Online selling platform aims to help maximize business profits

Our wallets may be a bit slimmer, but our hearts are definitely fuller, especially after having spent the holiday season with loved ones, sharing gifts and making beautiful memories. 

Now, as you gear up for the New Year, it's time to write down your resolutions and put into action your plans for 2019. 

For some, it's nurturing a healthier mindset and achieving work-life balance. For others, it's increasing their income and becoming more financially stable and independent through business. And there's no greater time than now to become an entrepreneur as there are so many opportunities to start your own enterprise. 

By using the right tools, you don't have to spend too much on setting up your business as you can take more conservative steps and bringing your goods and services to the digital sphere as an online seller. 

Introducing, CheckMeOut. It's the perfect partner for you as it takes care of all your payments and delivery needs through its easy-to-use platform. 

Here's how CheckMeOut can help you build your online business and maximize your sales.

1. For many budding entrepreneurs, online selling becomes the ideal option as the market is dynamic and accessible.

CheckMeOut fits into your want for flexibility as it’s a platform that you can easily access from your phone and laptop - and it's absolutely free.

Simply register online on the CheckMeOut website, and you can start selling immediately.

2. When it comes to your items, there's no limit to what you can offer. From brand-new to preloved items, to knick-knacks, clothes and beyond – you can sell anything and everything online.

CheckMeOut also gives you links that you can share via social media networks and chat apps, allowing your store to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

3. Not only does CheckMeOut offer ease and efficiency as a tool, it presents buyers with convenience and security, making several payment options available such as cash on delivery (COD), credit card and online banking. CheckMeOut allows you to offer these options for free.

4. With CheckMeOut, you can sell and coordinate deliveries with ease, shipping your packages safely across the country.

CheckMeOut also offers free pickup of items for deliveries and includes insurance and flat national delivery rates for buyers. Now you can boost your business and build a relationship based on trust with your customers. 

5. Futurepreneurs also don't have to worry about overcoming the learning curve of business as CheckMeOut assists sellers through its Axxelerate program. 

This program not only teaches you how to run your business, it also brings buyers and sellers together to create a friendly and positive community. 

CheckMeOut's Axxelerate even hosts unique opportunities for entrepreneurs like the CheckMeOut Sellerfest Bazaar.

In 2019, take that crucial first step and become an online entrepreneur now with CheckMeOut.

Register and get your FREE account on www.checkmeout.ph.

NOTE: BrandNews articles are promotional features from our sponsors and not news articles from our editorial staff.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Endeavor searches for next Cobonpue, Bo's Coffee

MANILA - Endeavor Philippines, a group that mentors disruptive businesses, is bringing its search for high-impact entrepreneurs to Cebu, one of its officials said Monday.

In just 2 years in the country, Endeavor has helped, among others, homegrown Bo's Coffee, technology firm Xurpass and furniture designer to the stars Kenneth Cobonpue.

Its most recent startup, Lenddo, helps banks tap unconventional means like social media presence to determine the credit worthiness of the poor.

"The way we help economies grow is by helping to accelerate what we call high impact entrepreneurs," Endeavor Philippines managing director Manny Ayala told ANC's Market Edge with Cathy Yang.

"What we see is very consistent across all the markets we work in, for an entrepreneur ecosystem to thrive and flourish, really, all it needs is a handful of these high-impact entrepreneurs," he said.

Endeavor entrepreneurs generate 5 times more jobs, 2 times more revenue, are 8 times more likely to mentor other businessmen and 4 times more likely to invest in other businesses, Ayala said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

10 Marketing Strategies Every Startup Should Know

Startups can benefit from marketing strategies called “growth hacks.” Sean Ellis coined the term back in 2010. It refers to non-traditional marketing techniques designed to rapidly grow your business.

These strategies are based on the latest trends. From the web design, email templates, content creation, social media, search engine optimization, advertisement, landing pages and others – there’s a need to constantly be up-to-date.

GROWTH HACKING STRATEGIES

Entrepreneurs need to use all possible means to promote their business, and we all know how important the online world has become.

Having a website is important, but it’s never enough to simply have an online presence. To help your business expand, you can use the “growth hack” strategies below.

Growth Hack #1: Run a Pre-launch Giveaway

Make some noise as soon as you launch your business. Let people know about your business by creating an account via Rafflecopter. This may cost you a bit, but it will entice people to join the raffle and promote your business. By using Rafflecopter, you also encourage your online audience to connect to your different social media accounts. Once they’re connected to you on social media, you can also gain feedback about your products and services, as well as create a customer contact list that you can use in the future.

Growth Hack #2: Increase your online visibility through organic search

Provide information that your potential customers will find most useful. Use snippets that can grab the attention of your online audience in 150-160 words. Use keywords that directly describe your company or your products and services.

Growth Hack #3: Create shareable content

You may have come across blogs created by different businesses. They may be about the business itself or something related which customers will find interesting. When you provide extra information to your customers and followers, it can entice more people to get curious about what you offer. When people check your website often, it gives you an edge over your competitors.

Growth Hack #4: Remarketing

It helps your business immensely when you let your customers feel how important they are. Some form of token for continuously patronizing your products and services will help strengthen their loyalty. This will also encourage your customers to promote your products and services to their friends.

Growth Hack #5: Referral System

Encourage your customers to refer you to their friends by offering them discount coupons or vouchers which they may use in the future. Example: “Refer 3 friends and you get free shipping on your next purchase”. Everybody wants to earn something.

Growth Hack #6: Optimize site speed

Your website should load quickly. Adding so many photos can slow down your website. Use only photos that are really needed.

Growth Hack #7: Ask for PR from bloggers

There are many bloggers who are willing to help promote your business. You can either invite them to an event you are having, or send them samples of your products which they can write about and share with their followers. But you should also be careful because bloggers can sometimes be downright frank and brutal about what they think about your product. Choose the right bloggers.

Growth Hack #8: Hire virtual assistants

There should be dedicated personnel that handle your online presence. You should always be available online to let your audience know the latest about your business and provide answers to queries. Customers want to feel important and they expect answers immediately. By being constantly visible online, you are able to reach out to more people.

Growth Hack #9: FAQ

Create a Frequently Asked Questions page. Position questions around your key selling points. By doing this, you alleviate your customers’ purchasing anxieties and lessen the burden on your customer support. This can also help strengthen your customers’ trust in your business.

Growth Hack #10: Cold Emailing

Take time to research the names and contact details of your customers. Try sending out personal emails to 10-20 prospective individuals every day. Let them know about your business or latest offering. It may not always be a 100 percent turnaround, but you can reach some people that can eventually be of great help.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Be like Facebook, not BlackBerry: How 'disruptors' can succeed

MANILA - Entrepreneurs with groundbreaking ideas need business-minded counterparts to ensure success, an analyst said Monday, as startups around the world aspire to become the next Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg founded the world's largest social network as a Harvard dropout but found a management hand in chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, said Ranjay Gulati, unit head of the Harvard Business School Organizational Unit.

Sandberg, who has an MBA from Harvard, is a former Google advertising executive who started out in the US Treasury. Zuckerberg got an honorary Harvard degree in May, 13 years after dropping out.

"What makes a great entrepreneur doesn't make a great scaler of business," Gulati told ANC's Early Edition.




Gulati said established businesses often struggle to compete with disruptors. He cited the former king of smartphones, BlackBerry, whose market share vanished as consumers ditched physical keyboards for touchscreen panels.

"They don’t know how to embrace change," Gulati said, adding BlackBerry's fault was "playing not to lose instead of playing to win."

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned last month, under pressure from investors who demanded changes to the pioneer ride-sharing service's no-holds barred management culture.

Gulati said disruptors should be mindful of their corporate culture, adding, "In the end, culture is what comes back to bite you."

They should be able to empathize and "walk in the shoes of their customer," he said.

Disruptors should have a "bias for action" and be unafraid to fail, he said.

"The key word we have to think about is resilience. You're not going to get it right the first time. You have to have the resilience to keep trying, keep persisting," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'Best of You' founder shares Filipino connection

MANILA - Get to know more about Irish motivational speaker for budding entrepreneurs, Best of You founder Mike Grogan.

He left his home in Ireland 10 years ago, and has been hopping from one country to the next until the story of overseas Filipino workers inspired him to come to our shores.

A chemical engineer by degree, just six months in since practically being based in the Philippines, the 33-year-old Ed Sheeran lookalike has picked up more Filipino in his vocabulary than any Irishman could in that short span of time and even faith in the Filipino.

Here's how he puts his "Filipino connection" and the need to look for the hero in all of us.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

6 tips on how to shift into a marketing mindset

Business Mentor's note: Ralph Layco is the Chief Marketing Officer of SAM Holdings, Inc. He also consults for the Department of Tourism-Region XII. He recently finished his continuing studies course in Integrated Marketing at New York University for Spring- 2015. Offered an internship and possible career in New York, he returned home because of his advocacy to help the country in his ways. He’s a marketing nerd, and spends his day remote managing his team from a coffee shop. He believes in the power of great ideas. He believes that our itch, if we look closely enough, is a clue to a possible business breakthrough. He supports the movement of empowering young people to entrepreneurship and fulfilling their passions that’s why he organizes seminars where he can advise business owners and budding entrepreneurs)

MANILA - How many times have we sat down late hours in the office, drained and tired after a marketing strategy we worked on didn't do well as planned? Low sales, slow return of investment, bad conversions--these are very haunting metrics.

Others see marketing as a "spray and pray" game, others nail it, but easily give up after consecutive failures and analysis by paralysis.

It’s understandable. "Maybe it’s not my skill, maybe I’m not born a marketer, maybe I need to retire from marketing, and move to accounting," you might think.

With numerous marketing tools up to our arsenal, what gives?

How about we try social media? How about we do the massive leafleting at the high traffic area nearby the entrance of the mall post-office hours? Or how about spending a huge amount of money to an advertising campaign we’ve desperately thought of after sales slump and see how that works out?

The thing is, we only know so much. Here’s the good news and the bad news.

Bad news: There’s no perfect formula to marketing. Good news: I will introduce you to something that can be game changing.

In marketing, it’s not what you do, it’s how you think.

To win in a marketplace, all it takes is a positive attitude and a shift of paradigm. To become storytellers than product sellers; To become relationship-builders than transactional purveyors; To be positively tuning in, tweaking (and re-tweaking) until eventually getting it right; To become the most interested person about your target market so you can build your product around their evolving lifestyle, desires and insights.

Thus, I introduce you to #marketingmindset. (I used a hashtag to motivate proper social media index for your commentary about this article.)

Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success proposes, “Mindsets needn’t be set and fixed.” Fixed mindset doesn’t make you win in the marketplace, a growth #marketingmindset does. A fixed mindset is to go through business avoiding challenges and failures. A growth #marketingmarketing mindset, on the other hand is one in which your ideas as fluid, a work in progress. When you shift into a #marketingmindset, the challenge of which marketing tools to use becomes simply intuitive and cohesive.

Here are six important tips you can use to shift into a #marketingmindset:

1. Always be ready to pivot

In a nutshell, if your strategies aren’t working, tweak and launch it again until it prospers. Make flexibility and your intent to listen to your market the core strengths of your company. Instagram started as Burbn, a geotagging social network, pivoted after slow user acceptance, and eventually became a photo app. It has garnered hundreds of millions of users around the world ever since!

Our first ideas seldom work. We would need to evolve them after trials and errors. Given enough feedback, we begin to know better.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “In executing my marketing strategies, if the results aren’t promising enough, I’m willing to improve on feedback and response. I believe this is the most logical way to get market fit.”

2. Vague? Boring? Reframe!
Marketing is a storytelling game. Here’s a clincher: It’s not just a battle of products, but also a battle of perceptions. Our clients and customers respond to not only with what they see and hear, but also the meaning behind it. The problem is most businesses sell themselves exactly the same way as their competitors! If your business is boring, or a “me-too” in the market, reframe what you stand for.

Take Fitness First for example. They’ve positioned themselves as a complete facility, premium fitness gym in a sea of other competitive gyms. But Fitness First has reframed their business from a widely known "global" fitness gym into a more dynamic brand that is fitness-powered that “gives people ‘fitness-rich’ moments and interactions that form long-lasting habits.” Never has the brand been this exciting.

Reframing is also powerful if you are selling a product. Take advantage of its leadership in the marketplace, whatever that is. Smallest chip, first international donuts chain, largest low-cost carrier, the only Halal-certified, fastest growing, freshest ingredients. Consumer gives instant credibility points to brands that are leaders in a category or concept. If you don’t have a category you can lead in, make one.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “If my current brand image lacks the immense potential for my brand, I’m ready to reframe the story according to the current insights of my customers while staying true to our core values.”

3. Put yourself in the equation

Here’s one of your brand’s most competitive advantages: You.

Presently, the trend in branding and marketing is authenticity and I can see it will stay that way. Richard Branson, one of UK’s most serial entrepreneurs is as funky, young-spirited and dynamic as how he projects his series of brands to be.

Stand true to what you truly believe in on how things should be done. Customers respect brands that are committed to their fundamentals. Like how a young team of baristas who operates a coffee shop in Iloilo called Fuel.ph are committed to serve strictly fair-trade coffee from Benguet while at the same time foster communities, not just customers. Or how an online booking company named FlipTrip.ph differentiates itself from the giants like Agoda by promoting tourism and empowering local tourism operators. The founder believes in not just booking rooms as its business model, but also by empowering the local operators to become competitive, visiting them and training them.

Also, it would be increasingly difficult for your competitors to catch up because they can’t replicate your passion and originality.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “My brand represents something more than just a product or service. I want my customers to believe in my brand as much as I believe in what we’re advocating.”

4. Stop selling, start resonating

Seth Godin, in his book “Tribes” wrote, “For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

Your brand should be a platform of like-minded communities that is basically your selected niche, or your primary target market. Snoe Beauty, a homegrown make-up and personal care brand, has reached more than 50 stores nationwide in just five years because it stays true to its core message of being “fine, fun and fabulous.” The brand is translated by its witty product names; funky world-class packaging that resonated well to its female buyers. When you affirm your market’s longings and desires, accentuate their lifestyle, direct them to the next big thing, and resonate with them, the symbiotic relationship becomes effortless.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “My brand is a platform for my dear customers so they can be freely themselves, enjoying shared interests, fantasies and ambitions. Here, they’ll feel accepted. They’ll feel their part of something bigger than them.”

5. Want to go viral? Be really, really good first.

According to Paul Rand, author of Highly Recommended, “A true social business is based on being the most highly recommended brand.” This digital age has seen the fall of many brands that have been reported by websites for inferior customer service, posted in Facebook as faulty products. The internet has given back the voice of the people. We have a thumbs-up or thumbs-down mentality, and our brands now depend more than ever on the social commentary of our clientele.

Here’s what you can do: make a superior, elegant product or business first. You can even reinvest your marketing budget into improving your business; improve your store design, train on superior customer service, extend your waiting area because your clients are standing because of lack of chairs, offer rewards and incentives in their every visit. Make your brand so extraordinary that it compels your clients to talk about it, share it, and yes, recommend it.

Remember, word of mouth is the holy grail of marketing. You can build your entire strategy plan in designing to court positive feedback. Understand “the science of social proof” and use it to your advantage. Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “I have to start in making my business extraordinary enough that it’s worthwhile to share. It’s good karma.”

6. Most importantly, have fun!

Marketing doesn’t have to be frightening and expensive. In the contrary, it’s immensely exciting and lucrative! It gives you the opportunity to know your market up-close and fathom what ticks their imaginations. With those insights, you now have an understanding on how to improve their lives with what you uniquely offer. Once provided, it returns to you tenfold.

A person with a #marketingmindset would say, “I am having the time of my life doing this because while creatively marketing my product and services, I also get to reach my fullest potential.”

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Running an online business? Here are marketing tips

MANILA - There's never been a faster time for entrepreneurs to succeed in their businesses and do it in as little expense and highest return on investment (ROI) possible.

The internet has gifted everybody with the ability to reach millions of people in a fast, affordable, and traceable manner. Done right, brand awareness and high profits can be easy. Just like how a simple change in strategy allowed a Japanese aesthetics clinic in Makati to turn a 5-figure online ad budget into 6-7 figure sales.

Do a bad job or disregard it, and you might earn yourself a bad review, which will scare away everybody and lose profits or your business. People make buying decisions based on what they read online now and it’s crucial for every businesses to learn how to manage their online presence sooner rather than later.

In a rush to keep up, a lot of businesses are adapting it too quickly thinking they can throw money into it the same way they do with other mediums and end up discouraged with the results. Is internet marketing for you or is your understanding the problem?

Diving into digital without knowing the fundamentals is bad, you can lose money and be discouraged only to miss out on this wonderful opportunity. I’ve seen businesses that spent well over 7 figures online without any useful data to show for it. And that’s sad, because gathering insightful data about your customers is one of the strongest aspects of Internet marketing; it lives and breathes through it.

As technology gets more advanced, new user habits emerge with it. As a result, strategies that may have worked in the past can become ineffective. For example, five years ago, most marketers ignored having mobile-friendly websites, but now it has an effect on web rankings and some people also shop through their mobile phones. Internet marketing is a constant battle of who updates their strategies first and how you adapt to these changes.

To help you make the most out of your digital campaign, here are the common questions I ask my clients:

1. What is your objective?

Become crystal clear on what you want to achieve. Brand awareness, pushing for sales, gathering leads, and keeping your online reputation clean are some of the common objectives of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). You have to understand that these objectives are unique and will dictate how much you need to spend and what actions you need to take to achieve your campaign goals.

Most of the businesses that I consulted here always want the same objective, it’s always about brand awareness and sales. But most business owners are still confused on how these efforts contribute to the grand scheme. They focus on the wrong things like their followers, the post shares, impressions, hits or whether a post got viral. I’m not saying these are bad, but they are merely small parts of the whole. A more systematic way to go about this is to look at the bigger picture.

How you can solve this? Understand the journey of a typical Internet user from viewer to buyer and create a plan around it.

As you can see from the image above, the chances of you generating a profit increase the more you compel people to take action. The deeper they go into the funnel, the more they invest. They invest movement to click your ad, use brain cells to share an opinion about you, their time to get to know you more, and ultimately their money. The more people interact with your assets, the deeper you connect with them at a subconscious level. The small ripples resulting from the action in each segment of the funnel affect how many people will convert? The beauty in digital marketing is, you can track each of the action and reaction to each strategic move you make.

 2. How much are you willing to spend?

Decide whether you’re willing to invest time or money. If you want results fast, you need to have budget. To start getting traction on your ad campaign, you need a boost in traffic to your website of online assets. This can be done through a sponsored spot on an influencer’s blog, optimizing your site for search engine rankings, or buying ads online.

Blogger Features
Blogger features can actually become free if you can offer an interesting incentive to the blogger like a free product for them to review or gift cheques in exchange for a post on their social media assets. Doing this is also good for PR and the link you get from an established blogger will also help to boost your rankings on Google.

What To Expect: Generating Social Proof. The good thing about this is getting a lift in social proof for your business. There’s nothing more powerful than a recommendation from a friend let alone an influential blogger.

What to watch out for: Always inquire about average daily site visitors and their engagement rates. Always prioritize engagement rates over number of followers. Engagement is an action, and this kind of response is what you should be after. A common myth is, someone with a million followers always reaches one million users, that’s simply not the case, for even celebrities don’t always get that much engagement. An average social media account only reaches 5 percent of its total followers without paying for it.

Costs: You can take a guerilla approach and find underground social media users that have 20,000-100,000 followers and pay next to nothing or look at the top tier bloggers and expect to pay P5,000 to P100,000 for each feature.

Buying ads online
A typical spread on a popular newspaper can cost you upwards of P150,000. Magazines and newspapers command these high rates and justify it by presenting you with their circulation rates but in reality, you aren’t sure exactly how many people saw your ad and read it. When you buy ads online, you can track exactly how many people saw your ad and how many people took key actions.

What to expect: Get targeted traffic to your websites. The beauty of paid online advertising is the ability to precisely cut through the millions of Internet users and appear on a specific segment of the population. Your best options are Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. Google is best used for targeting user intent because your ads will show up on your targeted search term. Facebook, on the other hand, allows you to target by precise interest and specific age, sex, relationship status or even birthdays.

What to watch out for: The quality of your ads. More money to spend doesn’t always mean performance. It’s true you can order with either Facebook or Google to give you an exact number of users in millions but you can also use their self-serve ad platform. The self-serve ad platform rewards advertisers with cheaper costs for as long as the quality of their ads are high and relevant to the targeted users.

Costs: You get charged either cost-per-click or cost-per-impression. The average cost per click in the Philippines is around P6 or less, so if you had P150,000, you would’ve had 25,000 or more targeted clicks or about 800,000 or more impressions.

3. What makes my business unique?

Figure out what your angle is. Think of the internet like you’re walking into a huge social gathering. Everybody is grouped together according to their common interests and you have to interact with these people and make friends.

What to do: Understand that social media is never about you, it’s what about what people want. In real life, nobody likes a person that talks about himself or herself too much. Take time to get to know your target audience and figure out what makes them tick. Once you find your demographics’ hot buttons, create a persona around it, create an online persona for your brand, one that can have an emotional connection with your customers. Engage with them your content, and do not sell outright.

 4. What talents do I need to support me on this?

Digital marketing requires human capital, and I mean smart, creative, and caring people. Good thing there are plenty of resources available on and offline to help your people get up to speed in adapting on digital or you can also hire an experienced digital marketing agency to do the heavy lifting for you.

Skills that will help your company thrive in digital

Activate somebody with great analysis and critical thinking skills. This person will be in charge of making the strategic moves and tracking the performance of the campaign. When you’re creating ads or posts on social media, you’ll realize that some of it do better than others. To save on ad budgets, somebody has to make sense of the analytics report that you pull from your account so you can replicate these wins and improve the performance of posts or ads. This is where a professional Web Analytics person, a search engine marketer, or digital marketing specialist will thrive.

Utilize a person with a great eye for design and is awesome with words. About 80 percent of engagement begins with a captivating visual. An average user can get served more than 1,000 different stories on his news feed; it’s imperative that your graphics can capture attention within five seconds of seeing it. Don’t forget to add a dash of creative copywriting on that visual, it will serve as the bridge from getting their attention to creating a desire for your product and compelling them to take action. It’s important that you have a graphic designer and a talented writer on your team.

Dedicate a staff member for customer service. Hundreds and thousands of sales can be closed simply by actively answering your customer queries on social media. Yet most businesses are so focused on posting frequency that they forget to interact with queries when this is a lot more valuable than a like or a view. To standardize your customer interaction, come up with an FAQ list for your social media manager to make his work more efficient. Be nice to people, give them what they want and you will achieve your goals.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

TIPS: Protecting your finances when selling a business

MANILA – There comes a time when entrepreneurs are faced with the tough decision of whether or not to sell the business or allow a major investor to buy a big slice of the pie.

According to John Bly, a managing member of LBA Haynes Standard, entrepreneurs should prepare their personal finances when facing mergers and acquisition opportunities.

To prepare for mergers and acquisitions if you are a small business owner, Bly suggests preparing enough reserves aside, putting yourself in a good credit position, and be ready to leverage your balance sheet.

“Your personal finances should be in order, make sure that you are ready for the transaction, that you have enough reserves, that you have enough capital, and that your bank supports you,” he told ANC’s “On The Money.”

Financial adviser Salve Duplito, meanwhile, advises entrepreneurs to “think cash.”

“Whether you are buying another business or being bought, being in a position where you either have your own cash or can easily raise it allows you to get more out of mergers and acquisitions,” she said.

Duplito said if you are being bought by another firm and your books clearly show them you are cash-strapped, you will be vulnerable.

“If you are an entrepreneur, conserve cash now and build your reserve funds more aggressively,” she said.

Duplito also suggests guarding your credit worthiness fiercely.

“This doesn’t mean don’t borrow, in fact, it means quite the opposite. Banks find it more palatable to lend to someone they know and have a good track record of payment,” she said.

Entrepreneurs should also know to how to determine the value of their business, or if you are buying a business, not to overpay.

According to Bly, when valuing a company, make sure you have the right advisers.

Choose advisers based on their capability, track record and credibility, not the size of their professional fee.

Bly explained that valuations are affected by continuous cash flow, recurring revenue and growth opportunity.

“The Philippine market is going to be hot in the next 10 years because of the growth opportunity. It’s a young population, it’s a growing population, and it’s education-based. The faster the opportunity for growth, the higher the valuation because as the buyer, you are buying future growth and future earnings,” he said.

Aside from numbers, Bly said entrepreneurs should also look out for other red flags in mergers and acquisitions, such as culture, bad accounting records, personnel files that are not up to date, and bad state of equipment.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Which billionaire covers 1st issue of Forbes Philippines?

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino billionaire landed the cover of Forbes Philippines' first issue.

Forbes Philippines on Tuesday revealed Alliance Global CEO Andrew Tan is on the cover of its first issue.


Tan is the fourth richest Filipino, and 330th in the world, on the 2015 Forbes Billionaires List. His net worth is estimated at $4.8 billion.

His businesses include property (Megaworld), liquor (Emperador Distillers), fast food (McDonalds franchise for the Philippines), as well as hotel and casino (ResortsWorld Manila).

Forbes Philippines is being published in the Philippines under a licensing agreement between Forbes Media and Gokongwei-led Summit Media. Its initial circulation will be 10,000 a month.

On the Forbes website, William Adamopoulos, CEO/Asia of Forbes Media, said the launch is timely "given the Philippines’ rising economic prospects and its fast-growing community of CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Want to start a business in 2015? Read these tips

MANILA – Starting a business in 2015 is a good investment because of the country's growing economy, business expert Randell Tiongson said.

However, Tiongson warned that before entering any business, entrepreneurs should do due diligence to understand the industry.

“Huwag ka papasok sa isang bagay na hindi mo masyadong naiintindihan. Dapat mag-research, interview, observation, alamin mo,” Tiongson told “My Puhunan.”

Tiongson, an expert in banking, mutual funds, insurance, financial planning and management consultancy, also advised against getting a loan for a business start-up.

“Kailangan i-build mo talaga muna ‘yung savings mo. Pwede ka ding mag-partner, kunwari may mga kaibigan o kapamilya ka na may pera tapos wala namang oras mag-negosyo, eh ikaw may idea ka, ibebenta mo ngayon ‘yung idea mo sa kasama mo,” he said, adding that loans are only recommended when the business is already up and running.

Earnings from the business, Tiongson said, should be set aside from personal savings to allow the business to continue to grow.

“Huwag mong isipin na ‘yung capital ng negosyo ay parang personal capital mo, mauubos ‘yun. Dapat bigyan mo ng limit,” he said.

So what are the opportunities for entrepreneurs in 2015?

Tiongson said because of the booming economy, businesses that are tourism-oriented are expected to find success.

“Napansin mo ang mga Pilipino mas mabakasyon na ngayon kaysa, let’s say, 10 years ago,” he said.

He said the food industry is also flourishing because of the refined taste of Filipinos.

“Naghahanap na ang mga Pilipino ng kakaiba, gusto niya ‘yung mas specialized na,” said Tiongson.

Aside from being knowledgeable and teachable in a businessman’s chosen industry, Tiongson said entrepreneurs should also be willing to take risks and accept the consequences that come with it.

“Kailangan ng lakas ng loob, huwag matakot at haluan ito lagi ng dasal,” he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pinay included in Forbes list of top social entrepreneurs

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipina who has tapped poor communities to make "eco-ethical" bags has been included as one of Forbes magazine's top young social entrepreneurs.

Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, 29, is the only Filipina included in Forbes' "30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs" for 2015.



Fernandez-Ruiz is the co-founder of R2R (Rags2Riches Inc), a for-profit social enterprise creating bags and home accessories using upcycled scrap cloth, organic materials and indigenous fabrics. Women from poor communities have bee

Forbes noted that Rags2Riches is the "first fashion and design house empowering community artisans in the Philippines."

"It has trained 900 artisans and directly employ 50 people--professionals, in-house artisans, marketers, and strategists who are all working together towards the same goal. The organization experienced a consistent 100% annual growth rate for their first five years in existance (2007-2012)," the magazine said.

This is not the first time Fernandez-Ruiz has been recognized for her efforts. The Ateneo graduate also received the Rolex Young Laureate award in 2010.

According to its website, R2R was started in 2007 in Payatas, where many women make rugs from scrap fabric. R2R tapped these women workers and provided them with skills training.

R2R is known for its fashionable "Buslo" bags, as well as designer collaborations with Rajo Laurel, Oliver Tolentino, Amina Aranaz-Alunan, and Olivia d’Aboville.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Why flexible workspaces are in demand in Philippines

MANILA - Regus Philippines is seeing a strong demand for "flexible workspaces", as many foreign investors and startups are expanding in the country.

Lars Wittig, Regus Philippines Country Manager, said while most of their customers are from Fortune 500 companies, the company also caters to a large number of entrepreneurs, start-ups, mobile workers, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from various sectors and industries.



Wittig said flexible workspaces are in demand nowadays because it allows even start-ups to have their own office— whether it’s a space fit for only 3 employees or a conference meeting that can fit 20.

Customers are being offered workspaces that are ready to use with amenities that every office would need.

“A typical center has about 40-45 offices in different sizes and shapes... and then all the mutual space — this board room, a meeting room, a lounge, reception, pantry, powder rooms, etcetera — nobody feels like they're confined in their office," he said.

Wittig recommended the service to businesses aiming to do business globally, as Regus members will have access to over 2,000 centers in 100 countries.

“If you are a member of Regus anywhere in the world, you already have an office in the Philippines," he said.

Opening in 1999 with its first venture in the Philippines at Manila Enterprise Makati, Regus now has 11 existing business centers. It will open two more this year - Gateway Tower Cubao and Times Plaza building in Manila.



Ronald Cang, a customer of Regus, shared that having a “plug-and-play” office is a big help for growing and starting companies because employees can start working as soon as they move in.

"In a building, normally you don’t just walk in and assume office because… [if] you don’t like the furniture, don’t like the broadband or don’t have wired infrastructure, you have to purchase, you need to invest in an entire office," he said.

Cang said that Regus enables companies to have a professional-looking office, enabling better branding towards their customers and partners.

“If you want to set up an office that depicts your company profile… you can buy cheap, but look cheap. But if you invest in the professional architectural set-up for an office, and come up with professional [outlook] — Regus has it," he said.

Membership starts at the price of P2,500 for local-only access, up to P4,000 for global access to Regus centers for the duration of a month.

Workspace fee starts at around P10,000 per month, depending on the length of stay and type of office or space.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Why sales of red lingerie are up ahead of Chinese New Year

SINGAPORE - As the Chinese New Year gallops in on Friday, most people will be seeing red.

The year of the horse will be dominated by red lanterns, fireworks and mandarin oranges.

Believed to bring prosperity as it's the colour of money, red is also believed to ward off evil spirits.

So for protection and luck it's the only color to dress in -- from outer wear to underwear.

"Because it's Chinese New Year, because Chinese usually believe that the beginning of the year, something red is better. Then other days, black also can (is possible). Actually I prefer black," accounts clerk Ivy Kou said.

From Triumph to Wacoal, entrepreneurs are keeping abreast of the opportunities by launching fiery lingerie lines, and business is red hot with tens of thousands of the colored undergarments being sold in Singapore ahead of the spring festival.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Why men aren't allowed in this NYC networking event

NEW YORK - They are bloggers, engineers and chefs -- American women entrepreneurs who dream of emulating the success of Facebook number two Sheryl Sandberg or General Motors CEO Mary Barra.

And to smash through that glass ceiling, they have found a new weapon: speed-dating style networking events. No men allowed.

To shouts of "one, two, three -- change!" and "one, two, three -- switch!" ladies mingle at the first event organized at the annual women entrepreneurs festival run by the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University.

Around 280 women of all ages and professions are given three minutes to get to know each other, swap business information and exchange cards before moving onto the next person.

It is the business equivalent of the matchmakers' speed-dating phenomenon that took off about a decade ago as a chance for the loveless to quickly meet multiple people in the hope of snaring a date.

The room gets increasingly riotous as the session wears on, bathed in the beautiful light of a New York winter afternoon.

Pairs of women group and regroup like members of a ballet company, exchanging business cards as they go.

Some nod and smile, others stifle a yawn, break into laughter or screw up their eyes in concentration before the emcee calls on them to move onto their immediate neighbor.

"We make short... fun, playful videos to boost people's popularity online," says New York-based multimedia artist O Zhang.

"Give me your card!"

Farther away, a woman named Milena, a bit older with a friendly manner, heads towards a young woman who has caught her eye.

"Are you looking for somebody to talk to?" she says, introducing herself as a former technology director about to embark on new projects with Jacqueline Courtney, the founder of website Nearly Newlywed, which allows brides to buy and sell back wedding dresses.

The rules are simple, says Nancy Hechinger, an ITP faculty member and co-founder of the event: three minutes to introduce yourself, your business and your passion in "hopefully semi-controlled chaos".

Sources of inspiration

Rosemarie Gambetta -- a real estate agent who wants to turn her blog www.cheapeatsinc.com about dining out on a budget into an online restaurant guide, mobile app and business -- dreams of rising to the top.

Gambetta told AFP the event was a great exercise without the pressure of meeting a man.

"Women are not used to selling themselves... you don't want to come off as being too bitchy, you don't want to come off as being too aggressive," she said.

For Denise Courter, who left Wall Street to found www.FiDiFamilies.com, a children's activities website in Manhattan, it was an opportunity to meet "inspirational women".

"So many times, I went to conferences that were men-centric, and this is focusing on women and that is very exciting because we are all able to help each other up the ladder," she said.

Despite high-profile success stories such as Barra at General Motors, only 15 percent of US companies and only 4.5 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are run by women.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, who stirred up a furor in 2012 with an essay in The Atlantic magazine asking if it was truly possible for working mothers "to have it all," opened the 2014 forum.

"It's exactly where we need to be -- encouraging women to start things, to make things on their own," she told AFP.

Slaughter gave up a high-flying job at the State Department in order to take up a role at Princeton University, which enabled her to spend more time caring for her two sons.

"Guys who are entrepreneurs know other entrepreneurs. And I know those networks are very important... because we're still a substantial minority," she said.

Sashka Rothchild, a former chef and founder of Standbuy, a cancer fundraising tool for families, has just had a child.

"I was way out of practice so this is a good way to get back into the saddle," she said.

Katie Boyko, founder of the website DatingbyThreeDegrees.com, also went home satisfied.

"I did a little bit of A/B testing, what's the most concise way to get the message across... everybody is the room was a potential new client," she said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How apps can help entrepreneurs track income, expenses

MANILA, Philippines – Tracking income and expenses is a tedious task for business owners, particularly for newbies who have to closely monitor and control spending.

Financial adviser and ANC’s “On The Money” co-host Salve Duplito said that to simplify this task, entrepreneurs should consider harnessing technology using smartphones or tablets.

She said free applications on Android or IOS gadgets can record income and expenses “literally at the flick of a finger.”

These money management apps are iWallet, Money Tracker, Toshl Finance and Financius.

“These are capable of exporting your data, so that you are not held hostage by your phone’s operating system,” Duplito noted.

She also advised business owners to maximize the use of these apps by recording expenses in real time.

“The apps are designed to be so convenient that you can easily do them after you purchase something or after a client has paid you. So do not procrastinate,” she said.

Lastly, the financial planning expert advised business owners to keep receipts to document tax-deductible expenses and record them at the end of each week.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Online traders beware! The taxman cometh

MANILA – Online traders and entrepreneurs beware, as the Bureau of Internal Revenue this year will start going after online traders and sellers that fail to issue electronic invoices to customers.

Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares told reporters that online businesses – such as sulit.com.ph, e-bay Philippines, alibaba.com, ayosdito.ph and multiply.com - would have to be registered with the BIR.

"These businesses shall be registered to us, and that they should be paying the corresponding taxes. Otherwise, we will run after them," Jacinto-Henares said.

She said even entrepreneurs who use their personal Facebook accounts for business transactions would have to comply with the invoicing requirement.

"Some sellers negotiate directly on their personal Facebook accounts, and if these transactions are done on a regular basis, it would make him or her engaged in business, thus they also have to register and issue the necessary receipts and/or invoices," Jacinto-Henares said.

"What happens when you buy is you receive it by e-mail since the negotiation takes place via email or online. The buyer gets the receipt of his or her purchase through e-mail, which in turn, be printed out and the buyer could keep the same," she said.

"This plan will push through hopefully within the year. Under the rules, online sellers shall be registered as such to the BIR, and that their electronic invoicing shall likewise be registered either directly to us or a third-party accredited by us," the BIR chief said.

"The electronic invoicing could be availed of through a third party, but such third-party shall be accredited by the BIR. Meaning, private parties could participate and get the necessary accreditation from us," she added.

Citing Section 237 of the National Internal Revenue Code, the BIR chief said the bureau need not issue a revenue regulation to implement the law requiring the issuance of receipts and sales invoices for online transactions as well as penalties for non-compliance.

source: interaksyon.com

Silicon Valley Rocks Flashy Socks

SAN FRANCISCO — For barristers in 18th-century London, it was shoulder-grazing wigs. For the mad men of 1950s New York, it was briefcases and fedoras. For the glass-ceiling-shattering women of the 1980s, it was shoulder pads.

And for today’s tech entrepreneurs in high-flying Silicon Valley, it is flamboyantly colored, audaciously patterned socks.

In a land where the uniform—jeans, hoodies and flip-flops—is purposefully nonchalant, and where no one would be caught dead in a tie, wearing flashy socks is more than an expression of your personality. It signals that you are part of the in crowd. It’s like a secret handshake for those who have arrived, and for those who want to.

“I have been in meetings where people look down and notice my socks, and there is this universal sign, almost like a gang sign, where they nod and pull up their pant leg a little to show off their socks,” said Hunter Walk, 38, a director of product management at YouTube, whose favorite pair is yellow, aqua and orange striped.

Some say the craze took hold because socks are an acceptable shot of flair in a dressed-down, male-dominated culture—and peek out when entrepreneurs present their latest apps onstage at the tech world’s frequent conferences. Others offer a perhaps more universal explanation. “Girls notice,” said Matt Graves, 37, a communications director at Twitter, who prefers orange and blue stripes.

Showy socks hark back to the 1700s, when people wore them embroidered or in outlandish colors, fashion historians say.

While the recent resurgence in garish styles is global, Northern California shoppers particularly favor them, especially pairs like “argyles in quite screamy colors,” said Mikael Soderlindh, a founder and the chief executive of Happy Socks, a 4-year-old Swedish brand that many tech types wear.

“They are No. 1 pioneers, so they need something to express themselves as pioneers and cool dudes,” Soderlindh said in a phone interview from Stockholm.

Brilliantly colored and patterned socks have been spotted on entrepreneurs including Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive (colorful stripes); Jim Breyer, an early Facebook investor at the venture capital firm Accel (red and purple); and Om Malik, the founder of GigaOmniMedia, a blog network (polka dots).

And they can be found on social networks like Path, Instagram and Twitter, where techies like to show off images of their natty ankles.

Lee Sylvia, a sock buyer at Sockshop and Shoe Co., which has stores in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, Calif., said sales of wild socks were up, an observation echoed by other local sock specialists.

Selling particularly well: geometric patterns, pink and purple, orange and black for the San Francisco Giants, socks with words like “bacon” and “beer,” and “anything with ninjas,” she said.

The most popular styles cost $12 to $40 a pair and are made of combed cotton or wool by companies like Happy Socks, Anonymousism, Paul Smith and Corgi.

Silicon Valley footwear has not always been so fashionable. Mark Zuckerberg’s preference for Adidas open-toed sandals have helped land him on many a worst-dressed list, and Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, rarely leaves home without his Vibram FiveFingers nylon shoes.

Socks, on the other hand, are a nod to fashion without appearing as though you are playing by mainstream rules that Silicon Valley shuns—like, heaven forbid, dressing up.

“Let’s say you are wearing sweat pants and a hoodie, but you have really cool socks on,” said Joey Flynn, 24, a product designer at Facebook whose favorite pair is festooned with orange and red elk. “It can be this rebellion against everything, but I’m still considerate about how I put myself together because I have these really cool socks.”

Travis Kalanick, 35, co-founder and chief executive of Uber, the on-demand taxi service, began wearing statement socks at his previous company, which sold software to businesses.

“I started having to suit up for meetings with Fortune 500 companies,” said Kalanick (his favorite: hot pink). “I wanted to keep a little of my geeky computer engineering flair without people thinking I was nuts.”

For some, like Flynn of Facebook, Walk of YouTube and Graves of Twitter, colorful socks serve a more practical purpose. The three men are colorblind, so they tend to choose neutral clothing and colorful socks because they go with everything—though Matt Van Horn, a sock fanatic who works at Path, said his wife, Lauren, would disagree. His pink socks, she has told him, clash with his green shoes.

Women’s socks may be more intriguing than men’s, it seems.

“Sometimes I will even browse the women’s section and get the XXL, because they have all the fun colors,” said Andrew Trader, 42, an investor at Maveron who helped found Zynga. (He is partial to wool socks with bright stripes as well as a pair with an American flag pattern.)

Diana Crane-Herve, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, said workplace fashion fads like outlandish socks are often an unconscious way to deal with worries about job security or fitting in.

But Trader claimed his socks give him a professional leg up in a different way—because they stretch to his knees, instead of below his calves.

“I love high socks because they do the same thing for your calves that compression shorts do for your thighs: keep the circulation going and give your calves all kinds of energy,” he said. “I have plenty of energy throughout the day, and the secret is high socks.” (NYT)

source: mb.com.ph