The Filipino Entrepreneur

Although I haven’t attended a time management seminar, I have a feeling that its all just common sense. I thought that time management will teach you how to accomplish many things in a short period of time and yet when I remember my previous manager who always boast about his knowledge in time management, he is still lousy.

I read in New York Time website about human beings given an an adequate amount of time and yet we still complain that we don’t have enough of it.

Everybody gets the same amount of time: 168 hours in a given week; 8,736 in a year. And yet a common complaint among entrepreneurs and small-business owners is that they wish they had more time.

So what do we really need to manage our time effectively? Here is an advice from Donald Wetmore, who conducts time management seminars, offers a number of ideas — some obvious, others not — on Powerhomebiz.com, a small-business Web site.

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One of the biggest advantages of selling online is the minimal amount of start-up capital. Where you only have to invest on some decent PC or personal computer with an Internet connection, preferably a broadband connection because a dial-up connection is very slow and will hinder your work. But if you are just experimenting, I guess that will do. You can start selling goods worth a few thousand pesos like for instance garments, underwear or slippers on auction sites like eBay Philippines or social networking site like multiply.com. You can also sell on the international market but it seems not realistic because of the cost of shipping specially if the items cost less than a hundred pesos each. A more realistic approach is selling locally. As I’ve mentioned before, selling on auction sites and buy and sell sites have many advantages. The first thing is the market is already there and lots of traffic or visitors. Not only visitors but “targeted” visitors, meaning the visitors were already conditioned to buy because most visitors who visit auction sites like ebay are searching for things to buy.

Unlike setting up your own website where you have to promote it first just to have visitors. Like for example the social networking site multiply.com. You have to build network of friends. Although it’s hard at first, the result is rewarding if you have hundreds or even thousands of friends because you can sell easily to them. So aside from investing on a PC, you also need a camera and skills in writing your sales copy and some technical know-how on computers and Internet. Although this method of selling seems to be easy, there are some disadvantages, since you are literally selling a photograph or pictures, most buyers prefer that they can feel, touch and see the items you are selling before you can convince them to buy. Accepting payments is another thing. Who on earth will give money to a total stranger without the merchandise in your hand? Its a different story when you buy in a physical store where before you hand over your money, the item you bought is already in your hands. On the contrary, you can be convincing if you already built your reputation as a seller by having many feedback. 

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Selling and buying on eBay is fun and most of the time you can get an item for bargain and sometimes hard to find items. But recently I encountered a seller that only accepts GCASH which is definitely forbidden in eBay because it is the same thing as Western Union and Money Gram. Sometimes I fall into temptation on asking bidders to pay via GCASH but when it comes to me being I buyer, I doubt if the seller is a scammer or not. But if the seller have a good reputation with a least 50 feedbacks and all of them are 100% positive or with just a tiny percentage of negative feedback, then maybe the seller can be trusted. But if the seller have only 1 feedback or worst, a zero feedback, then you know what to think. He or she’s maybe a scammer. It’s also hard to sell a pricey item if you are a new member on eBay.

You have to build your reputation first by having as many feedback as you can. One trick I know is try selling items less than a thousand pesos. This way buyers will not have a hard time to think if they would buy an item let’s say 5,000 pesos or up. If the buyers really need the item, they would risk a certain amount that seems to be not as big as 5 to 10K. But eventhough many eBayers get away with payment methods not permitted on eBay, they are not protected by eBay’s Standard Purchase Protection Programme (SPPP). You’ll be reimbursed up to a maximum of P 11,200.00 (less P 1,400.00 to cover processing costs) but requires that you pay the item with the payment method allowed in eBay. I think using other payment method such as those quick money transferring service will leave you unprotected.

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I saw the news first on Telegraph.co.uk about Google being included on the worlds top ten brands. I don’t know why because even Google is the king of the internet, not everybody is internet savvy or knows much about computers unlike Coca-Cola where people all over the world knows what Coca-Cola is ( synonymous to soft drinks ). Just observe the list below of the top ten brands:

The firm’s top 10 global brands are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. IBM
3. Microsoft
4. GE
5. Nokia
6. Toyota
7. Intel
8. McDonald’s
9. Disney
10. Google

I think the reason was Google is very close to our hearts like the other top brands ( Google really knows what internet users need ) and the fact that Google is really the king of the internet even though Yahoo! was considered as “The Mother of All Search Engines”. And also the obvious reason that many people are becoming aware on the importance of the internet.

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Hope you don’t mind the cutesy title. I just wanted to share with you about a small entrepreneur who made it big in shoe business. I mean small because he is literally “small” as in midget ( no pun intended ). His name is Aurelio Dagdag and he is the general manager (I think he is also one of the owner because based on the story I read it was a family business) of J.A.C. footwear located in Marikina City. He was also featured by Mel and Joey show in GMA network but you will know more about him if you read the Entrepreneur magazine. Despite of his limitations he made it big in this industry with many challenges. To tell more about him, I’ll just make a summary of his life based on what I read.

When he was still in his school years, his father was selling sweepstakes ticket in Pasay City along Libertad. I remember that place because I used to buy shoes in Cartimar. Maybe I saw his father’s sweepstakes store then but didn’t bother much because I don’t buy sweepstakes tickets. It’s a good thing that his father have saved some money because when lotto was introduced here in the Philippines, the business of selling sweepstakes ticket came to an end. It looks like an I’ll luck but it was more of a blessing in disguise because they decided to became a supplier of slippers because the place where they formerly sell tickets are surrounded by stalls that sells slippers which paved the way for the shoe manufacturing business for his family. They started with 100,000 pesos capital which her mother diligently saved over the years.

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