On last Wednesday (21 March), ZOM-IN had successfully organised a wonderful Entrepreneur Talk in collaborating with KDU and Emcee Couture. The theme of the talk is ‘Turning Dream into Reality’. Ms Mei Chi Phoon, the owner of Emcee Couture was the speaker. During the event, she had shared her entire journey of how she discovered her passion and how she has turned her passion into a sustainable business.
It was a great opportunity for the students to attend the talk. They got to meet a real entrepreneur, listen to her stories and ask her questions related to entrepreneurship on the spot.
There are many things that we could learn from Mei Chi, let me list out the Top 5:
#1 Don’t be intimidated by your dream!
A lot of successful entrepreneurs started their businesses even doubted by others. Irregardless of how great your idea is, there is always someone who doesn’t buy it. Therefore, if you are lucky to have discovered what your passion or dream is, go for it!
Of course, there are precautions and risks that you need to calculate. Mei Chi started her business with a very minimal fund by utilising all the free and cheap resources that she could get. She then generated more fund from the profits and has expanded the business gradually. It’s important to take one step at a time and to invest your money wisely. You can also look for proper investors to sponsor your business if you needed a larger amount of capital. There are a lot of angel investors finding platforms nowadays, we can explore, observe and learn how other people do the pitch.
Pursuing dream always comes with costs regardless your dream is to start a business, to become an artist or to further study until PhD. However, if you gave up your dream or your business idea, how would you feel when you saw some random persons could achieve it?
The worst is to fail, but it is almost same as if you never start. How bad could it be? As long as you don’t get your money from a loan shark, you have nothing to fear!
#2 Be professional.
It is very important to be professional in what you’re doing. Mei Chi started her dressmaking business without prior experience in the industry, but to sustain her business, she always looks for opportunities to improve herself and to understand more about the fashion industry and the latest market trend.
It doesn’t matter if you are not formally educated in the business, being an effective entrepreneur, you must learn your trade and know when to seek more knowledge.
Even you’re not running a business, you must also learn everything related to your job inside out and always seek for more knowledge. In every profession, you are either growing or rotting. If you never progress, you will fall behind as other people are eager to grow.
Be the pro in your industry, opportunities will come knocking on your door.
#3 Keep yourself near to positive and supportive people.
Positive people can provide you courage when you doubt yourself, a shoulder for you to cry on when you’re depressed and some jokes for you to laugh when you’re tense. You naturally become more positive, hence you become more successful in everything that you’re doing.
Mei Chi is strong because she is backed by her supportive family members. She knows they will always be at her side no matter what.
What if you’re surrounded by negative people? Be the first positive person to influence them. Happiness is contagious!
#4 Stay healthy!
We know this is common sense but we still want to emphasise on it. Health is the most important of everything. What’s the point of being successful if you can’t get to enjoy a healthy life?
However, when we’re too into our work, we often lost the balance. We forget that we need regular sleep, enough water intake, on-time meals and regular workouts. When you noticed you are not practising all these healthy habits, please don’t ignore it. Realign back to the healthy lifestyle.
On this matter, Mei Chi has set a very good example. Once she noticed that she tends to lose appetites when she’s stressed, she never ignored or hid the problem. In fact, she took action by starting to workout every day and eat healthily. Besides, unlike many people may feel ashamed to share their health problems, she talks to other to look for suggestions. This is a very valuable and healthy mindset that everyone should learn from her.
#5 Always be grateful.
Of all the qualities in humankind, gratitude is one that has a special designated celebration — Thanksgiving. Have you ever wondered why? It’s simply because gratitude is the key to health, happiness and success.
During the Q&A session, there was a student asked: “When we are running a business, there are always people around us who like to ask for free stuff, how do you encounter with this people?”
It was very impressive when Mei Chi answered “I will just try to fulfil them if I could. I never have the thought that my family and friends must like my creation. When they do, I’m more than happy to let them wear what I’ve made for free. It’s really my honour.”
While the habit of ‘asking your entrepreneur friends to give you free stuff’ is not so encouraged, Mei Chi’s answer has brought us to a totally different perspective. It showed that even though she has achieved so much, she has never felt herself is entitled. When someone praised her, she would always thank the person. Even when someone criticised her, she asked for more detailed feedback to seek improvements.
Her great sense of gratitude makes her a lovable person. Basically, everyone likes to deal with people who know how to appreciate. Hence, her clients always come back to her and always recommend her to others.
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We were very blessed to have Mei Chi with us at KDU to share the positive vibes to the youths. We are looking forward to organising more events like this to empower the future leaders.
Don’t forget to support us by following ZOM-IN’s Facebook and sign up to ZOM-IN! We are going to add more stories to the site and great news is there are entrepreneurs from Johor joining us!
Are you regretted that you’ve missed Mei Chi’s talk?
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