Exclusive Interview with KCLau

The first article of 2014, we bring to you one of the most successful blogger and one of the best selling book author. Many people will definitely know him, especially for those of you who are from financial industry. With his popular blog named KCLau.com , he shared with readers some financial tips which is very useful and practical.

Let's head over to the exclusive interview session with KCLau as below:

1. Hi KCLau, what makes you so passionate about financial education?
   In actual fact, everybody is not born equal in this world. Some are born in the third world countries and most of them don't stand a chance to live a wealthy life. But some are born with golden keys, destined to be billionaires because they are in the elite family.
   
   
   Understanding this fact, I just want to play my part to give the extra push most people need to live a better life. Although we agree that money can't buy everything, with adequate financial knowledge, you won't be poor. Since I know a little bit more about this subject because I get involved in the financial industry, I just want to share my knowledge. And realizing that financial education is not taught in schools, a more serious kind of financial educator is very much needed.
   
   
2. What makes you start writing books, which eventually transformed yourself to be one of the best selling author?
   I started with short article writing. You can find it all on my earliest blog posts. Some of the financial tricks I wrote about is so simple and easy to implement. So eventually when all the money tips are added up, it could really be compiled into books.
   
   
   Frankly, my writing is not superb. I got A1 in SPM English (which is very easy), but I didn't score A in 1119 English exam. So my writing skill is not novelist material. In fact, it is very far from that. However, I guess this weakness is also the strength since majority readers prefer to read something that's easy to digest.
   
   
   So, I think my books sell well due to the straight-forward writing style and the useful and practical money tips.
   
   
3. Between books and online education, which do you prefer and why?
   I really prefer online education. Book requires reading only. And it is a lot harder to produce and it involves printing costs. Meanwhile, online education can be done in so many ways: email, video, ebooks, podcast, blog posts, webinar etc. It involves a lot of your senses and incorporates many ways of learning. So, it is much more effective compared to books alone.
   
   
   Online medium is more interactive and also faster in response time. I can constantly tweak things and meet the expectation and needs of my customers.
   
   
4. When was your blog (www.KCLau.com) started? And, what's the success factor which makes it to be one of the most visited blog in Malaysia?
   My first blog post is published in 13th Dec 2006. It is about how to get your first car free.
   
   
   At that time, there are already a bunch of other personal finance blog. But many bloggers had stopped updating and gave up halfway over the years. I still persist and publish articles consistently due to several reasons:
   
   
   - Readership Growth - when you know there are more people counting on you and appreciating what you are doing, you'll have the momentum to carry on.
   - Profit Growth - it has evolved into a full time business for me. Most bloggers gave up probably because they couldn't get adequate monetary rewards that's matching the efforts and time they put into the blog.
   
   
   I guess the success factor is that I eventually found out the proper way to monetize the blog and treat it like a serious business.
   
   
   
5. In 2014, what kind of changes you hope to see in Malaysia financial industry and why/how?
   This is a very ambitious question. The industry is still evolving fast. It is great that we have so many bodies and organizations that govern, administer and imposing new rules and guideline every now and then for the professionals to do their job better.
   
   
   The constant change I hope for is to have everyone really treat their own finances seriously. If you can understand how to save, how to invest, how to accumulate, and the most importantly, realizing that you NEED to know this stuff, then there will be less people getting into financial problem. We will definitely have a better society and community to live in.
   
   
   How can we make this happen? I would suggest the followings:
   - make financial education one of the formal subject in schools
   - give tax exemption for course fees spent on financial education (investment courses etc)
   - impose high estate tax and reduce income tax
   
   
   The rationale behind is that you should be taxed a lot on the wealth you inherited, not so much on the wealth you acquire with your effort. Then this hopefully will level the playing field and everybody have the same opportunity to get rich.
   
   
   
   It is like playing the game of Monopoly. If you start with the amount of money greater than the bank, it really doesn't matter what you get rolling the dice. This is the advantage of the rich family. In the game of Monopoly, every starts up is equal. But in real life, we are not.
   
   
   Well, we can say all these but I don't think it will ever happen because the laws are made by rich people for the benefits of their rich family. As long as the common citizens feel contented, the wealthy will still dominate politics, economy and their special rights. So, the rich needs to make sure it stays that way. They can still enjoy their unfair advantages as long as the common people don't get angry and complain.
   
   
   So, in a nutshell, I hope to see everybody starts their life with equal opportunity and the success will only be determined by their own effort. Thanks.