Must-read for all women entrepreneurs

What woman doesn’t want to build a million dollar (or peso) business? Susan Solovic gives meaningful, practical advice that I wish I’d read before venturing into business. This book stays by my bed for my daily dose of inspiration. If you’re a woman, if you’ve ever had to face any obstacles trying to start a business or you’ve been wanting to bring your business to the next level but don’t know how to, this book is a perfect guide to help you along the way. It won’t give you all the ingredients but you likely wouldn’t be as lost if you did.

Practical advice you can actually put to use

Every chapter is a mix of wise advice you’d expect to hear from a compassionate mentor, inspiring stories of women who did things right or learned things the hard way but you get to “cheat” by reading about their past mistakes now, and “how-to’s”. My favorite “how to” is the media planning – oh and finding funding, too.

Lovers as business partners

I’ve read through the book and didn’t see an anecdote about women venturing into business with their boyfriend or husband. Scratch that, there was one, but it didn’t have a happy ending. Is this scenario rare, taboo, or just plain not advisable? There was an issue of Entrepreneur that featured couples in business, such as the Havaianas importers – though they’re married.

More anecdotes, more successful women to emulate

I just love love love to hear about women who’ve built and grown sustainable businesses. It’s not exactly something you learn at school, is it? I never really thought about it growing up, or in college. I always looked up to women CEOs who were running multinationals – it never occurred to me how those businesses even got started? I want more stories, more inspirational examples.

Local women entrepreneurship programs

This book got me thinking whether there was a local program to encourage women entrepreneurs? I’ve read about a lot of micro-financing loans for women selling in the palengke but for brick-and-mortar businesses that have a business model other than peddling?

• Chit San Juan, ex-CEO of Figaro hosts talks every so often.
• NEWomen organizes bazaars, talks, and regular networking sessions
• GE Money Bank, affiliate of the giant General Electric, launched a Women Entrepreneurs website – though I haven’t heard of any financing programs

Any others?

Just me documenting some sales training articles, videos, and/or podcasts.

Colleen gives a high-level explanation of their Sales Training program in this webinar (Recorded Nov 21, 2008). Even from just the introduction, I got a wake-up call much similar to the self-slaps on the forehead I get listening to Steve Pavlina and Dave Ramsey. You really are what you do. I’m fond of getting to know people and networking comes easily — but I have to get in the habit of making that first call to a prospect and follow-up after an initial email.

Emotional Quotient

It’s important to be aware of myself, to empathize (easy), and to get used to delayed gratification (It’s been relatively long, actually, but hey I’m here doing sales training, aren’t I? I’ll stick to it.) especially with

• prospecting

• planning & time management

• major account selling

In a tough situation, think about what’s funny and what’s good about it. It has definitely been a tough past few months — but I guess what’s funny is… I get free cellphone credits anyway and what’s good is, JP’s still sticking with it, and with me.

Aim to be likeable

Aim to be likeable. Mirror the body movements and demeanor of the prospect and match his tone — and maybe, just maybe, that can make the difference in getting the sale versus another account executive. My natural tendency is to come on strong although assessing past networking situations, I’m usually able to draw out the quiet ones. I’ll learn to tone it down and match the quieter ones — they buy who they like and who are like them.

Rules

1. Get their story (Problems, Needs).
2. Who is/are the decision maker/s and how’s the process?
3. Find out the budget — before making a proposal.

Pinoy Money Talk (shoutout to rainmen and futuregizmo!) is #2 on the personal finance blogs list in the January-February issue of Money Sense.

I’m listed at #4, not too shabby, hey. I’ve been putting in most of my blogging hours into our new tech blog Pinoy Web Startup for aspiring tech-preneurs but I do update our personal finance calendar here whenever there’s something new. Let me just finish up some paid research analysis gigs due this month and I’ll be back with some money articles in March.

Please also join my survey for a financial products marketplace site. I need to have something extra to close the deal with my prospective investors. You want that financial comparison site at least as much as I do, right? One-stop-website to compare available time deposits, credit cards, investments, etc. Ah, dream come true.

Update. 02 Dec 2007. Thanks for our complimentary 2 Altec Lansing AVS 300 speakers last October. Power Mac Center delivered our 2 iMacs – they’re so beautiful. *sigh*I’m headed to Greenbelt 3 today to buy a new white Macbook 13″ for my sister Tricia. I think I broke her Dell Inspiron E1400.
Sadly, Leopard was released just a few days after our iMacs were delivered. We might as well have waited if we knew it would take that long.

Feedback on the oh-so-wonderful “Premium Reseller” Power Mac Center. Yes, there are branches at SM Megamall, Greenbelt 3, Power Plant Mall, SM City North EDSA, SM Mall of Asia, and Trinoma! Greenbelt 3 happened to be close by so that’s where we went… and it’s a “premium reseller” right? And it’s Apple! Nothing can go wrong…

• 4 September 2007. JP bought 2 20″ iMacs at Power Mac Center “premium reseller” at Greenbelt 3. It was paid on that day with a credit card. The order was made based on the claim by the sales personnel (Ronnel) that since they don’t have the 2 in stock yet, the 2 iMacs would be ready when the new shipment comes in the following week, at the latest.
• 8 September 2007. Received this SMS “Hi! This is ronell of powermac center, Sir sorry tlaga kc ang dumating n imac 24 inches, thnk you.” (Hi! This is ronell of powermac center. Sir, (I’m) really sorry because the iMacs that were delivered are 24″. Thank you.) Oh yeah, that really reflects great on Apple and how they manage expectations of customers.
• 4 September to 8 October – Nothing. Count that. That’s over a month. No delivery. The f*@958!ng units still – NOT delivered. 2 weeks after ordering, we personally went to Power Mac GB3 to follow up and they finally offered to lend us 2 of their display units in the meantime (this was the 3rd time we went physically to follow up. I’d call using my mobile asking them to call me but no one ever did).
  Come on. It’s an okay band-aid but that doesn’t make their false promise/claim, their lack of initiative to call or apologize or make amends, that we had to personally go there and wait for maybe 30 minutes because they probably didn’t know anymore how to face us.
  Besides, we can’t even maximize the units they lent us. We can’t install any of our programs, I can’t even hook up my modem. Ugh.
• Just thinking about the damages, lost income, and productivity makes me cry.
• You know what’s part of the worst? The iMacs were supposed to be JP’s contribution to the corporation but he has to execute an affidavit that the equipment are in good condition and existing. And that has to be verified by a CPA. I had to find another vvery expensive (but legal, don’t worry way to reach the minimum paid-in capital requirement by the SEC just so we can register already.
• 8 October 2007. Received this SMS “Hello! Sir JP dumating n po ung iMac 20″ inch (2PCS) Kailan nmin sya e-deliver sa inyo.. Ronell of POWERMAC CENTER.. THNX” (Hello! Sir JP. The iMac 20″ (2 pcs) have arrived. When will we deliver to you?)
• 10 October 2007. I wanted to raise hell a week after their failure to deliver on their promise, failure to manage our expectations but JP asked me to refrain because he still had faith in the supposed high level of Apple Customer Care. He thought maybe the people from Power Mac would realize the gravity of the lack of care, lack of concern about how their false claim affected our operations and generating income and even legal papers. Maybe they can just give concessions like give a free upgrade to Leopard since now it’s about to launch anyway. Or maybe an iPhone or iPod video or something. Alas, all we receive is an SMS that did not even acknowledge their failure and just “when can we deliver?” Not even a “sorry again for the inconvenience”! More like the lost income and lost productivity and man-hours that they caused us!
• The same thing pretty much happened to Dave He did get his unit but it didn’t work. Some people say bad things, some say Apple Care is great. Apple should exercise better quality control with their resellers (yes, I’m referring to Power Mac Center) because they reflect really poorly on Apple, despite its great products.
• Come on Power Mac. That’s why I’ve asked JP to hold the delivery for now because I do believe that just accepting them is tantamount to saying that your failure is okay and we accept it. And it’s not. I’m giving you a chance to do something nice to make us forget (at least for a while) the opportunity lost you caused us — then can you please you bring the units to us. Maybe we’ll forgive you and get additional units we’ll need for our business from you and even spread the word that you’re okay… until then.

Aren’t I lucky? I’m one of the 10 winners of $100 cash prize! Sadly, I didn’t make it to the winning 10. Maybe next year!

Here are the Winning 10 emerging influential blogs for 2007. They were awarded by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino. The contest was made possible by Yes Payments, Galing Pinoy, Regalo Service, InfoTXT, Dominguez Marketing and YesPinoy.

1. An Apple a Day | The Philosophical Bastard
2. The D Spot
3. CokskiBlue
4. Make Money Online with a 13-Year Old
5. Culture Shiok! | Utakgago
6. Kubiertos
7. FruityOaty | PinoyBlogero
8. The Dork Factor | The Anitokid Chronikos
9. Gibbs Cadiz
10. Confessions of a Hopeless Romantic

Shoutouts to the other winners of the $100 prize: Maryrose, Sofia, J Angelo Racoma, Heneroso, Fruityoaty, Annamanila, Webbyman, Mira, and Jehzeel.

Congratulations everyone! Great work for everyone who participated.

JP and I joined Entrepreneur’s Marketing Rescue held July 21, 2007 at the DLSU Graduate School of Business at RCBC Plaza. Josiah Go (Mansmith & Fielders, Inc.) oriented around 100 aspiring entrepreneurs and marketers about Blue Ocean Strategy…. for free! (Well, if you factor in the P199 Entrepreneurs mini-magazine of profiles of entrepreneurs. I should have brought JP‘s June issue which would have given me free entrance)

I saw old friends LA and Nikko. I also met some interesting people: Jes, Guy, Orly, Tony, and many others.

From 3-6pm, Josiah shared about how traditional business strategies have to resort to price and promo wars because they’re competing for their share in the same market. This is playing in the red ocean – a zero-sum game and you’re not as profitable as if you were in the blue ocean!

What is blue ocean strategy? …a corporate strategy and bestselling business book written by Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, of INSEAD.

Nine Key Points of Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS)

• BOS is the result of a decade-long study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than 30 industries over 100 years (1880-2000).
• BOS is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost.
• The aim of BOS is not to out-perform the competition in the existing industry, but to create new market space or a blue ocean, thereby making the competition irrelevant.
• BOS offers a set of methodologies and tools to create new market space.
• While innovation has been seen as a random/experimental process where entrepreneurs and spin-offs are the primary drivers – as argued by Schumpeter and his followers – BOS offers systematic and reproducible methodologies and processes in pursuit of innovation by both new and existing firms.
• BOS frameworks and tools include: strategy canvas, value curve, four actions framework, six paths, buyer experience cycle, buyer utility map, and blue ocean idea index.
• These frameworks and tools are designed to be visual in order to not only effectively build the collective wisdom of the company but also to effectively execute through easy communication.
• BOS covers both strategy formulation and strategy execution.
• The three key conceptual building blocks of BOS are: value innovation, tipping point leadership, and fair process.

One very popular and successful implementation is the P1 or Everyday Lowest Fares of Cebu Pacific. By taking their eyes off the traditional air passengers and finding out how to target non-users, such as those who use ferries (like WG&A Superferry and Aboitiz) and those who just don’t fly to travel because it’s too expensive.

In a nutshell, they did away with non-value adding services of traditional airlines and improved on what ships offered. They did away with newspapers, meals, and lounges, enabling them to streamline their processes, buy new and safer planes, and offer more frequent flights!

As I understand it, blue ocean strategy requires you first to think out of the box. Then to implement, you have to conduct a rigorous value-added analysis of your industry, your competitors, and your alternative industry (e.g. ships vs. planes).

There are many great business ideas. Timing and strategy matter as much as your intent. Good intent also plays a role — if you want to help people with your product or service, your good intent will be rewarded somehow.

I will be applying this learning for our next JV presentation — details to be released once we’ve sealed the deal!

In the Philippines, you can learn more about blue ocean strategy through special trainings by Mr. Josiah Go’s group Mansmith and Fielders.

I stumbled onto the term Conversational marketing over at FederatedMedia. Judging from the term, this is the world of sales letters, email marketing, and comments and trackback systems.

Tom Hespos of iMedia Connection writes:

Conversational Marketing” was a term that entered into the lexicon on the coattails of “The Cluetrain Manifesto;” it described a fundamental shift in thinking that needed to take place. The gist was that companies needed to start thinking of marketing as a bottom-up operation rather than a top-down one.

The internet was bringing a new dynamic into play, changing the ways in which people connected with one another, and Cluetrain helped to highlight opportunities for companies to connect directly with their customers online, in lieu of taking a broadcast approach to the marketplace. Conversational marketing emerged as a favorite term to describe the notion of connecting directly to customers online, in part because the first of the 95 Theses within the manifesto is “Markets are conversations.”

That’s what Pigmata aims to do with our services. We give a complete user-centric experience that allows for other stakeholders such as the advertisers or sponsors to present their business in a non-intrusive and effective manner. That’s what will keep the company going for many many years.

To help me do that, I have to go through this list of PR 2.0 readings one by one and apply them to our projects.

Revenue generation is definitely a priority for our potential JV for Pigmata. We have to make the site viable for us and our partners.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau has standardized the sizes of online ads. Ads sure have nifty names, there’s a leaderboard, there’s a skyscraper… I need to understand all of this!

The IAB Ad Unit Guidelines are intended for marketers, agencies and media companies for use in the creating, planning, buying and selling of interactive marketing and advertising.

Included in the Universal Ad Package are listed below.

• Rectangles and Pop-ups
• 300×250 IMU (Medium Rectangle)
• 180×150 IMU (Rectangle)
• Banners and Buttons
• 728×90 IMU (Leaderboard)
• Skyscrapers
• 160×600 IMU (Wide Skyscraper)

Membership sure sounds nice – except the US$7,000 annual membership dues aren’t in the budget. I sure would like Pigmata to voluntarily comply as a Publisher.

Based on empirical evidence gathered by Dr. Thomas Stanley (author of The Millionaire Mind), my traits would fit me right into the rat race. Simply put, Marie’s mind IS NOT a Millionaire Mind. I STRONGLY DISAGREE. I CHOOSE to disagree.

Built to be an employee

I have to acknowledge though that majority of my track record to date does not quite fit with the majority of the millionaires that Dr. Stanley studied.I have always been an honor student (Studies show that most successful entrepreneurs have average performance in school.).

Unlike most entrepreneurs who built their own wealth, I have always lived comfortably enough (not too posh) and never felt the need to find other ways to succeed in life because my grades, awards, and co-curricular activities have been good enough to get me to junior executive jobs in good companies fresh from college and/or law or business school if I wanted.

After graduating from DLSU and obtaining my Certified Public Accountant license, I worked for a couple of months as a junior officer Finance at a top international bank. I then entered as a management trainee at a multinational FMCG. I was never quite happy. I was constantly complaining and never happy about going to work everyday even though my gross pay was bigger than some staff who may be working for more than 10 years. It must be partly due to being the eldest child, being used to (quasi) independence, and the yearning for and knowledge that there is something more. I wanted to be free to pursue my economics studies and research projects, have fun with JP and my friends and sisters, start a business, travel, write and so many more! 24 hours a day aren’t enough for my dreams.

Reality of the rat race

My boyfriend JP says it’s not how long we’ve been going out, it’s the intensity or the quality of the time that we do spend together that matters. Some couples have been together for 10 months but only have a dinner or movie date once or twice a month. I hardly think that can build a strong relationship. I’m going with the same frame of thinking. It’s not how long I’ve worked as an employee in any company that’s going to matter in my life. IN MY LIFE. I’m going to look at the quality of my dreams, my achievements, my memories, my assets, my friends and family time, my thoughts and emotions.

Robert Kiyosaki‘s first lesson from his rich dad : he had to miss his Saturday baseball games because he was told to work in the dad’s store for a measly 10 cents per hour. In less than a month, he got fed up and realized that rich dad says not to trade time for money. Don’t work for money. Build systems and processes to have money work for you. I’ve read and heard this so many times from big guys (who know what they’re talking about!) so I know it theoretically. The same epiphany came to me 7 months after getting into the employee route.

I say, Filipinos are in dire need of good financial education and sound personal finance habits. This is my contribution.

It takes courage and an open mind to get out. Until we get to the age of 65, 88% will be dead or dead broke. That’s why it’s hard to get out of the rat race, trading time and youth for money – because practically everyone’s there! It’s going to be lonely if you’re not with them 88%.

I’m not against hard work

I’m not afraid of hard work. I can do loads of overtime, lose sleep, and even spend my own money. I used to do volunteer work and ran a big student organization for 3 years, taking time away from school or potential part-time income – just because I loved it.

I want to do what I like, to like what I do, and to see that it has an impact on people’s lives. I want to at least see the value that my effort gives to them. The value of something I do should be rewarded at the true economic benefit that it gives to others, not some value that’s net of corporate income tax, business taxes, indirects or overhead, electricity, advertising, dividend income for others, and other considerations. Don’t you think you deserve that?

Dream big

It’s possible. I can see my Tagaytay house and lot where JP and I will live in the next few years. My children will study in the International School system and will learn about money smarts at a young age. I’ll get my parents a place too for their relaxation.

It’s going to happen in this lifetime. My mom handled her money well. From a child selling flowers in the market, she managed to send us to good schools and to buy us a really nice house. She even got me a car. Our expenses aren’t going to lessen anytime soon though so I know I also need to make that geometric growth in my income happen that straight-line salaries can’t.

Next time, I’ll tell you about ways I’ve found to realize these big dreams.

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