Name                    : Balamurugan A/L Shanmugam

Batch                     : R19 Ipoh, Phase 3

Date trained       : 16 – 18 Nov 2018

Disability              : Visual Impairment due to Accident

Business              : Runs a Car Wash

Income before  : RM3000

Income after      : RM7000

Participant of Maybank R.I.S.E. Programme

Provides part-time job opportunities for students

Balamurugan was once a healthy young man until one day an unfortunate accident caused him to lose sight in his right eye in 1994. Since then, he has always struggled to find a job to help support his family. In 2018, he opened a car wash within a housing area. However, as the residence was located in a secluded area, his business was hard for customers to find as it was not near any main roads.

In the beginning, Balamurugan did his level best to to properly run the business and attract new customers, but he did not know the correct techniques to do so. He would initially wait for customers to come and the income of the business used to depend on regular customers. This eventually came to a point where the business was struggling an he barely earned enough to support the family.

After attending the RISE program, Balamurugan became more energized and motivated to improve his business and bring it to the next level. Whenever any negative thoughts would cloud his mind, he would use the FLIP technology module as taught by the training to change into positive thoughts. He identified what can be improved in his business. For example, he noticed that less customers would come for his service on Wednesdays. To counter that, he utilized what he learned from the Customer Analysis module and identified the needs and wants of his customers. With that, he started offering promotions every Wednesday for wash, polish and wax services. This helped gain more attention from his customers and increase his income.

Besides that, he even provides extra services for free such as fixing minor scratches on the car to give customer added value to his services. This was especially appreciated by his customers who would then recommend his services to others around them. On top of that, Balamurugan also started collaborating with travel agencies to send their tourism vans to be washed at his car wash services at a special discount. This helped give him a regular income on top of the clients he would service.

Today, Balamurugan is happy to report that he’s able to provide a comfortable living for his family and afford better education for his children. He’s also proud to be able to purchase a brand-new Proton X70 in early March 2019 and have also recently paid the booking fees for a house. Balamurugan is grateful for being able to be given an opportunity that helped him to truly shine as an entrepreneur.