In this occasional series of commentary, I provide a peek inside our professional practice and offer a glimpse of what it’s like to be part of the Hong Kong Visa Centre team.
My husband and I were both working for the same company (he has been with them over 2 years in Hong Kong) and we were both recently laid off.
Am I able to take up employment/go to school on the merits of my dependant visa, or not so able due to the fact that my husband (sponsor) has lost his job?
Our current visas expire about 18 months from now and we are both looking for jobs presently. I am also slated to begin studying part time at a University here next month.
My hope is that my Hong Kong dependant visa is still valid for work or school even though my husband has been laid off.
Thank you! I appreciate your help, and love your website!
I have been circulating a reading and watching list via email for a couple of years now and increasingly people are asking me to send it to them.
So, here we go…
For background on the deeper thinking that went into the development of our business model please start off by watching this talk by Canadian futurist Don Tapscott:
Please also find 2 books by Kevin Kelly that you really MUST read. These books are the genesis of many of Seth Godin’s ideas and, for me, are the 2 most important books I have ever read.
Charlie Munger’s wisdom is profound and there are loads of resources I could suggest, but one which I like particularly is this talk from the 1990s.
It gets to the heart of configuring a modern internet business where you absolutely must build in the foibles of human psychology into your service model.
I always had a sense that you needed to stand out if you are to be noticed but Godin brought it to life for me in 2003 when he wrote Purple Cow. Essentially he validated my intuition about this but it took me 7 years before I had an opportunity to act on it. In producing our purple cow we built the following into our business model:
A 100% Free professional service offering – never been done before (certainly not in Hong Kong at least) – where the dividing line between paid and unpaid is where we “pick up a pen”.
A 200% Fee Refund Guarantee – an irresistible offer, certainly, but remarkable in of itself – never been done before in my niche, to the best of my knowledge.
A puppet character to make a point – Hadley – a stable of 60 key videos on our niche (out of a content pool of more than 10,000 resources) which deflects the focus off me personally somewhat and allows the user of our websites to appreciate it’s the content that counts – not me. Again this is, by implication and design, remarkable.
My Story – told openly enabling people to know that I am authentic and vulnerable – a key tenet of Godin too but again, remarkable and purple cow-esq.
Idea Virus
15 years ago, RTHK broadcaster Phil Whelan used to say to his listeners that Stephen Barnes, the “Hong Kong Visa Geeza” would coming to answer visa and immigration questions live on air.
This always struck a chord with me and as soon as I had an opportunity to include it in my business model I did.
Of course, after reading Unleashing the Idea Virus I knew straight away that the Hong Kong Visa Geeza was my own perfect idea virus so adopted it and built it into the Hong Kong Visa Centre service paradigm.
“Visa Geeza” is the second most prevalent search string that people use to access our content now via Google meaning that our offline reputation spreads online virus like – Godin was absolutely spot on in his thinking with this concept.
Tribes
With my background knowledge gleaned from Kevin Kelly, when I read Tribes I realized that Seth was articulating in a clear and manifestable way the reality that in a vacuum of information in a particular niche, if you publish to that niche in a generous way, the people with an interest in that niche will begin to organize themselves around you as they have nowhere else to get that information.
By adopting Godin’s notions of generosity, reaching out and making Art this incredibly powerful natural human dynamic plays entirely into your favour.
The really good news is that if you publish continuously on the niche and (as we have at least) positioned yourself to answer questions and help solve problems, in due course you map the entire knowledge graph and you place yourself in a defacto monopoly situation. It’s just a matter of time.
Our Tribe is now at least 150,000 strong and growing every day.
Permission Marketing
Such an obvious concept: treat your relationships with the utmost respect.
We only give value and never try to sell anything. We only send emails to our (entirely opt in) subscribers when we have new value to offer them – for free.
The concept of permission marketing means that whenever I give a talk on Hong Kong immigration matters here I can guarantee an audience and when people unsubscribe from our list it is invariably due to them having left Hong Kong.
Our Tribe stays with us because we respect them and they know it!
Linchpin
Again here Godin sets out that the mission is to make yourself indispensible. Over Xmas last year we got hit by a wordrpess vulnerability and our sites went down, I got about 80 emails from our Tribe asking when we would be back on line!
Icarus
The Icarus Deception tied is all together for me and gave me the final confirmation that we are doing it right.
Everything Godin reports in this tome, we have experienced in fact.
“The safety zone has moved. Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: Make art. Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.”
Jobs to be Done
Clay Christenson made me understand how to break down the actual needs which Hong Kong immigration applicants have in navigating the visa process here.
For example, our jobs to be done include the following:
Can you actually achieve the change to a new life in Hong Kong?
What’s the immigration experience ahead?
Can you manage the application paperwork?
Do you know what to argue in your case for approval?
Do you understand the applications process?
Can you answer hard questions which ImmD might raise?
I have been highly fortunate and supremely privileged to have met intellect, author and ‘seer-of-around-corners’ Haydn Shaughnessy in the last few months and had quite a few chats with him.
Haydn’s thinking is profound and has validated my expectations of how our modern business model would unfold over time.
Right on the money!
Richard Stacy
Over Chinese New Year 2016, I came across Richard Stacy and his ideas about separating the medium from the message and what this means in the connection economy – and the scales finally fell from my eyes:
I have read his entire website, but you must read, at the very least:
Some of you may know that Martyn and I are invested in a second citizenship brand based on the Golden Resident Permit (“GRP”) issued by Portugal. It’s called European Passport.
This programme is the best of its kind anywhere in the world, offering 28 countries for the price of one. The qualifying residency requirement is less than six weeks in six years and there’s no taxation consequences if you choose not to live in Portugal full time. The investment is modest at 500,000 Euros or less in Portuguese real estate which you can sell after 5 years in any event.
Aside from the fact that it’s a world class immigration programme, this project has given us an opportunity to test out a few things in our business model and extend our content development repertoire.The major big step for us is the on-going Chinese language localization project located here which is the first time we’ve managed a 2 byte character website since 1998 committing us also to our first continually updated non-English language publication.
Martyn and I, together with our project partner AC Todd, believe we can become the pre-eminent brand in this micro immigration niche just so long as we keep on delivering value with our content, offer fantastic service and make the dream of a European Passport come true.
Freelance writers always struggle to secure investment visas here…
QUESTION
I have been working in Hong Kong for about 4.5 years and my current employment visa expires in 2018.
I would like to be a freelance writer, but I understand that getting an investment visa can be onerous especially since I will be a one-man show.
If I quit my job, I understand I have the privilege to remain and ‘reside’ in Hong Kong but not the right to work.
I was wondering if there is any way to get round the latter – such as for example, routing payments through a company registered in my home country, or setting up a Hong Kong company and paying myself earnings through dividends rather than a salary?
If neither of these are viable options, am I better off setting up a sole proprietorship or limited liability company to get the investment visa?
Also, assuming I stayed here till 2018 but did not work nor pay taxes, would this be an issue in getting the Right of Abode in Hong Kong after the seven years are up?
