Insights

ISOLATING YOUR MARKET

Isolating your market.
by Butch Salvador

Every Business needs a market (Nag negosyo ka pa kung walang market). They are the people who patronizes your business, buys your products and needs your services. They are the guys who puts money in your pocket and ads to the digits of your bank account.

My businesses are formed out of the markets need. Tinatanong ko ang mga tao o grupo ng tao kung ano ang kailangan nila. Ask what the people needs! What people? What group? Those who ride the FX, those who stays at their homes< those who ride cars, those who go to school, Mga nanay, tatay, mga chicks, dudes and men…

Ah kaya pala may mga pan laba na amoy kalamansi, may amoy sampaguita, may pang kalawang, may pang amoy baktol, amoy bakulaw at pang amoy araw! They make varieties based on what is needed!

Meron din vitamins na pang girls, pang men pang bata , kay … alam nyo na yun! Im sure youre getting my point.

There are products and services that are formed and made then pushed to the market. IF …you have money and a big capital, GO! Kasi these are the businesses that usually requires “EDUCATING THE CLIENT”. If you will come up with a medicine, you have to first educate the market before you can sell it. Kailangan ipaalam sa buyer kung bakit sila kailangan bumili ng produkto mo. OR if you will invent a gadget, the question is, FOR WHAT?

So, if I would be a beginner in business, il start by asking,,, ANO BA KAILANGAN NYO? Dati, wala namang facial wash ah… o foot spa… the authors of these businesses asked … that question. What is the markets need?

Now, if you already have a business at tila walang nag papatronize o linalangaw ang negosyo mo… Ask… did you ask, ANO BA KAILANGAN NYO?

Ok, OK… SIGE, IL HELP. Im sure naman na may cliente ang business mo. Baka hindi mo lang ma tap kung nasaan sila.

Walang aaray ha… ILAN SA INYO ANG NAG JOIN NG YAHOO GROUP PARA I MARKET ANG PRODUKTO NYO?

CAPTAIN… BARBEL!!! Daming sumigaw! (he he he)

Tabi tabi po… pero gusto natin I network ang negosyo natin di ba… ang pagkakamali nyo… ESTE NATIN, eh lahat tayo nag hahanap ng market at akala natin makakabenta tayo sa mga yahoo groups. In a way, that is right, but… we are all business people trying to market our business.

Paano ba mahanap ang MARKET ng negosyo ng business mo?

My goal in this article is to help you pin point WHO your market is and how to locate them. Since most of us have a business that didn’t start by asking what the market needs, we will work it on reverse mode.

YOURE BUSINESS… WHO NEEDS IT? (ARE YOU WITH ME GUYS?)
baliktarin natin! Dahil hindi tayo nag simula sa tanong na “ano ang kailangan nyo?” itanong natin…sino ang may kailangan at nasaan ang mga taong kailangan ang negosyo ko.

This is quite a challenge because every business has their own market. To isolate your businesses market you have to narrow down and remove people who is not your market and mark them as “NOT MARKET”.

Example, if you have a sago , gulaman business… start omitting people with diabetes. OR, do not make a sports equipment store near orthopedic hospital! At wag na wag kang mag bukas ng air con repair shop sa baguio! Sigurado akong hindi ka kikita.

So the 1st step is OMITTING! Remove and label “NOT MARKET “people who are obviously not your market. If you have a sari sari store at paranaque, hindi mo pwede maging market ang taga taguig.

Now, 80% of the world is removed. That’s OK... instead of trying to spend time, effort and money selling to them. Just be honest enough and say, I will not waste my efforts on this person , kasi no matter what I do… he is not my market.

If a person doesn’t have enough salary to buy a condo… Omit him if you’re selling one.

This leads is to the 2nd step… LOCATING. If they are not your market, who? Consider people who can possibly be your market! If your business is in CPU repairs, hanapin mo kung nasaan ang mga computers at mga taong mahilig sa CPU… If it’s a home service cpu repair, dun ka mamigay ng leaflets sa GREENHILLS OR GILMORE.
If you have a pre school, nasaan ang mga bata? Asaan ang mga new mothers? The moms are the primary target of pre school pupils. They will be the ones who will enroll their kids. Eh san mo sila makikita?

The principal of my daughters school met with me one time and consulted me regarding expanding their schools market. The question was, PAANO KO MAPAPALAKI ANG POPULATION NG SCHOOL? IT IS A BIG SCHOOL AT MARIKINA BUT QUITE UNHEARD OF. My advice was; Go to small day care centers and toddler schools, yung mga school na nasa tabi tabi na naka bili lang ng black board na inspire na mag tayo ng skwela… yung mga may pangalan na .. JESUS, SHEPHERD, BERRY, LORD…YUNG talagang pang Pre School. Make a tie up or simply promote the school to them (give commission if possible or discount to enrollees coming from their school). I added that they should offer the school to be used for graduation of small schools for a minimal fee. Now that resulted to parents finding out about their school and with a big tarpaulin display at the side of their stage… parang mga isdang pumasok sa lambat… 70% of the graduates of those toddler schools enrolled at their school( panong hindi ko malalaman, eh asawa ko teacher ng pre school nila! It worked!)
If CAR REPAIRS ka… eh di nasa parking! Banawe! PAG HOME SERVICE ang negosyo mo… target HOMES! Aysus… parang BAT MAN and ROBIN, romeo AND Juliet, ERNIE and BERT, MILLIE and VANILLI…

Eh bakit kayo nag market sa mga yahoo groups na may salitang “entrep”, “business,” ”negosyo”, biz… alam nyo na mga pinag sasalihan natin… tayo tayo din ang nagkita…naka benta ba tayo? SECRET…Maybe… One thing is for sure. I found the best business partners on our yahoo groups.

Again, this is very elementary but we find ourselves desperately looking for a market for our business.

IF: Beauty products or pampa sexy products mo…(slimming. Whitening, home massage service, ) join groups that has to do with wellness or mga groups that are into health and sports… OR… tie up with the beauty salons, gyms at your area.
IF: car products, join car fanatic groups… Honda, Toyota, etc.
(pero walang aalis sa group natin ha… masaya tayo dito, thanks to our moderators). Talk to car wash operators, car accessories.
IF: Gadgets: mga yuppies ang market nyan, you will see them at eastwood and bars in the evenings, coffee shops.
IF: Advertising ka: open a buy and sell magazine… andun lahat ng advertisers.
IF: pest contol or any home service business: go to the village administration.
IF: Travel agency: Sa class A villages, offices…

Tip lang naman po yan…

So, what im trying to say is LOCATE YOUR MARKET. Know where they are.

Locate people who would be qualified for your business as patrons!

Are you starting to see your market? Can you feel that sale?!

At this point im sure we will save so much time and effort for our business. Imagine, real estate agent ka… then you spent the whole day giving out leaflets of your luxurious project at tumana town house , talipapa executive homes at sa jologs grand villas… wag naman. Saying leaflet , pera at pagod mo.

Eh pano kung walang MARKET… ? then sa third step tayo… CREATE A MARKET!
I literally ate a BIG MC… in front of a seminar one time…after that, I asked the audience how do they feel. Most of them said… ginutom kami. Guys the only way to build an appetite to other people is to munch and gormandize in front of them. They will crave for what you have if they see you munching on it.

Bakit may camera celfone mo? Kasi nakita ko sa kaibigan ko na meron sya, pinahiram nya at pinagamit sa akin… pinag ipunan ko… bumili ako. Ganun lang yun eh… THE FEEL CREATED THE APPETITE WHICH MADE YOU WANT IT!

When I was young, my mom always brings me with her at the nearby beauty parlor. Eh bata ako.. Sabi ko sa nanay ko (with a loud voice inside the parlor), mama, dib a beauty parlor to? Bakit ang panget nila?! That was our last visit there and my smiling mom, trying to smile the embarrassment away… whew.

Build an appetite inside people to make them patronize you! Hindi ka pwede maging gym instructor then mataba ka… hindi mo pwede sabihin na magaling ang whitening soap mo kung kulay uling ka…

My point is , MAKE PEOPLE INTERESTED WITH WHAT YOU HAVE! SHOW THEM! That’s the reason why there are free taste sa groceries pag pasok mo. It is as simple as, taste it… build an appetite… then buy it.

I would say that the music industry has created a very big market today for musical instruments and voice lessons. Why? Because every high school student wants to ba a bamboo or a medwin ! they want to be a Kenneth of true faith and a drummer like chavy romawak of session road. How do I know?... Play a band music… Look at how people react to it.

So, create and build an appetite for people to patronize your business.

To sum up… whew, (Im really hoping you guys could apply this to your business, be creative , come up with new marketing ideas. ) If you are starting a business, ask first… WHAT DOES THE MARKET NEED? And if you already have a business that is existing but having a little problem with sales… reverse it. Ask… WHO NEEDS MY BUSINESS?

How to Think Like a Self-Made Millionaire

For the longest time, I was taught by my family to go to school and go to college and get a good job as an employee for a stable employer. “Be a doctor,” they said. “Be a lawyer,” they said. “Get one with a good benefits and retirement plan,” they demanded. My grandmother was so adamant that I went to a good university, that my graduation from the University of California, Santa Barbara outweighed all of my other accomplishments that I considered to be much greater than getting my getting a degree.

What’s the fixation on going to college, getting a degree and getting a stable job? Personally, I think that it is an old-school mentality based upon fear. The second tier on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs deals with a human being’s inherent need for safety and security. In our caveman days, security was finding a cave that would keep out the saber-toothed tigers. Today, it means financial security. You see, back in my Grandma’s days, there was very little financial security. In her lifetime she has seen five U.S. wars, been wrongful imprisoned by the American government during World War II because she was a Japanese-American, suffered through the great depression of the 1930s, and dealt with the “Black Monday” stock market crash of 1987. Empathizing with her life, I can see how she would value high education and a stable job because anything else would be too unstable in her mind. I got my degree and made her happy, but I had no desire to trade my time for money and have another person be in control of my freedom as well as the amount of money that I could make.

Myth: Formal Education will Lead to Higher Financial Success

I coasted through college without any intensive study or desire to study. In fact, I was a horrible student in terms of study habits. I credit my finishing college only to my innate ability to pick the right multiple-choice answers based upon deductive reasoning and my love of writing research papers. All the while I was there though, I was looking for information that I could take to the streets—practical information that I could put to use, after all, I was paying tens of thousands of dollars for my top-notch education, but I went through my college education with perhaps only three classes that really provided me with some good useful information.

Like many college graduates discover, I found out that when you get out of college, you enter the business world that cares little about education and wants marketable trade-specific skills. So there I was with my diploma in hand, finding out that I was no better off than a high-school graduate. In fact, I was at a disadvantage from those who had entered the workforce right out of high school because they had worked their way up and developed marketable experience and skill sets that were prized by employers. I felt kind of swindled because all my life I was told, graduate from college and the money will be there. The truth might hurt, but the record must be set straight and that is that in this day and age employee’s with a four-year degree are a dime a dozen. As an employer now myself, I can say that a four-year education tells me that you can read and write well, but little more than that. What I look for is experience and practical knowledge. I’m not saying that a four-year education is worthless, but that it’s weight on the career negotiating table is not as heavy as it once was. Let me put it another way: Going to college will make you a good employee, but it does not guarantee wealth.

The Employee Salary Trap

Getting a corporate salary is the biggest hindrance to wealth building if you are choosing that as your sole vehicle for wealth. That’s because for most of us, our salary is fixed by our employers and any and all raises are dictated by our employers. In short, we won’t get rich unless our employer says we can. Unfortunately, I haven’t met a single employer in my time who has decided to make their employee rich. Being on salary is stable and people like being stable, but in order to develop a millionaire-mindset, you must get away from looking at your salary as the only means of income around. Being a salaried employee is not a bad thing at all. You can use the experience to learn and acquire new skills and have a stable stream of income to pay the bills. I’m just saying that you should not rely on your salary exclusively if you intend to become rich because at best, your employer will only allow you to make a decent living, not to become rich.

Self-Employed Versus Business-Owner

Private practice doctors, lawyers, and all other similar high-paying service professions make a decent living, but they aren’t what I consider rich by their professions alone. That is because even though their per-hour salary is higher than the average, their wealth framework is still the same as the gardener making only $8.00 per hour—and that is that they are still trading their time for money.

What’s wrong with that? Well, it’s because we only have a limited amount of time in the day to monetize. Granted these professionals have broken free from the corporate dictatorship, but they have another problem that they face—Stop working equals no income. That means if these individuals are out sick, or on a vacation, or get injured, then all their source of income dries up because they can’t trade their time for money. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on these individuals to stay busy, which is in part why I think lawyers are the most jittery people I know. That leads me to this point: being self-employed means you are trading time for money while being a business-owner means you are using the power of leverage.

What’s Leverage?

Business-owners are the wealthiest people on this planet and many of them do not have any formal college degree. A good example is Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who is worth approximately 25 billion dollars at the time of this writing. He dropped out of Harvard and founded his own company. Business-owners use the power of leverage, which in this context, simply means that they get more from their one hour of time than do the self-employed or the employees. In Gates’ instance, he developed a computer operating system which he licensed out. He put effort into creating one product that delivered a lot of value to its buyers and he profited immensely from that.

But you don’t have to write software to become rich like Bill Gates. People who purchase real estate work off the same passive income model. People who invest do the same. In the service arena, smart service professionals start contracting others to provide the actual services and take a cut on the profit, thereby creating value for both the service provider and the customer. That is leveraging services.

Business-owners look for multiple streams of income. Employees believe that they have a level of security in their job, but a surprise layoff or getting fired could end that security as fast as it was obtained. Worst yet, the employee has nothing more than unemployment benefits to work off of. A business-owner might lose one of his streams of income, but still has others to work off of. This is what I think of as safety—having multiple streams of income.

Take a Risk

In my Personal Development sessions, I advise people to face their fears head on because in taking on that challenge, it causes them to grow, both personally and professionally. Entrepreneurs and employees both have to deal with failures, but smart entrepreneurs are not afraid to take that risk, knowing that it will bring them one step closer to success. Be willing to try new ideas and to step out of the box. Look for additional ways you can make money and don’t just talk about it—DO IT. That’s one of the most powerful concepts that makes people millionaires—the ability to act.

Key Points

While this article only briefly talks about the millionaire-mindset, take with you these key points:

* All of us have the same amount of time during the day and we can only sell so much of our time.

* If you trade your time for money, the best you will do is earn a decent living. You won’t get rich by this model.

* Find ways of leveraging what you do to get more out of your time and hence more money.

* Create passive income by way of products, software, or investment vehicles that produce a positive cash flow to create multiple streams of income.

* Don’t wait for the perfect time because it will never happen. Act now, even if your plan is not perfect.

ENTREPRENEUR, BUHAY KA PA!

Entrepeneur, Buhay Ka Pa!
by Anthony Pangilinan

Senator Manny Villar, an entrepreneur advocate, once shared an experience with a Pinoy employee who said there was no way he was going to be an entrepreneur in this country. “Hindi po rito sa Pilipinas!” (Not here in the Philippines!) Senator Villar asked: “Bakit naman?” (Why not?) With frustration painted all over his face, he replied, “Business permit pa lang, imposible na! Pila, lagay, oras… ang hirap!” (It’s impossible to get a business permit: Lining up for hours and worrying about grease money!) Probably waiting for a word of encouragement or some form of sympathy, the man was taken aback by Senator Villar’s response: “Tama ka, huwag na lang! Dahil kung business permit pa lang…” (You’re right.) Entrepreneurs are of a different breed. Or species. Andy Ferreria explains: “If for others, something is hard, for entrepreneurs, it’s easy. If for others, something is impossible, for entrepreneurs, it will take some time.” Some studies show will take an average of 5 to 7 failures before one succeeds in business. I have failed more than that. I’m “above average.” I’m an entrepreneur. Resilience. Tenacity. Never-say-Die Spirit. I’ve always been inspired by “motivational one liners” early on in my life. I listened to them. I took note of them. Memorized some of them even. Try this: “The force behind you is greater than the task ahead.” Or the classic, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” There must be some truth to the idea that what the mind conceives, the body achieves. I did not consciously immerse myself in these positive ideas so that I’d have a fighting chance later on in life. But, I must admit, that seems to have happened. While I do not claim victory in all areas and battles of life, this will not deny: I have been an overcomer as I surround myself with overcomers. Overcoming is a possibility. But it is a reality for those who are continually striving—with the hope of thriving—for God, the country and the family. International bestselling author and speaker Zig Ziglar reinforces this idea: “Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude.” If all starts in the mind, then that is where the battle must be won. I have to remind myself everyday that it all boils down to three things: 1) the publications I read, 2) the movies and TV programs I watch, and 3) the company I keep. Do I read the papers first thing in the morning, or do I read my Bible ahead of everything else? Do I even spend a moment with tabloids or do I “kill” the desire for the sensational and spend my money on more reputable—and, okay, sometimes boring—material? Will Big Brother consume me or will I have more of Animal Planet as I did last night while marveling at the testimony of a lioness that took care of an abandoned calf? I have to remind myself as I flick through different channels: Whatever I can’t walk away from has mastered me. And the company I keep. It’s always a privilege rubbing elbows with Plantersbank. I choose to write for their publication because their dedication to sharing inspiring success stories brings hope for us as a people. Spend time with negative people, and eventually find yourself brought down when the intent was for you to bring yourself up! At a most challenging moment in my life, my brother Kiko wrote me this note. It has become a pillar for me in my desire to be the best entrepreneur I can possibly be, whatever the environment. “Shine like a star because the world is getting darker. But you will motive the darker the night, the brighter the stars shine.” Philippines circa 2006. What a perfect moment to shine.