Money Magnets

How They Made Their First Millions

Labels: Business, Cynthia Yap, e-commerce, Earn that first million, Eireen Diokno-Bernardo, Ian del carmen, internet marketing, Jojy Azurin, Millionaires, Noli Alleje, Real estate marketing, Success stories on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at August 21, 2012

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

We came across this article from Money Sense about five entrepreneurs and how they made their first millions. Among the 5, three of the interviewees made their first million through e-commerce or simply by selling stuff in the internet. The other 2 made their millions engaging in real estate. Given the statistics, it seems like these are the industries to look out for if you want to earn those millions and become financially free.

How I Made My First Millions
Highlights from the article by Mr. Heinz Bulos of Money Sense

First Millionaire - Ms. Cynthia Palad-Yap

Made her first million when she was 34 years old in real estate.
Biggest mistake was doing to many things at one time. She learned that it was better to concentrate on one field. When she saw the blueprints of Bonifacio Global City (BGC) she knew she found the right place to sell.
Tips of earning money in the real estate business: study the market well and find out what the market needs and develop the ability to match the need of the market with the need of the buyer.
No. 1 mistake of newbies: Focusing more on the money than the relationship with clients!

Running Family Businesses the Gokongwei's Way

Labels: Business, Family Business, Lance Gokongwei on Saturday, March 24, 2012 at March 24, 2012

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

Running a family business isn't easy. In fact, in business circles, many people talk about how the 1st generation start the business, while the 2nd generation makes it grow, only to be brought down by the 3rd generation. Here are a few tips from Lance Gokongwei, president of the JG Summit Group, one of the successfully-ran family businesses in the Philippines. Great lessons to follow for those who are looking on to build their business empire as well.

In summary, the unwritten commandments of the Gokongwei family are as follows:

Business Lessons from Selling Iced Tea?

Labels: Business, Others on Friday, October 1, 2010 at October 01, 2010

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

Since it's a Friday. Let me offer something different for this blog. Trust me! You'll learn a lot from this story while having a good laugh as well.

Francis Kong is definitely among the best inspirational and motivational speakers in the country. If you haven't seen his blog yet, you should visit it and subscribe. I'll provide the link in this post.

In a recent post entitled "A Lesson From A Tea Business" he illustrated the importance of charging accordingly and delivering quality to help sustain a business. A friend and I have been agreeing on this matter for quite some time now. Both of us are from Davao City but we occasionally come to visit Manila. We noticed that prices in restaurants are way more expensive in Manila compared to Davao. On the average it is 3 to 4 times more expensive. This however, does not discourage us from splurging occasionally and trying out the sumptuous meals. And the only reason we give is because of the quality. The quality of the food and the ingredients, albeit being very expensive, are definitely much better here in Manila. We reasoned out that if only Davao restaurants provided the same type of quality then we wouldn't hesitate to spend as much in Davao as well. I'm not saying that all Davao restaurants serve food of poor quality, it's just that restaurants should charge accordingly with the quality that they deliver.

The anecdote comes with a punch line at the end of the story which is ingenious. Go ahead and read the entry after the jump.

A Lesson from a TEA Business
by: Francis Kong

There’s a sign on a small-time lemonade stand:

"Lemonade 25 cents a glass. Special offer: 10 cents a glass only if you bring it back fast enough so I can use the ice again." Well it looks like this boy knows how to do cost cutting at his young and tender age.

Let me share with you another story.

Benny had told all his friends about the delicious steak he'd eaten in the newly opened restaurant the day before. So they decided to go down there and see if it was really as large and delicious as he said. But much to their disappointment, the waiter brought them the tiniest steak they'd ever seen.

"Hey waiter!" Benny barked. "I was in this restaurant yesterday and you served me a big juicy steak, and now today, when I've organized a party, you serve such a small one." Why is your business so inconsistent?

"Yes, sir," replied the waiter. "It is true that yesterday we gave you a large and juicy piece of steak. But you see sir, yesterday; you were sitting by the window. And today you’re not!”

Many eating-places would love to bring you to their window seats because they want people passing to see that their business is always full. But here’s the problem. This technique could augment business but the one principle they need to understand is that they can have all the marketing techniques they want and employ it but if their products are not good and their services not excellent, they may as well kiss their business goodbye. In all things, especially in business, you and I need to be honest all the time.

Driving home from her office one summer day, a woman noted that there were four places within two blocks of her home where she could stop and buy a five-cent glass of iced tea. Each little stand had two or three youngsters behind it, all eager to serve any customer who came their way. During the next two weeks, the woman managed to stop at each of the stands to encourage the kids. In each case the tea was very good. Small talk revealed that all the youngsters were selling tea made by their mothers, who used tea leaves and real lemons in making the tea.

One day the woman discovered that only one stand was operating. Behind it was the new kid on the block. She stopped and ordered a glass of tea. It was served in a paper cup and it cost 10 cents. Some conversation brought out the fact that the young man's father was a lawyer who specialized in charging, which had inspired the boy to buy out his competitors, bartering with baseball cards, marbles, and stuff he had laying around in his garage.

His first act, he explained, was to raise the price of the iced tea, and cut costs. He was using a powdered tea mix from the supermarket, he said, which eliminated buying real lemons as well as the bother of squeezing them or putting them in the charges.

He didn't have to charge real tea either, he pointed out. He had plans to cut costs further, he said, and with his competitors out of the market, he expected sales to grow.

Intrigued, the woman made a half dozen more stops at the stand and became aware that the tea was getting weaker and weaker. One day the young man confessed that sales were dropping and he attributed this to the fact that he was using less and less of the chariot mix.

Then one day he went out of business, as attempts to turn things around failed. The moral of this story is: HONEST TEA IS THE BEST POLICY.[1]

Charge accordingly but deliver quality. This is being honest. Even if you cut on prices but deliver sub-standard quality, your business will not be sustainable. Respect your customers. Be honest and serve them well.

Building Businesses To Sell

Labels: Business on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at February 16, 2010

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

My day started really early. I woke up at 2am today and couldn't get myself back to sleep. And so I decided to continue reading The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don't Work and What to do About It. That's when I encountered this idea of building your business so that you can actually sell it. It was an interesting read as I never thought of establishing my own business so I can just sell it. For me, and probably for most of us, going into business means keeping it running so that the money will keep coming as well. This book really changed the way I think about running businesses. If you want to learn more about building your business so you can sell it 'Continue Reading' this article.

Come to think of it, it was not my first time to encounter this idea. A few years back, my sister told me of a friend who was actually aiming to do this. She said that after her friend successfully established a business, her friend was able to sell it for millions! Now, her friend is putting up another one looking to sell it in the future as well. Giving it a deeper thought, this idea actually doesn't sound so bad. However, the question is, how do you establish your business to make it worth so much, how do you make it so that you can sell it for millions? Just like what my sister's friend did.

The Business as your Product

Michael Gerber, the author of the E-Myth books, provides us with a simple answer. He said that the key is for entrepreneurs to treat their business as the product itself and not think of the items they are selling or the services they are providing as their product. In treating the business as the product itself, the entrepreneur works on improving the business itself and as a consequence at the same time satisfying the needs of the customers as well.

He said that it is important to build a system that is independent of the capabilities of the person doing it so that the same process can be replicated else where. It is also important to build a system so that the customer is treated to the same experience every time he/she patronizes your business. This is what the author referred to as the Franchise Prototype. Particularly, the author is referring to Business Format Franchising where in a system is built to run the business and people are only needed to run the system. This, he says, gives the business a higher chance of success.

All along, the author was actually introducing to us the concept of franchising. He explained why developing the system to run our businesses is very important. This way we can open up branches of our businesses else where and give it a higher chance of success. He didn't really say that you have to sell your business but in case you want to sell it some time in the future then doing without a system on how to run things will definitely not benefit you. Furthermore, having a system is actually beneficial for the entrepreneur because it allows him to be not working in it but still earning from it. This way your business doesn't have to be your life.

It was truly an inspiring read. I must say that I agree with the author. Especially for small businesses, setting job descriptions, writing operations manuals, and other seemingly insignificant system processes are oftentimes skipped or totally ignored. Although the success of a business is also dependent on so many other factors, developing a business format will definitely increase its sustainability. This is why I think a lot of family businesses don't last through generations because the business format is not passed on properly from one generation to the next.

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The Entrepreneurial Myth

Labels: Business on Monday, December 7, 2009 at December 07, 2009

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

Last month, I visited Cebu city after more than a year and I was surprised to see that they have their own Fully Booked bookstore already! To celebrate my first visit there, I bought a copy of "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael Gerber.

Into the first chapters, I already got hooked as I learned about the technician, the manager, and the entrepreneur. Continue reading this article to know more about the Entrepreneur Myth.

Michael Gerber wrote that most small businesses aren't actually started by entrepreneurs. In fact, he wrote that most small business owners actually are technicians. He defined technicians as people capable of doing the technical work involved in the business. These are individuals who started working for somebody else until one day they decided to start their own business. According to Gerber, the problem with this setup is that these individuals tend to assume that if they understand the technical work of a business, they also understand a business that does that technical work. When in fact, the technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things.

I definitely agree. Knowing how to do something to start a business is totally different from running that business. The author then presented that there are actually three types of individuals involved in a business and that these personalities are present in each one of us. These are:

1. The Entrepreneur

2. The Manager

3. The Technician

An Entrepreneur is the visionary in us, the dreamer. He turns the most trivial condition into an exceptional opportunity. He lives in the future and constructs images of "what-if" and "if when." He pushes for change which the manager and the technicians might not necessarily agree with.

The manager is the one that plans and brings order and predictability in the organization. Where the Entrepreneur sees the opportunity in events, the Manager sees the problems. His main focus and drive is to bring order to the organization.

The Technician is the doer. He is happy as long as he is working. He is not so much interested in ideas as in learning "how to do it." Trying new things that probably doesn't need to be done at all can frustrate and annoy him.

Given the presence of these three conflicting personalities in us, it is therefore crucial for us to control each personality and attain balance so that our businesses can continue growing and be successful.

Ride Something to Wealth!

Labels: Bo Sanchez 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich, Business, Mutual Funds, Personal Finance, Stocks, UITFs on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at August 04, 2009

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

Ride Something to Wealth is secret no. 6 of Bo Sanchez' 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich! In this chapter, Bo encourages us to ride as many vehicles to wealth. We can choose to ride bicycles, cars, or even airplanes to wealth!

By riding vehicles to wealth, Bo emphasized the importance of having multiple income streams. It doesn't matter how small the income stream is as long as their is an in flow of cash. Another point he stressed was the importance of profit over wages. Profit, of course, is achieved by running your own business as oppose to receiving wages as an employee. Continue reading for the rest of the article.

Bo used the analogy to going from one place to another to illustrate the importance of riding vehicles to wealth. Let's say you want to get from point A to point B, one can either walk, ride a bicycle, ride a car, or ride an airplane to reach point B. The difference is on how fast each alternative will get you to your destination. Definitely walking will take you the longest time to reach your destination while riding an airplane will most likely get you there faster.

In our case as money magnets, our goal is to become financially free. We want to become wealthy enough so that in the future we do not have to worry on a daily basis about where to get money to spend for our daily needs. On certain occasions, we may also want extra money for luxurious and leisurely activities. Walking to reach our goal equates to leaving our money in regular savings accounts and time deposits. Although our money earns interest, it'll take years before the earnings become meaningful. On the other hand, Bo likened riding a bicycle to investing our money in Investment funds. Investment funds can either be UITFs, Mutual Funds, or Stocks. By investing our savings in Investment funds, we can potentially earn more and reach our goal faster.

Faster than riding a bicycle is to ride a car to wealth. Bo Sanchez likened riding a car to starting your own business. He wrote that 74% of millionaires in the world are entrepreneurs. He suggested using your core gift with passion and earning from it. In order to figure out what your core gift is, try answering the questions: "What do you enjoy doing?" and "What are you good at?" If you are passionate about your business, then the chances of it succeeding are much higher than when you just feel obliged to enter in to it because you think it's a good opportunity.

When your business or investment becomes big then it would be like riding a plane to wealth! The bigger your money or investment is, the faster it is to achieve your dreams! You've probably heard millionaires say that the first million is always the hardest. That is definitely true. The more money you have, the more money you can use to generate income, the faster it is to become wealthy. Although it took 10 years to achieve your first million, the second million can come in a couple of years or even faster depending on how aggressive you are.

A simple example I can give is my investment in Equity-based mutual funds. Since I only had 100,000 to spare, I only invested that amount 3 months ago. Now, the fund has produced a net return of 30%, which means my shares are now worth 130 thousand. If I had 1 million to invest, then my shares would have been worth 1.3 million already. It would have been almost halfway to another million in just three months.