Read more about the article 3 Major Reasons to Have a Team in Your Business

3 Major Reasons to Have a Team in Your Business

A few years ago, when I started my own sales training company, I ran and managed it all on my own. What I had with me were passion, determination, and motivation to start working on my mission. The enthusiasm I had (and still has) had driven me to think that I could manage all aspects of this venture single-handedly. Not to mention, I deemed it impractical that time to employ other people to work with me.

At first, I didn’t feel the strain of all the tasks I had to do since my mind was preoccupied with how to make the service I offer known to prospective clients. However, when I started to travel to some parts of the country to conduct sales training, the downside of working alone took its toll. All the little time in between work schedules, which was supposed to be allotted for rest, was spent on doing other tasks. This system caused me to easily get drained physically and mentally afterward. There were even times when I’d get sick because of it.

Fortunately, with the constant advice of mentors, family, and friends, I decided to partner with a few people to do some work that need not be done personally by me. Recently, I even implored my wife to help me full-time, and her involvement really made a big difference. This level of partnership between us really worked for the company. (Read: Should I Work With My Spouse?) In addition to that, I am also partnering with some of my friends who graduated from my training to help me teach some of my programs. Through this partnership, I can see that my mission, to transform the lives of sales professionals and how they view their profession, will be achieved sooner.

Having a team, even if most of them are not full-time, really helped my training company. Here are three main reasons behind it:

  1. I do not know everything. Yes, I may have the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to serve my valued clients, but I am not really savvy with technology. If I would force myself to do the tasks which require skills that are not my strength, I would waste time and resources. When I delegate such a task to a person who is a pro at it, the task is accurately and speedily completed.
  2. Two or more heads are better than one. If I work alone, my mind would be bombarded with so much information – reminders, tasks, schedules, etc. This situation could lead to a lot of missed details and rushed decisions. Having another person monitor and analyze particulars with me significantly minimizes untoward happenings.
  3. Ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. The fact that people have different inclinations makes me conclude that each person can have unique ideas. Having a team helps me come up with innovative solutions that help the company to adapt to changes especially the sudden ones.

Evidently, any venture really requires a team to thrive. If you decide to pursue it on your own and do all the hard work, you will more likely lose your energy and drive before you even reach the end of your journey. In addition, you will also risk the quality of your service. In this case, you do not only sabotage yourself but you also lose the trust of the people you serve.

Thus, if your goal is to make your venture last long and fulfill your mission, create a team. Grow that team. Enrich that team. Embrace that team.

Reasons to have a Team

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Read more about the article Going Virtual: How Did I Cope?

Going Virtual: How Did I Cope?

As we all know, the CoVid-19 pandemic caused many changes in how we live life on the daily. Not a single person would claim to not be affected by this crisis in one way or another. On my end, as I am in the service of providing training, coaching, and consulting, scheduled and booked training in different parts of the country was canceled due to the travel ban, and the prohibition of physical events.

At first, I thought of using this time to have a break from work, and complete one of the training courses I enrolled in. However, after a few days of not conducting any training, while continuously enhancing myself with new knowledge and skills, made me think of an alternative way to continue my mission. And that turned out to be a good decision seeing that it has been 5 months now since the quarantine started. I decided to launch the online program – Closing the Sales Mastery training, which, to date, has helped more than 600 hundred sales and business professionals.

Going Virtual

 

Providing online live training is not as easy as it seems. It also needs a considerable amount of preparation before you can start. And by then, you’d discover that some things are still amiss. It is fun, nonetheless. I am blessed to declare that our online training is successful. How did it work? Here are 5 factors that made this venture successful.

  1. Stable internet connection. I am aware that this has been a cause of most people’s headaches these days because they normally experience intermittency in the connection. That is why I feel so blessed that I seldom encounter any issue with this factor, given that it is being used in all of our waking hours.
  2. Conducive home office setup. I find it very necessary to allocate a space where you do all your work to help condition yourself to be in work mode. This is important especially for people who get distracted easily. I also made sure that my workspace is well lit, ventilated, and as noise-free as possible.
  3. Better technology manipulation. Although I am not exactly what is called a tech-savvy person, I always see to it that I research or ask experts on how certain technology works. Since we do not know until when we will be in this condition, we have to adapt and make ourselves ready to embrace advancements that would help us overcome such conditions.
  4. Continuous improvement. To make sure that my training is effective, I continuously improve my virtual set up to address any issues. I always make sure to assess my materials if it improves the quality of my service, or if something can still be done about it.
  5. Continuous learning. I am very grateful that when the new normal arose, my training course with one of my mentors is still ongoing. It has been one of my motivations to transition my training online. Through it, I have discovered a lot of tools that proved helpful in my own training. More importantly, I have found an additional support group that motivates me to keep going.

All of these, with the support of my family and especially with the guidance of God, helped me cope with the sudden change, and adapt to the new normal of virtual event/training. Also, I believe that if we are so impassioned with our mission, we let nothing stop us from getting on with it.

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Read more about the article Why Should You Invest Your Money?

Why Should You Invest Your Money?

I grew up thinking that investing is only for rich people since that’s what I’d often read from newspapers and books, or hear from television shows and movies. Never did those personalities I heard or read about not described as wealthy (with the majority being extremely). So there’s my first misconception about investing.

Another funny detail is, I also thought that one can only invest in companies or businesses. I learned later that you can invest your money in a variety of ways. Your money becomes an investment when you utilize it to acquire properties or other possessions that would become assets or which value would appreciate over time.

The positive point is, it wasn’t too late yet when I rectified these misconceptions. I moved on from the somewhat impossible idea of being able to save an ample amount from my work salary. I figured out, through different successful people, that if you have goals that entail financial stability, investing is the best way to help you achieve those. You say, why?

When you invest your money, and you educate yourself on how to cause that investment to be valuable, it would give you returns even if you would no longer work to affect its increase. This is what you call passive income, opposite to the active income you earn from working hard for another person or organization. For instance, when you purchase a house even if you already have one is not a waste given that you would be able to have it rented and generate a regular monthly income from it. More importantly, the value of that property would increase as the years go by and you would have the option to sell it at a price much higher than the original.

Moreover, if you are an employee but wish or prefer to have your own business, the best way is to grow your money through investment rather than saving it in the bank with rather minimal interest, or you resort to loans. This is in view of the fact that, although not all types of businesses need a significant amount of money to establish, nearly all do. The possibility of you being able to start your own business earlier would be considerably high if you have an investment. In the same manner, if you are especially passionate about your talent or hobby but find it hard to earn if you focus on it instead of working, investing could be the answer. You can do what you love regardless of the income since the money you invested can give you the returns you need or want.

In addition, the returns of your investment would move you to appreciate the fruit of your hard work more. I am not sure if many people share my opinion that we sometimes do not feel the gratefulness we should feel when receiving our salaries for the reason that it usually does not last long in our pockets. We would sometimes feel like we worked only to provide for our needs or to survive. We are not enjoying it at all. If we invest and allow our money to grow, however, we would be able to employ it to enjoy life without worry.

More importantly, it would render us financially free and independent of our children when we grow old. We need to understand that we are not raising our children so that they can provide for us when we can no longer work. Raising them is our responsibility. That is why investing is important on account of the fact that it would enable us to provide for our needs including healthcare without burdening our children. In other words, it is one of the means of ensuring a worry-free retirement, at least in terms of finances.

Furthermore, we all know that it is usually difficult to make ends meet if we depend on our monthly work salary. So, no matter how badly we want, we are incapable of helping others. What’s the solution? You guessed it. Invest and allow your money to grow.

Since you allow some time to enable your money to grow when you invest, you should have patience. Learn to veer away from splurging on non-essential items. Always bear in mind that what you are doing is short-term pain for a long-term gain. In the end, you would experience the beauty of delayed gratification.

The fact that the returns of investment take time, the best time to start it is now. If you don’t know how to do it, then educate yourself by learning from experts. You would then know that there are many ways to invest your money – life insurance, real estate, stock market, and more. Just choose to be smart and invest in your future.

Continue ReadingWhy Should You Invest Your Money?
Read more about the article Should I Work With My Spouse?

Should I Work With My Spouse?

My wife and I first met each other in the company where we both worked before. After we got married, we continued working there together for two more years. Did we have a hard time working with each other? I would say, not really. We saw to it that we would remain professional when dealing with each other at work. When we had misunderstandings, we always made sure that we would not let such to affect our work relationship. Could that be because we respect our bosses and our workmates? Of course but also because we wanted to promote professionalism. More than anything, we wanted our relationship to bless others and not be a burden.

When I decided to give up my sales career in the year 2018 and start my own training company, my wife supported my decision. She continued working in that company until she also decided to take another path. Now that the operations involved in my training company are getting too much for me to handle alone, I asked my wife for help to which she agreed.

Now, working together in our own business is different than working together for someone else’s business. My wife has a mind of her own and thinks differently sometimes. Since both of us can contribute ideas, arguments sometimes take place when these ideas are not entertained nor accepted.

Work with My Spouse

Indeed, there are disadvantages when you work with your spouse, but the following advantages outweigh these disadvantages.

First and foremost, your spouse knows your vision and mission by heart and no one else badly wants you to achieve those more than him/her. Although not very expressive, my wife shows me her support in my endeavors by allowing me to join training programs which are not only expensive but also entails me being away for many days. This is so I can enhance myself to become an effective trainer and coach. She religiously does her part in the operations of the company not only to ease my duties but also to fulfill our goals.

Work with My Spouse

Second, your spouse would understand you better now that he/she knows the nature of your business. When we were not working together, we often experience misunderstandings because of our different tasks and challenges. In our minds, we are more burdened than the other. It was because we did not understand the challenges that come with our work. Now that my wife and I are finally working together, this kind of misunderstanding is no longer an issue for us.

Third, you will have more time together than before. I think it is safe to say that having less to no time for each other is a common complaint among many husbands or wives. This problem will be addressed when spouses work together instead, either as employees in the same company or as business owners and managers. Even though my wife and I have different daily tasks or assignments, we still get to talk a lot more than before because we are physically together, we talk about our common goals, and we collaborate to create projects for our company. Plus, we can now take breaks together.

Work with My Spouse

Fourth, you have someone who will serve as the voice of reason when you make major decisions for the company. This person is vital because sometimes, no matter how we equip ourselves with new knowledge and skills through various training and self-development programs, we still tend to make bad decisions. This is the tendency when we do it on our own. Since my wife started working with me, I was able to see things from another person’s perspective. Hence, my decision-making ability improved.

Fifth, you grow together in all aspects of life. When spouses work together, both can discover new learnings together that will result in the growth of their business and their relationship. My wife and I found ideas that helped us become better in handling our business, and in making it grow. We learned how to use our unique strengths for the better, and how to deal with our weaknesses. More importantly, we were able to understand each other’s personalities now more than ever.

Work with My Spouse

I agree that working with your spouse will not always be a smooth journey, but it is the best way to strengthen not only your business but also your marriage. At least for me.

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Read more about the article Social Media Marketing: What We Need to Know

Social Media Marketing: What We Need to Know

Since social media started, it has already become one of the most effective means for marketing different brands’ products and services. Nowadays, even small business owners and new entrepreneurs utilize it to find a bigger market for their businesses.

With the use of social media, awareness about the products and/or services of an entrepreneur physically located in Cebu City, for example, will reach anywhere in the Philippines, even abroad. If there is an awareness, demand is possible especially if that certain product or service is not available in the consumer’s area. The market will no longer be limited to the business location.

What is Social Media Marketing

In connection to the aforementioned, without having to shell out an amount to advertise (such as when employing print ads), entrepreneurs can showcase their products and/or services the way they want because there are usually less to no limitations when creating contents on social media. Plus, interested buyers can also directly communicate with the entrepreneurs if further information is needed regarding the product or service. Thus, if there are any apprehensions on the side of the prospective buyers, it can easily be addressed by the entrepreneur. In addition to this, social media also has paid features that allow entrepreneurs to reach prospects who are most likely to avail the specific products and/or services they offer. With this, the fund used for advertising would have a higher possibility of more conversion than with other modes of advertisement.

Another advantageous factor that makes social media a great platform for marketing is the feature that allows customers to give feedback on the quality of one’s products and services. This will enable entrepreneurs to evaluate themselves and make improvements as necessary, as well as know their strengths. This can be treated as a customer service feature that entrepreneurs can freely utilize to their advantage. Aside from this, the positive feedback that satisfied customers leave will help assure non-customers, who are still thinking to get products or services, to decide. This is a virtual version of the proverbial word of mouth. How convenient, right?

While the advantages of marketing through social media are really great, it is also very important to note the disadvantages. Yet, this is not to discourage but to remedy these downsides.

As mentioned above as one of the pros, social media has a feature that allows customers to give their reviews of one’s products and/or services. This can sometimes be used against the entrepreneur if the customers are unsatisfied of either the quality of the product or the service of the seller. Needless to say, this will affect the trust of current customers and negatively impact the decision-making of non-customers. When people can’t physically see and scrutinize a product, they will really do a lot of research prior to buying to avoid regrets, so even one negative comment will be taken into account when they decide. The good thing is, this also has a possible solution. Entrepreneurs can address the negative feedback and offer solutions just like how customer service personnel of companies address complaints.

Moreover, it may seem easy to create a page or an account for products and services on social media, but creating contents and advertisements will really take a lot of time and posting new ones should be done daily if possible in order for entrepreneurs to show how active and updated they are. One may also feel disheartened if there are less to no reactions to a post or advertisement that has been painstakingly created for many hours or days. Well, yes, this experience might sting a little, however, this is a situation that any entrepreneur experiences if he/she is still new in business. Disinterest in a product or service is not new even to those who are not using social media for marketing. Therefore, this fact should just be accepted and dealt by finding ways to make the posts more interesting and attractive social media users.

As the cliché goes, the world is fast changing, so we should learn to adapt to the changes. Social media marketing is one of these very many shifts. In fact, it keeps on changing or updating itself with new technologies. In order to thrive in the world of business, entrepreneurs must always keep up with what’s new. The principle of continuous learning should be applied to this.

Continue ReadingSocial Media Marketing: What We Need to Know