Conquering Fears

"I can do all things through Christ who Strengthens Me"

I love doing things that are different from what I usually do.  I am  the type of person who will go and jump into something even if there is fear.  This is the best way for me to learn how to cope with my fear.

I joined the chorale group of my school simply because I am not trained to sing and joining them enabled me to learn how to sing and be disciplined.

I joined the sportsfest  because I know this is the best way to push myself to concentrate on improving myself.

I believe that being in the war itself releases emergency strength that will help me cope with the situation rather than watching on the sideline and not taking part in the action.

There are certain risk that I will avoid and allow others to take charge.  Because not all things are meant to be faced.

Risk management is an important aspect of ones growth.  Life is full of risk and learning how to handle it is the best way to face it.

Ariel

How to Deal with Difficult People

Dealing with Difficult People

Sometime ago, our speaker in our prayer meeting, Bros Flores delivered a powerful talk,tackling the challenge of how to deal with difficult people.

It is easy to love people who are nice to us but how about people
who cause us pain. It is easy to feel happy when we see people
whom we love to see. But it is different whenever the person or the
individual is the one who irritates us.

Tips:

1. Know the person.

Practice empathy. Know where she or he is coming from. From
knowing comes understanding. We cannot simply expect everyone to
behave the way we want them to act or behave. We cannot change them
but we can change the way we resppond to them.

2. Love them.

Do not just depend on your capacity to love but from the love that
comes from God. Love because it is God who first loved us. How can
we also say that we love God if don't know how to love the brothers
and sisters whom we can see.

3. Be God's medium to them.

We are not Napocor, but we are only Meralco's. The napocor is the
source of energy while the Meralco is the transmitter or medium for
that energy to light up our homes. Allow God to use you as a
vehicle for his love to touch the person who you hate.

4. Be a stepping stone.

If you think that you don't have the resources that you need to help
the brother or the sister, then let others do the job. Allow them
to have an opprotunity to grow in maturity as well. Let those who
have the skills needed to do it do the job for you. in other words
delegate. Delegate in a loving way : )

5. Pray.

Often than not, we forget to pray. Prayers work!. Let God's grace
change the heart of the person whom you are praying. Allow also
God's grace to teach you how to forgive and give you the wisdom how
to handle this situation.

6. What if you are the difficult person?

Then pray to be changed by God. Pray for feedback and ask help from
brothers or sisters. Pray for God's love to transform your heart
and the humility to accept your being difficult. Then, change. : )

Bros was a former branch leader of Lingkod ng Panginoon, Alabang. At present, he is a seminarian in the Society of Jesus.

Say it Now, Do it Now!

One of the most important aspect of growth and healing is the need to say what you need to say at the right time,at the right place, to the  right person and in the right way.

Delaying saying or doing it will only produce resentment and decay in a relationship until a time comes when it becomes painful and difficult.

In business and even in personal matters, there is a need to face the difficult in order to avert a catastrophic event from happening.  It is better to curtail it while it is still beginning rather than wait when  things goes out of control.

Like treating a fresh wound, it is better to treat it immediately rather than wait for an infection to happen before we do something about it.

Ariel

Attitude Determines Altitude

Your Attitude determines where you will be and how fast you will get there.

1.  Surround yourself with positive ideas.  You become what you believe.  Pray to God and lift up your dreams and plans to Him.

2.  Create an attitude plan.  An attitude plan are steps necessary to change and keep new attitudes. You proclaim to the universe what you want to become and in return it will be returned to you.

3.  Your attiude dictates your failure or success.

4.  Surround yourself with people whom you can draw strength and motivation to keep on going.

How to keep your customers coming back

How to keep your customers coming back

http://www.entrepreneur.com.ph/growyourbusiness/article/how-to-keep-your-customers-coming-back

By Janice Ruth S. De Belen

Dec 22, 2011

Why should businesses strive to nurture relationships with their loyal clients? For one, attracting a new customer costs twice as much as keeping an existing one. Repeat clients spend up to 33 percent more than new customers do. They are also more likely to refer your business to family, friends, and acquaintances than would new clients.

Related Stories

• Manage your cash flow
• Dealing with angry customers
• Cost saving tips for your business
• Diving into business
• Is the business ready for expansion?

But how do you generate repeat business in this age of ever-shifting customer allegiances? Here are some tips:

1. Deliver the goods. Any effort to keep customers will be for naught if the product or service you are offering is not worth their patronage. Quality is key, according to Jimmy Landicho, owner of clothing subcontractor Apparel 21 Garments. Always ensure that your product or service lives up to its marketing promise.

2. Be honest. "Never cheat customers," says Louie Anastacio, owner of LD Anson Inc., which manufactures stickers and labels for Century Park Hotel, Philippine Airlines, Fortune Tobacco, and Lufthansa Technik. "Keep your word and follow clients' specifications to the letter. Don't say you are going to use a specific material or technique to make a certain product and then renege on your commitment to save a few pesos," he advises.

3. Be reliable. For Sylvia Yee of W&J Foods, a supplier of burger patties to groceries, cold-cuts dealers, and school canteens, on-time delivery is the easiest way to measure a business's reliability. If there were hitches in delivery, inform clients and compensate them for the inconvenience. Respond promptly to complaints, questions, and requests for help. Be on time for appointments. Return phone calls immediately. We all know how annoying it can be when companies take ages to respond to a simple request. Even if you cannot solve a customer’s problem right away, at least let him know that you are working on it.

4. Solicit feedback. Ask customers if they're satisfied with your product or service and find ways to improve your offerings. This shows customers you truly care about your product. And when you actually implement their suggestions, they get a sense of involvement and fulfilment.

5. Show your appreciation. Send them thank you cards or small gifts. Food is also an acceptable, if not a preferred, token of appreciation, given that eating is such a vital part of the Filipino culture. Anastacio sometimes treats out not only his contact person, but also the entire purchasing department of a client-company, to express his gratitude for repeat business.

6. Offer incentives. Ever wonder why leading coffee shops offer a free beverage for a certain number of drinks bought, or why credit card companies hold special sales for cardholders? Excellent products and services attract customers, but incentives really tip the scales in your favor. Incentives—whether in the form of discounts, rewards, special sales, rebates, or limited-edition offers—help encourage customers to stay with you for the long haul. They make defecting to a competitor a ridiculous proposition for customers. Why would they shift when they receive incredible special offers or get discounts at regular intervals?

7. Go the extra mile. Exceed clients' expectations by offering value-added services. Yee, the burger-patties supplier, for instance, lends freezers to her customers free of charge. Demonstrate that you’re not just interested in growing your bottom line; show that you’re also more than willing to help your customers—your “partners in progress,” as Anastacio calls them—grow their own businesses as well. The owner of LD Anson recalls the time he had to transfer his account to a client-owned bank. “It’s all a matter of establishing mutually beneficial relationships. By transferring my business to a client-controlled bank, he earns from me, in the same way that I am earning from him.”

8. Stay in touch. Send e-mail updates about your products or services to keep customers informed of what’s happening with your business. Make phone calls; send newsletters, interesting articles, holiday cards, and giveaways. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” holds true in business, so make sure that you periodically remind customers that you’re still around and that you might be of service. Stay on your customers’ radar.

9. Finally, treat loyal customers as friends. Remember clients’ names, even the special events in their lives. “Go beyond business relationships,” says Anastacio. “Be willing to act as a friend and adviser—even as a loan guarantor,” the businessman laughingly adds. In his experience, “going beyond business relationships” has run the gamut from consoling a customer whose marriage had just been annulled to helping pay the hospital bills of a client whose wife had just given birth. Make customers feel you truly care about them and rest assured they would come back.

John Gokongwei Interview

The John Gokongwei Story

This is from an interview done by Entrepreneur Magazine
http://www.entrepreneur.com.ph/ideas-and-opportunities/article/get-inspired-the-john-gokongwei-story


Entrepreneur Philippines: Can you tell us about your early years as an entrepreneur?
John Gokongwei: I was 14. I started to buy and sell. My first delivery vehicle was a bicycle. I used it for four years during the Japanese occupation; the bicycle chain would always come off. I have to patch it up every few weeks so I could go somewhere. I became an expert at fixing that bicycle because I had to fix it every few weeks.

EP: What goods did you buy and sell?
JG: Oh, anything. Basically, textiles and soap. What else? Thread. I’d travel from Cebu to towns within 40 kilometers. I sold these in the palengke or what they called tabuan or meeting place in Cebuano where I’d rent a space on a table. I’d go to towns like Mandaue, Liloan, and Talisay. I’d bike everywhere.

EP: How did you raise money for your buy-and-sell?
JG: You didn’t need money then. Ten, twenty, thirty pesos and you were okay. That’s why it’s called buy and sell. There’s no office or store. I used to put the items in the bike and go to the markets and started selling.

EP: Do you think it was easier to build a successful business in the 1950s and 60s than it is today, or vice versa?
JG: I think it was easier in the ‘40s and ‘50s. We just came out of war and everything was flat. You need more capital now. After that war, the country was devastated. But in any generation, you always have people who are outstanding. During the time of the railroad, you had the Harrimans, then the Rockefellers with oil, and then Ford with the cars. Whether it’s difficult or not, there will be a few people who are outstanding, who will rise above the rest. Nowadays, you need a lot of brainpower.

EP: When you went into manufacturing Panda corn syrup, Ludo and Luym went into a price war with you. How did you survive that?
JG: Lucio Tan sold me his plants and that’s how he started his cigarettes and became a billionaire. If he continued with the starch plant, all three of us would have been broke with the way we were competing. Ludo was ahead of us in three years. The price of starch went down by 50 percent. (Lucio Tan at the time owned a cornstarch company, Royal Corn.)

EP: What business philosophy or core values helped you get through the hard times?
JG: Especially when you start, you have nothing in your pocket; you’ve got to be frugal. If you want to make one peso and you spent two, you’ll never make it. You must be very stupid if you don’t know what you should save on. Sure, you have to eat three meals a day and wear a pair of pants and a shirt. But when you have no money and you go karaoke or disco, I would call that stupid.

EP: How do you spot opportunities?
JG: Is there a market? That’s very important. When you find out that there’s a market then you say, “Who are your competitors?” Do you have a chance against those guys if you put up your own factory or your own business? The third question, obviously, is do you have the capital? And the most important, the fourth thing is: do you know the business? If you don’t know what you’re getting into, can you get people to help you?

EP: Companies now are merging businesses and buying up others left and right. What are your thoughts on this?
JG:If it’s part of your core business and if you can make more money, why not?

EP: You think competition is good?
JG: Competition is good for business and every human endeavor. It improves everybody, improves the product, and improves the person. Without competition, you don’t improve yourself. As long as you’re making money, you think you’re okay. When you’re open to competition—especially around the world—you get to be very good.

EP: As big as the company, your empire…
JG: It’s not an empire. You know when you compare yourself to the companies in Hong Kong and Singapore, we’re very small here. The entire Philippine market capitalization is smaller than Hutchinson Whampoa in Hong Kong. They’re bigger than the entire Philippine market. 

EP: Do you still consider JG Summit to be a family business?
JG: That depends on how you look at it. The majority is still held by the family. A number of family members are involved here. But as a general rule, I think by the third generation, (the corporation) is mostly run by professional managers. 

EP: What to you is the value of hiring professional managers and outside consultants?
JG: To be frank about it, you’ve got to have outsiders, otherwise, you run out of relatives. We’ve hired a lot of good, young people.

EP: What are the qualities you look for in your managers?
JG: Integrity is the most important. Dedication to his work is next.

EP: What motivates you?
JG: I am competitive by nature. Competition is good for the soul.

EP: What advice can you give to young entrepreneurs?
JG: You have to love your work. You have to save money instead of spending all of it. Look for areas you can compete in. Work damn hard. Most importantly, you have to love it.

EP: If you had only a million pesos, where would you put it?
JG: You know, a million pesos now wouldn’t do you much good. Today, what kind of business will I do? Maybe I’d be a peddler again. There are some young guys now in Divisoria, Binondo and in 30 or 40 years some of them will become very big. The reason is because they will work very hard. But everyone has a chance. Every big guy started off small.

How to Find the Right Business

Finding a right business is like looking for a possible partner.

You cannot just stay with something or someone who differs from your views or interest.

1. Looking for the right business is like looking for a Partner, a boyfriend or girlfriend. Sometimes, you fall in love just for a fleeting moment like a crush. After some time you lose interest or if you get lucky, maybe find the one you will keep.

2. It is not just all about Money. Alright money is the bottom line but you need to check if it will violate your conscience.

3. Act on it. Experience is the best teacher. After all the analysis, you should be prepared to go to war and experience facing your fears.

4. Pray about it. You need prayers and guidance from above.