Super Team

It was a very quiet afternoon. We haven't made any booking for days. Only several customers came to pay their installment. At that time, our branch performance often became an issue with the Head Office management.

The day came.. That afternoon our Branch Manager called a meeting for all employees. He said that he will be transferred to another branch and his substitute will arrived in two days. I was quite shock to hear the news. I thought, "Maybe this is one of management's strategy to make this branch better and better." One thing for sure, I always believe my leader's decisions (in this case is the management) because we also wish this branch to get bigger.

Our Operational head told us, as an employee we have to trust our leader that they will bring us a better future as long as we have faith and work together to improve the branch. The meeting gave me a new positive attitude, that we must have faith on our leaders, not only to the Branch Manager & Operational head but also to Top Management that they would never neglect us. I was sure that our branch situation will get better.

Two weeks passed by so quickly. We said farewell to the former Branch Manager and in the beginning of the week on sunny Monday morning, the new Branch Manager started the day with a meeting with all employees. This is the same meeting like any other meeting (talking about marketing strategy, booking target, branch achievement in collection & marketing, etc) except there's one thing mentioned by our Operational Head that become our motto.

He said, "Let us together build this branch. Whoever the Branch Manager or Operational Head, it's all the same. We have to do our job wholeheartedly, not mediocrity.. And of course, there's no superman in this branch. The Branch Manager is not superman, The operational head is not superman and there might be some unit who think their unit is Superman unit. No, we all are SUPER TEAM.

Maybe the motto was planted in our hearts and our minds, helping reach our booking target of over 1 Billion. (maybe this amount is not so big for most of other branches but to our branch where the average booking is still under a Billion. This booking is something great and it gave our branch plenty to cheer about).

A “First Aid Kit” to Prevent Employee Hijack

One principle that I have always held while working at BFI is: To Trust and Respect For Each Other.
Without this value, I would feel as if I was working in a prison.

Based on my experience of working almost 3 years at BFI, I have superiors and also have those who work under my authority. The beauty of building relationships with colleagues is how we all realize that we need each other.
Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Working as a team, these individual strengths and weaknesses compliment each other. Nobody's perfect.
It's no secret anymore that employee hijacking is a very common practice in our business world.

I had one such experience when I worked in one of our BFI branches. One of my staff was offered a job for Finance A (our competitor). I couldn't do anything about this. She was one of my best staff and I could always count on her. To my surprise and relief, she refused the offer even though they offered her a higher salary. I called her and asked her reason for refusing the offer.
Her answer was quite surprising. She said, "I've felt very comfortable working at BFI. We have good working relationships, even between the Boss and regular employees.
I have felt respected and trusted when you have given me important jobs to do. I've felt like this office has become my second home and family. If I moved to A Finance I might not be able to find another situation like in BFI.”

I'm very thankful that our BFI core values have proven to be a successful ‘first aid kit’ to prevent employee hijacking. I'm also sure that BFI's core values are deeply rooted in all our BFI employees.

Optimize to Get the Most from Search Engines

One of the most cost-effective ways to drive traffic to your Web site is to optimize it for search engines. Many of them use automated programs called "crawlers" or "spiders" to create an index of the Web, which they use to determine what sites are most relevant to users' queries. These programs essentially visit Web sites, read the pages' content, and follow any links to other pages, repeating the process on the sites where they end up. By also retrieving information on link destinations and frequency, among other things, the search engines are able to better "understand" Web sites than if they only took site text into account. Therefore, the key to better placement in search results is making sure it is easy for crawlers to gather useful information about your site. Search engines particularly take into account the location and frequency of keywords on your pages in determining your site's relevance. Here are some specific things you can do to optimize your Web site:

* Get yourself a good domain name. Not surprisingly, URLs containing clear keywords generally perform better than those that appear random or are excessively long. And in addition to getting you higher placement in search results, having its own domain name gives your site added credibility. You'll want to make sure the name you choose logically pertains to the subject matter of your site, isn't too long to remember, and isn't easily misspelled. Use keywords that a crawler will understand, and try to avoid numerals or abbreviations.

* Choose keyword-rich titles for your pages. The [TITLE]; element that appears in your page headers is often used by search engines as the text for their link to your Web site. (As an example, the title of http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/?node=11091801 is "Amazon.com: Musical Instruments.") When you just use "Home Page," your company name, or something similarly uninformative, you are missing an opportunity to drive traffic to your site, since search engines weight [TITLE] elements heavily when determining the relevance of a page to a user's search. Therefore, try to make your titles easy to understand and rich in the keywords that your customers will be searching for.

* Add META elements to your site. Make use of description and keyword properties in your headers' META elements. META name="description" content="[a brief description of your site]" is often used by search engines to determine what your site is about. META name="keywords" content="[a list of relevant keywords]" is used less frequently by search engines, but can also help boost your site's relevance in their eyes. In writing a description and choosing keywords, think about how customers will be looking for information on your site, and choose specific terms that will attract traffic. You may want to use research tools like Wordtracker to help you in this. Avoid using the same set of keywords on every page of your site, however--they should be tailored to each page's specific content.

* Content matters. You will also benefit from providing rich content on your site. It is important that you include at least a few paragraphs of copy that is visible to crawlers and full of keywords, which will enable search engines to better classify your pages. Use the keywords you included in your META elements, and don't be afraid to use them many times within your copy. But, of course, what you write should make sense and be easy to digest, as readability is vital. You should also display text on your site as text, not as images, which crawlers cannot read. Use tags for pictures you do use, so that crawlers can get some information out of them, and incorporate HTML navigation wherever it is possible, even if this means adding redundant navigation at the bottom of your pages.

* Leverage links. Web sites that are linked to from lots of other sites are often deemed more popular and get a higher ranking in search results. However, more important than the number of links is the quality of those links. Contact owners of other Web sites that score highly for key phrases related to your content, and ask them if they will provide a link back to your site. Make sure, too, that the content on your own site is properly linked together. Crawlers will often start with your home page and then follow links from there to other areas of your site. Therefore, if you fail to provide working links to all your pages, some of your content may end up unindexed.

* Register your site. Once you've built and optimized your Web site, it's best to manually register your site with major search engines, like Yahoo!, Google, the Open Directory Project at DMOZ.org, LookSmart, and Ask Jeeves, or have a partner like Submitnet to do it for you. Registration doesn't take long, but do be careful to follow the instructions provided by each engine, as they are all a little different. Careless mistakes could keep your site from being indexed properly, or at all.

* Avoid pitfalls. Your goal is to increase your search-engine rankings, not to decrease them, but there are some things you can do that will accomplish just that. For example, some search engines don't index dynamic content on framed pages. If this applies to your site, therefore, think about ways to modify it so that it can be more easily indexed, or create alternate, crawler-friendly versions of your pages. Also, keep in mind that many search engines are familiar with common spamming techniques, like hidden text and irrelevant metadata, and will take appropriate action when pages using them are detected in their indexes.

* Be patient. Above all, remember to be patient! There's no magic bullet for getting the top spot in search engine indexes. If you've spent a lot of time optimizing your Web site and you still aren't seeing results, it may not make sense spending more time tweaking it so it will surface higher. There are other ways for you to drive traffic to your site on which your time would be better spent.

from: amazon.com

Acts of Caring

I can't stop wondering why I enjoy working at BFI so much. It's already been 11 years since I started serving at BFI. I love, I enjoy, and I'm very thankful for my job. I would like to share a little bit about one of BFI’s core values: Customer Satisfaction.

I've often seen customers on their first visit to the BFI office. Many look shy (because they come to borrow money) or afraid, especially those who come from out of town or from the village. Sometimes our Customer Service staff is busy and isn't able to serve the walk-in customer. Other employees don't really pay attention to those customers, perhaps because they are thinking, “Ah, he's not looking for me; he’s not my customer. Why should I bother?"

One day, I saw a customer who had been waiting for quite a long time and had started to look restless. I greeted him and tried to help him; even though, as a collection staff, that was not my main job. I was just trying to empathize. If I were the one who had to wait for quite a long time, I would feel upset and might not want to come back to BFI. This is just a small example of the "Caring Attitude" that I've been trying to develop and make a habit in my life. I want every customer to feel served & cared for while they are at BFI.

Another example of commitment to Customer Satisfaction is the story of Mr. F, a business man from S city. He wanted to buy one of the units BFI had repossessed. During the buying transaction, a problem arose with the lessee (a bad lessee). He asked my help since he had already paid the down payment to the lessee. I remember his words clearly: "Please help me. If this transaction fails, I'm dead, since the money I used for the down payment was not my own." He shared his problem with sad and anxious expressions. After I understood his situation, I told him, "Don't worry, BFI will do the best we can do."

I kept my promise and fixed the problem even though it took me two days because the problem was quite complicated. The transaction went well, and his anxiousness disappeared. He said thank you and admitted that BFI is indeed the best in Customer Service. Still today, Mr. F and I are good friends, and he still calls me to invite me to come to his place in S city. Here is my personal satisfaction that comes from working with a sincere heart.

To Trust and Respect Our Colleague

This is my experience when I was still an officer in A unit. There was a time when the activity level was very high because of the pressure from Management to fill the manpower needs for both the Branch and the Head Office. I was expected to adapt our schedule in order to fulfill those needs. It was something usual to forget the time or forget to eat. Maybe some of you have felt this, too. Sometimes our family became less of a priority because of work demand. It didn't mean that our family was forgotten.

I was greatly helped by my dear colleagues in A team to fulfill the demand. They held a significant role in supporting unit activities. The tight work demand didn't give me much time to give detailed explanations about the work list so I started to delegate and give full trust to my subordinates in supporting our unit activities.

One example of their support was to handle all of the preparations before I traveled out of town for my unit activities. I wrote down a list and they quickly prepared all the materials. I still checked the list but I soon learned that I didn't have to check the things or materials one-by-one. Every time I needed the material, they were available and systematically compiled. I really trusted them with those tasks.

To trust and respect them as my colleagues is the most important thing for me. It never crossed my mind that "I'm the Boss" or "I'm the senior" who knows it all and my colleagues have to submit and obey all my commands. I appreciate everything they have done. When mistakes were made, which is human, I was willing to understand and to deal with them with an open mind and a big heart. Perhaps not all of the mistakes were because of them, maybe I was responsible for some parts. That is why we try to communicate difficulties and problems. We try not to get overwhelmed by the problem but instead, we try to focus on finding the effective and efficient solution.

An indirect result of doing all the things mentioned above will be to make the working environment more solid, more supportive, more tolerant, and will bring into reality all of the goals of our beloved company.

I hope my personal experience will open your heart to the knowledge that trusting & respecting our colleagues is a first start to creating a positive environment that is conducive to success.

THE BEAUTY OF OPPORTUNITY & TRUST

I am a type of person who believes everything is possible to happen when there is an opportunity, a person works and God helps. Nobody wants to be a looser! Everybody wants to be successful. Does opportunity, however, come to everybody?
Several years ago, we recruited an office boy. I hired him because he really needed a job. He looked neat and had good manners, more than suitable for an office boy. He would always come on time and work enthusiastically. There was something special about him, in that whenever he finished his job and had spare time, he would always try to learn something beyond his routine job. This made me “notice” him.
Several months later, I saw a further opportunity for his advancement. I felt "sorry" that he only was an office boy because his abilities were far beyond that position. So I gave him a chance to become a Messenger. Working as a Messenger, helped him improve his communication skills as he was able to interact with more people. His potential was even more obvious later after he took a night class to continue his studies. His persistency to grow and to be success made me decide to give him an opportunity to become a marketing staff. I gave him the opportunity with the condition that if he failed, he would be demoted to his office boy job again. (I just wanted to show him that it was not an easy decision and without risk.) After taking a psychology test, he then started working as a marketing staff.
My intuition was correct, he was capable as a marketing staff. With some polishing, he became the marketing staff who had the highest booking and low past due ratio. It was amazing. I had made the right decision. He was very thankful for the trust and opportunities I had given him. I only asked him one thing in return and that was to show his gratitude by continuing his good work performance. Thus he would make me even "happier".
It appears that nothing other than himself can block someone’s success.

WHAT IS BFI CORE VALUE?

1. MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT FOR EACH OTHER
Means you have to walk the talk. Under promise and over deliver so people will always believe in anything you say and do. It’s not easy to earn trust and respect from other people, so once you’ve got it, hold it tight in your hands.

2. TEAM WORK
Simply stated, it is less me and more we, because none of us is as smart as all of us.

3. TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE
Your goal should be perfection. Excellence will be tolerated. Make your upper limit, no limit. If it can be done better than do it!

4. Try to create CUSTOMER SERVICE ORIENTED Working Environment
The purpose of the business is to create and keep customers. But first, you must earn and learn to keep your internal customers. Serve well, do well, live well, it is what life is all about.

Don’t just memorize the Core Value, but make it your personal life style. A thousand words will not leave so strong impression as one deed.

Don’t just talk about it, do it!!
Together, let’s make BFI a better place for living…