngah (En Johari), Aliff, Ayah(Ir Aziz Ismail), Ezwan Zulkiflee, Amir, Anisa. In the front: Athilah, Alif Najmi Bahari.

My teammates work very hard, and have very good teamwork. Each one of us came from various different backgrounds – from Accountancy, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Ecommerce, Economics, Mathematics, Advertising, Electronics and Business Admin. None of us actually had any formal education in Marketing, but that does not stop us from doing the things we need to do to grow the company together. No excuses.

We learn together, we try and error together – and most important of all, we consistently improve our approach and knowledge together so that we can grow together to greater heights. In short, we do and experience almost everything together. I am proud to say that I learned a lot from each and every one of them. And I absolutely love to watch them grow.

For your info, one of my team members is differently abled, but instead of seeing it as a weakness, we see it as a strength – he can craft marketing materials very well and have very good eyes in coordinating colors and designs. Everyone falls in love with his designs. Here, we believe that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, which we work together to capitalize on our strengths and overcome our weaknesses.

Alhamdulillah, I am so happy to be blessed with such wonderful teammates. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to work with each and every one of them.

Thank you, Allah.

Count Your Blessings Day #4

Assalamualaikum everyone!

It’s the first Friday of Ramadhan this year and I hope all of you are doing great.

I have been blessed with many wonderful people in my life. And right now, I am blessed with the best teammates ever.

Due to the length of this story, I will make this story into a few parts. Let me start with Part 1 today.

I joined Venture back in 2009, right after I graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology. I am from Electrical Engineering background, but dived into the IT Sector instead. I started out as Digital Marketer and also Programmer.

The year I joined Venture, was a challenging year for Venture. When I came in, a lot of people were actually leaving at that time. The first 2 years were quite hazy for me due to the fast turnover of people. I don’t even remember what I did for that first 2 years.

In 2011, Venture started to have some stability. The backbone of the company at that time depended on these 6 people – En Aziz (my dad), Mr Jabbar, Zul, Fauzul, Haslan and I. Aisya would join and help us out during summers. During this time, I learned a lot of new things – programming, managing projects, accounting, finance, human resources, sales, marketing and a whole vast of different areas.

My dad often told me that in order to be a good leader, you have to start from the bottom. And that is what I did. I am blessed to have wonderful people as my teammates, who supported me and helped me in my career. There are a lot of things that we learned and experimented together.

Even though it was very hard at that time, I am grateful to Allah for this experience as I am able to increase a lot of knowledge and skills within short period of time, which may not be the case if I enter Ventures during “cosy” years.

From these 7 people, I am very grateful that 5 of us are still here growing Venture together. Mr Jabbar and Fauzul have moved to their next adventures in life, but they will surely always be missed.

And yes, now in 2021, Ventures backbone has grown to have many more people, whom I love and cherish. We have a great team now – which I will share in another story.

I hope you have wonderful teammates too =)

#authenticventure #teammates #growth #love #countyourblessings

5 reasons why internship is important

Are you a student? Are you currently going through your internship program or thinking to join an internship program?

One thing that I observe, and someone has taught me this too previously, is that when you are a students, all the stress that you undergo such as studying, preparing for exams, etc, is not as big as it seemed once you enter the real working world, especially once you assume more responsibility such as taking care of your family – even more so once you are married.

This is the same as when you undergo your internship program. If you are too stressed out or depressed during the internship duration, that is a sign that you’re not managing your time and stress well enough.

5 reasons why internship program is important to a student (of course, besides getting a pass in the course):

1. This is the time to actually discover your interests

You might think you like what you’re doing or going to do while you were in the university, but it might be a totally different world out there. University’s main point is to teach you how to communicate, think and bring yourself in the real world. Probably not so much on the work hands-on type of experience. Internship program allows you to have a hands-on experience in the area that you are assigned in.

2. Learn to communicate with your colleagues and superiors

Communications between friends, colleagues and superiors might be different depending on the situation(s). This is where you learn how to communicate and express your thoughts and ideas.

3. Learn to manage your time

Trust me, if you think you have too much things to do as an intern, you might not be managing your time well. So if you feel this, it is time to learn and improve your time management skills.

4. Learn to manage your stress

There is almost no company/organization in the world that you can work at that will have absolutely no pressure or stress. Sometimes stress can be a good motivator for you to complete your job.

The most important part is you have to manage your stress and learn how do you de-stress and motivate yourself to achieve more.

5. Opportunity to build your network

Take this opportunity to develop your network in the industry. Get to know people. For your information, besides you learning about the company and the mechanics of business, the company is also learning about you.

If you work hard, successfully give good impression during your internship program and get to know a lot of people whether your company’s employees or customers/suppliers, there’s a very high chance for you to secure employment / other opportunities in the future. And this goes a loooong way.

In the Ventures Internship Program that we have at our company, Authentic Venture Sdn Bhd, we learned a lot about each students that join us. Some of them actually take the good opportunity to learn more and have achieved quite good results in the program. However some also struggled and probably need more guidance in understanding the mechanism and benefits that they get from internship program.

At Authentic Venture, we provide a lot of trainings, learning opportunities and networking opportunities with other companies’ management and CEOs. It really boils down to the interns themselves to make full use of the opportunities provided.

Are you interested in our internship program? Feel free to send your resume to careers@ventures.com.my. Thank you!

Apakah jenis pekerja yang disukai oleh majikan/boss?

Apakah jenis pekerja yang disukai oleh majikan/boss?

1) Reliable
Bila bagi kerja, dia buat dan bagi output terbaik walaupun tak dimonitor all the time / micro manage. Tak sesuka hati ambil cuti last2 minute especially bila ada kerja important (unless perkara tersebut mmg tak dapat nak dielakkan/emergency leave). Kalau terpaksa ambil cuti semasa perlu siapkan kerja yang penting, sanggup menggantikan cuti tersebut utk memastikan kerja boleh disiapkan by deadline. Boleh dipercayai untuk menjalankan tugas dengan baik.

Majikan lagi suka sebenarnya staff yang boleh buat kerja dengan baik tanpa perlu nak disuruh dan diingatkan selalu.

2) Belajar dari kesilapan
Semua orang ada buat salah. Bila buat salah yang tidak disengajakan, biasanya majikan boleh maafkan (jangan buat company rugi terukla..), tapi sekiranya salah yang sama (yang telah ditegur dan diajar macam mana nak buat dengan cara yang betul) dilakukan berulang-ulang kali tanpa rasa bersalah dan tanpa sebarang improvement, yang ni pergilah majikan mana-mana pun diorg takkan suka. Apatah lagi pekerja yang jenis tak nak mengaku salah dan seboleh-bolehnya tidak mahu meminta maaf.

Employees-Keepers

3) Accountability
Sentiasa ada accountability iaitu bertanggungjawab terhadap kerja dan amanah yang diberikan. Sentiasa menyiapkan kerja sebelum deadline dengan kualiti yang baik dan berikan kepada boss tanpa perlu diminta dan diingatkan berkali-kali.

Sekiranya berlaku sebarang masalah, maklumkan kepada boss dengan awal, bersedia untuk mengaku salah dan membuat sehabis baik untuk membetulkan masalah tersebut dan berusaha untuk baiki supaya tidak lagi berlaku pada masa hadapan. Jangan asyik salahkan orang lain bila ada sebarang masalah dan tak berusaha untuk menyelesaikan masalah tersebut.

4) Positif
Semua boss/majikan suka pekerja yang positif dan membawa aura positif ke mana sahaja mereka pergi. Bukan sahaja boss, semua orang pun suka orang yang positif. Hal ini kerana orang yang positif boleh meningkatkan produktiviti kerja bukan sahaja diri sendiri juga kepada orang persekitaran.

Sekiranya anda jenis suka marah-marah orang tanpa sebab, suka meninggikan suara kepada rakan sekerja, suka bergosip2 sana sini, sukar mengumpat orang lain, suka mengadu domba di media sosial mcm facebook/whatsapp, rasanya bukan sahaja majikan, sesiapa pun tidak akan menyukai anda.

smile

5) Amanah dan Jujur
Amanah terhadap pekerjaan, syarikat dan juga majikan. Boleh diamanahkan untuk menjaga rahsia syarikat. Sekiranya ada masalah sanggup share masalah dengan majikan kerana almost semua majikan inginkan staff mereka happy dan akan bantu sekiranya dapat membantu untuk meringankan sebarang masalah.

Kalau ada masalah di tempat kerja atau dengan boss, better request untuk meeting dengan boss/majikan dan bincangkan masalah tersebut secara bersemuka untuk diselesaikan dengan baik instead of canang dan mengumpat sana-sini. Terus-terang saya cakap, tidak ada majikan yang sengaja nak tengok staff sedih. Biasanya kalau majikan tahu apa masalah yang staff tu hadapi, diorg akan sedaya-upaya bantu untuk meringankan masalah tersebut. Tapi sekiranya anda sendiri yang tidak jujur dan tidak mahu berkongsi masalah, jangan salahkan majikan tidak memahami anda.

Sekiranya anda ada masalah yg menyebabkan anda kena ambil cuti yang selalu atau berpanjangan, adalah lebih baik anda memaklumkan masalah yang anda hadapi kepada majikan. Hal ini kerana terlalu banyak pekerja yang abuse cuti, seperti apply medical leave kononnya demam tapi bila buka media sosial rupa2nya pergi bercuti sakan, update facebook tak habis-habis (kalau cukup sihat utk keluar bercuti dan boleh update facebook selalu, kenape tak dapat pergi kerja?).

Oleh itu, apabila ada pekerja yang selalu sangat ambil cuti tanpa mendetailkan masalah yang betul (dengan alasan tidak semua masalah boleh dikongsi), biasanya akan jejaskan produktiviti dan akan menyebabkan majikan memandang serong terhadap pekerja tersebut. Apatah lagi kalau cuti tersebut biasanya diambil pada hari Jumaat atau Isnin.
6) Hari ini lebih baik dari semalam

Semua majikan sukakan pekerja yang sentiasa berusaha untuk memberikan yang terbaik dan sentiasa lakukan improvement dalam kerja mereka. Mereka akan berusaha untuk meningkatkan taraf syarikat dan sentiasa memastikan mereka mencapai perkara yang lebih baik berbanding sebelum-sebelum ini tanpa perlu diminta oleh majikan.

set-a-goal-that-today-you-must-be-better-than-yesterday-quote-1

Apa lagi yang anda rasa jenis pekerja yang disukai oleh majikan?

Research Mode

Assalamualaikum wbt All,

How are you? Hope everything is great. I know, I know. It’s been like a few months since I last updated my blog. Sorry! I’ve been trying here and then but it seems I was too busy! (Yeah, and not very productive on weekends)

Anyway, currently I’m in research mode to understand about SaaS marketing strategies. I  hope I can improve my knowledge and grow AVSB at least 10 times this year, Insya Allah.

So, from now on I will share about marketing tips and strategies that I learned throughout my research days. I don’t really have much experience in marketing, most of it I learn from my mentor a.k.a father and our lovely partners.

I hope my research will also help benefit you and other entrepreneurs embarking on SaaS business. Hope you can share your views and knowledge too so that we can improve together.

By the way, Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

P/S: I am currently reading this.

What is TenderAsia?

TenderAsia is the latest product by Authentic Venture Sdn Bhd. It gets all tenders information around Asia including Malaysia, Indonesia and India.

Try visiting TenderAsia by clicking the link below:

TenderAsia

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