This all started from a question posted by my free-ebook reader.
He wrote, “Why are you giving away the Money Tips ebook for free?”
His actual inquiry is to dig what’s in it for me? Why am I doing this?
Here is a short answer: “Financial education is my business.”
But, there is a longer explanation. If you are deeply concerned about COVID-19 pandemic, you will be equally interested in what I am doing, and how you can be a part of it.
Up to date, thousands had died from the coronavirus. Government around the world had announced stimulus plans and financial reliefs that amounted to over trillions of dollars. Millions of people lost their livelihood.
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth A Pound of Cure
There is an old saying that prevention is better than cure.
Due to the foreseeable economic recession, governments around the world are spending a lot of money to rescue their economies. That is a huge problem to solve, demanding massive effort and resources. When cities are locked down, and residents are required to stay at home to save lives, businesses suffer. As a result, millions of people lost their jobs.
The solution is — government aid and handouts.
Let’s backtrack one level up. Businesses suffer because cities are in lockdown mode. MCO (Movement Control Order) requires people not to get in close contact with each other. No gathering, no party, no expo, no event, no crowded social activity, even shopping and restaurant dining are prohibited. That’s the cause of the problem above. However, it is necessary to curb the spread of the deadly virus. In this dire situation, we simply have no choice!
Next, we observe one step backwards. How did the virus get to the urban area? It was the travellers. Sick people and carriers brought the disease from one place to others, thanks to the advanced transportation system we built the past decades. To curb cross-border infections and stop the spread, some countries screen and block travellers, and demand timely transfer, treatment and quarantine measures for confirmed or suspected patients.
So on and so forth.
We realise that there are more prevention measures upstream. What can we put in place to isolate the infected cluster quicker? How do we identify patient zero? How do we avoid letting the virus to move from animals into humans?
As shown in the Netflix documentary series Pandemic, teams of scientists regularly monitor the virus movement among wildlife like birds and bats. Chickens in the farm need vaccination to keep the viruses from getting into humans.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in 2015 to urge for preparation of the next outbreak. If we had done enough, it would have caused much lower death toll, and prevent the financial disaster.
A Problem Well Stated is a Problem Half-solved
How does this got to do with the business I am doing?
I make financial education as my business because I believe it solves problems at the upstream.
When someone runs out of money, he turns to commit all sorts of activity that could harm not only himself but his family, his friends and his community. For instance, if he borrows from a loan shark, the debt gets much harder to pay off due to the outrageous interest rate. In desperation, you might commit a crime to get money fast, e.g. robbing the bank, snatch a woman’s handbag and causing injuries to others. His family would deplete their life savings to save him because of love.
These are the major social problems that resulted from money problems:
- a broke retiree couldn’t pay for meals and became a beggar
- a stock speculator committed suicide after losing everything
- a single mother divorced her husband and has to raise five kids on her own because her husband used up all their savings to invest in some get-rich-quick schemes that turned up to be a scam.
To solve the problem downstream, the government spend a lot of taxpayer money to crack down crimes, provide social welfare, and handout cash. You can throw as much money as you want at the downstream problem, but the trouble keeps boiling. More poor people still flow into the sea of all sorts of financial and social issues.
Fortunately, more upstream solutions are already in place. For example, employees and employers contribute to EPF as mandatory retirement funding.
The whole financial industry comprises of insurance, unit trust, banking, financial planning and fund management is here to provide an environment for healthy lending, funding businesses, providing jobs, and encouraging people to save and invest for future.
Can we go upper stream still?
Yes!!! Financial education.
Goodbye Money Problem, Hello Financial Education
How to get working adults to save enough, spend below their means, and don’t incur huge debts that they can’t pay off? We have AKPK for the noble cause. Besides, we should teach money skills at the school level.
Since the formal curriculum don’t include subjects about credit card, loan and interest, investment, etc., how do we raise money-smart children?
We first make sure the parents are financially literate. Because when kids don’t study this at school, they learn money habits from their parents. Teach the parents so they can instil sound money value to their offsprings.
To begin with, people who had money problems are often not aware of the importance of financial education until it is too late. If someone doesn’t feel the need to acquire the knowledge, why would he even spend time to learn?
The Unbelievable Incentive That Motivates Non-readers to Acquire Financial Literacy
So I am just doing my part to solve the issue at the prevention stage.
I give away my series of ebooks free of charge.
I advertise to get readers.
And if you are sceptical about my intention, I offer a no-money-wasted guarantee. When someone sees my ads on Facebook and Youtube, I say, please download the ebook and read it for 15 minutes. If you are not satisfied with the time spent, I pay you RM5 to compensate for your effort.
Abuden?! I am cincai one… there are a few people who indeed asked for the RM5 compensation. Of course, I transferred that to their bank accounts within 24 hours. And most of them regretted their action because they thought I would never pay. They were just kidding. But I keep my words! Walao eh, if you dare to ask, of course, I’ll pay.
What makes this a sustainable task is that when I can move someone through the whole process, I make money and run a sustainable business. Someone who has more awareness will want to learn faster and more effectively. Some people would buy my online courses and other related services to get better result quicker.
Thanks for reading up to this point. So this is my long explanation to the question of why am I giving the ebook away for free, spend money to advertise it, and even pay people to read the ebook?
How You Could Help the Other 63 People You Might Never Meet
I am blessed to be able to do this, helping more people along the way. You too, play a part in this endeavour. The ripple effect from getting you to read the ebook could have brought values to your family, your friends and your community.
And if you are one of my thousands of paid clients, members, students… you had just contributed to the sustainability of what I am building here. A rough estimation is that one paid customer is supporting 63 people who had gotten free stuff from KCLau.com – who download the ebooks, attend the free financial webinars, Facebook Live, Youtube video etc. I am grateful to every paying client.
You do not just help yourself, but assist other 63 fellow Malaysians to get a step closer to financial success.
I sincerely thank you for your contribution. We are in this together to build a stronger community.
If you thought this was cool, take a look at this online training I put up: How to Accumulate Wealth and Live FREE!
Free to attend, and I will tell you upfront that there is an offer at the end. Please don’t sign up or pay me anything if you don’t find the program useful to you.
Stay safe!
