The Smart Money Shop Spotting awarding event at Jump Experience Center paved way for me to know more about the roadmap of the local wireless banking. To be honest, though I’m exposed to online trading (having my own PayPal is a proof), I never thought how local companies, including individuals, could have so much potential on this thing.

PinoyExchange owner, Mike Palacios, started-off by talking about the development of customer engagement of companies. Selling of big and small companies stormed the internet with all sorts of methods to market and sell their products online. With the help of social networking sites, marketing to customers has never been more ‘personal’.

And all companies will take every opportunity to grab the attention, and hopefully, the nod of the target customer to buy. And with the emergence of smartphones and mobile internet connection 24×7, companies have another way to sell to customers.

The accessibility of online stores, including group-buying sites, through mobile phones will change how people buy. In reality, Groupon started this wave in America, for companies, advertising in Groupon, to take advantage of smartphone technology.

This is where Ms. Hazel took everyone, the SMART’s roadmap on mobile transactions.

With the proliferation of smartphones (even affordable ones in the market now), it can be expected that in the coming years, more and more people will be ‘connected’ 24×7 on the internet through mobile. And with people getting ‘lazier’ everyday, the more chances that they will want to do things through their handy, yet powerful, smartphones to do things for them.

Therefore, mobile shopping to almost any shop will be soon realized in the country, and this is where SMART Money comes in.

I have to be honest, that I never thought that owning SMART Money would be that revolutionary before (way back 2002). I was under the impression that it would be more for reloading and passing money to other SMART Money users. Even Ms. Hazel was amazed how the people in SMART was able to look far ahead of time, when the company first introduced the technology in 2000.

However, after learning from the talk, having SMART Money can actually help online and mobile transactions faster and cheaper. So, paying bills, transferring money, sending and getting remittances, can be convenient through mobile banking.

SMART Money promises convenient and safe transactions as it is connected to MasterCard, local banks, money centers and international agents.

(To apply for SMART Money, click here or know more about it here.)

And for a person, who is actually looking into online selling, doing mobile payment can be easier and faster for both sides. More importantly, SMART is a local company. (I suppose that it would be less hassle on both parties to contact SMART, compared to contacting international online banking systems)

It may not appear as big as it is right now, but with the kind of trend we are moving, SMART was just right to ‘bet’ their money on this business – it is a SURE win.

So, the roadmap of wireless banking the Philippines will lead to more people transacting through their mobile phones. Soon, when almost everyone in the country (and in the world) have their smartphones, mobile banking will be THE way to go. Probably even replacing cards.

I will try my SMART Money as soon as I get my card anytime this month. And I will blog about the experience.

My expectations are now high for this technology, especially if the ongoing trend in the Philippines, as it follows more developed countries in terms of mobile technology.

Rey Belen with PEX Owner Mike Palacios

With the Philippines being one of the biggest business process outsourcing providers in the world, the telecommunication headset company Accutone recently officially launched its product to the local market.

The Hong Kong based company is targeting at least 20 percent share on the Philippines’ call center industry.

Sharad Jaiprakash, managing director of Arkarise, Inc., said that the Accutone is confident in getting its share in the local market – stating that Accutone has been in the industry since 1969, as a direct manufacturer, product designer and global marketer.

As a sign of quality headsets, Jaiprakash said that Accutone offers longer warranties than other headset companies in the industry.

He added that the three headsets available in the Philippines is a showcase of Accutone’s knowledge on the technology.

The UC-200, for example, provides users with most affordable UC headset in the market, without compromising reliability and superb performance. It combines the award-winning design headset with the Microsoft OC features, which makes it an attractive buy for consumers.

The UC-610, on the other hand, offers the strongest build and noise canceling microphone. It also features a large speaker, which is designed for comfort and is perfect for extended usage.

Accutone will also bring in the uniquely designed UC-1010; the only full-featured top-end communication headset made by a direct manufacturing brand. It is considered as the most durable, top-end product of the UC series offering an air of prestige to its users.

Arkarise Inc., country sales manager Jun Cavan said that not only big companies will benefit from the Accutone technology. He added that even ordinary consumers would be able to purchase their headsets as soon as the Accutone consumer headsets hit the tech stores.

Technology

Jaiprakash said that the Accutone headsets are durable, withstanding long hours of usage in span of years. Their technology also provides safety to the ‘human resources’ of call centers, providing quality audio that would not compromise the health and hearing functions of the agents – making it a long sound investment for contact service companies.

Clients

Local companies are already standing clients of Accutone, like IBM, Accenture, Standard Chartered, DHL and Cognizant. Today, Accutone has local presence in Japan, Israel, United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, India, Singapore, Spain, Germany, Canada, Ecuador, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, South Africa, & Mauritius.

Accutone headsets are available locally with prices ranging from US $ 35 to 200.

I was inspired on how Leonie Agri Corporation relates to their employees and stakeholders. In a privileged trip to their farm in Nueva Ecija, together with GirlandBoyThing, I had an opportunity to observe and learn from them. Being in the media showed me a lot of opportunity to see things in a closer perspective – and this is one of its kind as well, comparing to what I featured before on TV. And compared to my other successful clients as well.

L.A.C. Farm’s aces in the person of Engr. Guillermo Saret and Mr. Alexander Parducho “educated” me while discussing with us visitors about the story behind the farm. How a “desolate” land was converted to a self-sustaining, productive organic farmland. (From cursed to promised land – Leonie Agri Corp. Farm)

The two LAC Farm male honchos showed in their presentations how they led the employees and stakeholders to knowing CLEARLY the “journey” that the farm is taking – especially the SPIRITUAL journey and the values that company has.

Centering on God as the ultimate Leader and Manager of the company, LAC Farm orients their employees to a God-fearing culture. This I believe is their greatest, secret weapon to what turned this company to what it is now.

Easier said than done

The LAC Farm took a higher path in managing their employees. They involved their personnel into a life-changing, God-fearing culture. This, if I may say, is a harder thing to do, than the typical corporate structure. But then again, they walked the talk.

We were toured into the man-made lake in LAC Farm. I thought that it was just a regular “tour-around” thing. But there is a purpose why we were there, to hear the testimony of “Bonna”, whose real name is Willy.

He got the name since his milk was Bonna during childhood.

Anyway, Bonna, before being in LAC Farm, had speech defect and was illiterate. He also had suicidal tendencies before since he was emotionally abused by his parents.

Not only he learned to speak, read and write in LAC Farm, his outlook in life changed as well due to the culture that LAC promotes to their personnel.

Values Formation

With a God-centered corporate structure, I believe that LAC Farm management was wise enough to do this. Like the wise man in the Bible story, they built their “house” upon the Rock – unshakable God.

I would not be surprised if most, if not all the employees, would have a positive attitude towards work, hence, the whole company benefits from it.

The company took CARE of its employees by giving them more than money can buy – relationship with God.

Take Home Lesson

Being a Christian, I know it is possible to change lives of people through having a relationship with Christ.

LAC Farm is another testimony on how faith in Christ can actually change people – more so, companies.

I’d definitely advocate to do the same in our company.

I had an opportunity to join a special tour in Pascual Laboratories’ organic farm – Leonie Agri Corporation Farm. Named after the owner of Pascual Laboraties, the lady Pascual bought a large, isolated, acidic raw land in Nueva Ecija about a decade ago.

I believe that the Pascual’s applied the inevitable principles of business, thus resulting to a success.

From Vision to Reality

It’s hard to imagine how a self-sustaining farm land could have been once a desolate, acidic land especially if you were able to see how LAC Farm is now.

The Pascual’s had a vision to convert this property to a productive land. Though, it may had been impossible during that time, they held on to it. That is what make businessmen stand-out, VISION, seeing beyond what is seen through the naked eye.

Almost every product, service, man-made places started out as a vision of people. The personal computers we use now are a product of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s vision and imagination. The wonders of Walt Disney’s imagination of an entertainment plaza came to life, even before he ever saw it. Purely, because of his vision

And the Pascual’s have the same thing. A vision.

Focus

The LAC Farm focused on the vision they have – converting the once “cursed” land to a land full of life – both plants and animals. I’m pretty sure that they had and are having different sort of challenges starting and maintaining the farm. It’s never to easy to start and maintain a business. But then again, if a person is focused on the vision, and sticks to it, challenges will just be hurdles that one has to get over with. For what is important is getting to that vision and not looking into the problems as the end. For the ultimate end is getting to that vision.

Right Path

Challenges may have delayed, sidetracked or even deviated LAC Farms from their original plan, but they didn’t lose sight of it. For they know their DIRECTION.

A key ingredient in any company’s success is knowing where to go. Like any regular traveler, you need to have a map on where you are heading. It may take you a couple of detours, but if you have a map, you will DEFINITELY know where you will go.

With Pascual’s vision as the destination – LAC Farm engineered their own corporate map and led them to what it is now.

True Leader

Another noticeable trait of the farm is the abundance, not of just plants and wildlife, but also Bible verses. Anywhere in the 43-hectare property are verses. Places have been named after Bible verses. Verses that tells of God’s promises.

The Pascuals, the employees and stakeholders know who to attribute and dedicate everything – to God. This, I personally think, made it all successful.

Google Inc. formally announced its localization of one of their unit companies, Youtube. This officially opens the door for local media produces, both big and small, the opportunity to push their social media campaign.

Media companies like ABS-CBN, GMA and TV5 were the first big names to partner with Youtube Philippines. Even the Philippine government will have two official channels in Youtube, in hope of being able to be a good vehicle for citizen awareness and campaign.

I expect that more Filipino online media producers will host their videos in Youtube even more, given this opportunity. Plus, local companies can use this for their branding purposes -to launch a channel in the Google subsidiary site.

To the man who changed the way people lived throughout the world.

A visionary.

A “mission:possible” agent.

To Steve Jobs, job well done.

Below is his commencement speech in Standford that greatly summarizes how Steve Jobs thinks. It’s an inspiring thing to watch from the man who literally changed everybody’s lives directly and indirectly.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You might also want to watch the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley, where it tells the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Have you ever wondered why Forrest Gump became rich and successful even if he was “stupid and dumb”?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve watched this movie many times already, but it just sinked in to me now that how come Forrest Gump became rich and successful, even though he is considered “stupid” by regular people.
What is common to most successful people and Forrest Gump?

1. FOCUS
In whatever he did in the movie, he was focused. Gump was focused in running for the Alabama Football Team in college and he did it well. He was also focused in disassemblimg and assembling guns. He was also all eyes on pingpong and again, he did pretty well in it. Next was the shrimping, and again, he did great. Another one is running.

What he has showed in the movie, similar to other successful people, is that he has HIS MIND into it. He has focused himself into one thing at a time – giving undivided attention to a task.
No matter what happens, Forrest Gump was focused on the goal.

2. PERSEVERANCE
Forrest demonstrated his will to not give in to failure. He had been touted, tested and pushed around but he persevered. From school, military and in relationship he never gave up.
There is a part where he said he just “ran”. When he reached one end, he would go back to run again.

3. “DUMBNESS”
Sometimes, most of us are too smart for ourselves, that we try to play smart and ended up moving “safe”.
Forrest demonstrated that he got one thing in mind, one goal at a time, and eveytime he pursues it he just goes after it. Nike’s tagline “JUST DO IT” says it all.
Most of the successful just try things not not out of comfort. More often, they try new things just for the sake of finding out if it leads to their goals.
I’m pretty sure that the Wright Brothers were ridiculed a lot of times, before proving to the other people that they can fly.

Most likely, Henry Ford were probably labeled insane just to manufacture the first car.

Sometimes, regular people are afraid to try new things, thinking it’s not what has “proven” to be right. To later find out that their theory is right after one “dumb” person just tried it and not hesitated of being “too smart” to complete all the things needed before going into it.

Like the old saying, “how can you fill your cup, if you think it’s full”, meaning how can we learn more stuff if we think we know a lot already.
Life is a journey of trying and learning. We will never know what “might have been” if we don’t just do it.

I’m guilty of this a lot of times. I tend to be so critical that I forget to try it and make an effort to just make it happen because I was trying to be smart not to fail.

But if you do this, most of the time you end up not losing, but also not winning at all.

I like what Forrest Gump said “I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.”

To be successful you need not to be the smartest person you could ever be. You just have to know what you want, focus there, just do it and fret not to repeat over and over again until reach that goal.

Posted using BlackBerry.

Sometimes, in marketing and business, no matter how good you plan the output would be… things just go way off out of hand.

PLANNING gives you, as a marketing person and businessman (or woman), a good head start of what kind of output you and your client or company would like to have.

However, as much as you wanted to get things done your way, sometimes, different results or effects happen apart from planned.

So what do you do about it?

Here are three things to do  in case you got your feet soaked in a challenging situation.

1. BE HONEST

Truth hurts, but it’s the truth.

You won’t be able the escape the fact/s of your faults if you lie.

So what’s the point in lying? Better be honest to your client or boss… and most of all to yourself…  because no matter what we do, whether we like it or not, the fault will appear, sooner or later.

The fact stands that there is a pressing concern, and until you address it, the issue will still be there like a tiny monster creeping and waiting for the right time to grow and catch you off guard.

Be bold enough to face your client or boss.

It happened to me once when I doubted to face the client right away. I tried to patch things up, but it didn’t go out well. The VERY small problem, in the first place, became a big issue to the client.

The problem that started as a ripple, became a tsunami.

Worst part was, the client overlooked the glamorous details of the outcome, and focused on the small problem.

I believe that EVERY client will be angrier about not addressing the issue right away.

So no matter how small we might think a matter is, as long as it concerns the client, it should be discussed right away.

2. ASSESS THE ISSUE

Getting to the very core of things will give you a good chance of solving the problem the best way and in the fastest time possible.

It’s best to reassess the plan and make immediate modifications to the it without forgetting the main objective of the project.

Remember, any efforts, however fabulous or hard it maybe, your client or boss would not accept it, if it is not with accordance to the objective/s.

REMEMBER: Efforts cannot and will not be able to replace the results.

To a client, results matter. It’s what ONLY matters. Not your effort, not your hardships… ONLY RESULTS.

3. ACT FAST

Act FAST.

Act FAST.

and Act FAST

Remember that you can always think of better ways tomorrow than your best plan now. However, time is of the essence. That’s why sometimes, good enough, is the best option for the time being.

Because no matter how well your plans maybe, if it fails to executed on time, it will be USELESS.

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” Scott Peck

The importance we put on our time and what we make out of it is directly proportional to the success we want to achieve in life.

That’s why we can see that the most successful people in business, politics, churches and relationships are the same people who make use of their time the most. Not a second is wasted to things that would deviate them to their goals.

Likewise, we need as well to realign our priorities and segregate the important, urgent, and not important.

Time management expert Stephen Covey illustrated it best where he suggested that we divide our activities into four quadrants.

• Important – Urgent
• Important – Not Urgent
• Not Important – Urgent
• Not Important – Not Urgent

In so doing, we can plan our daily, weekly and monthly activities according to its importance. The matrix can also clearly layout the time frame where things needed to be accomplish.

So, for all of us who wants to be successful, we must learn how to manage our time and best use the seconds out of our “very limited” resource of time.

Last May, my good friend Rolly Soliven, invited and treated me to this wonderful leadership seminar in VCF The Fort. The event is part of the efforts of Pastor Joey Bonifacio, Victory Biz Group and Victory Christian Fellowship to reach out to different sectors of the community – this time the professional and business sector.

The father-and-son tandem of former GMA president and CEO Nardz Jimenez  and PLDT senior vice president Butch Jimenez graced the occasion with powerful and meaningful leadership speeches.

Butch Jimenez went first on stage and spoke about three important elements to properly lead people.

Here are some notes I have taken during the meet.

PRESSURE
Likened to a balloon, people needed just the right amount of pressure to move up. Putting in too little helium into a balloon, will make the balloon drop to the ground and not serve its purpose. Likewise, too much pressure will stretch the balloon so much and inevitably, burst. However, if the right amount of helium into a balloon will not only make it move, but let it “fly” into insurmountable heights, more than we expect it to be.
People, as well, needed the same appropriate pressure on them not to make them lazy nor restless… and this will make the best out of our peers and people.

PASSION
Infuse onto the people a burning desire that will give them the motivation to work beyond what is asked from them. Passion drives people to love the work they’re into and treat it as if not working, but as a “pleasurable” duty.

PURPOSE
Inject a sense of purpose on the people – a purpose far greater than themselves. No man has ever lived a life not seeking for his purpose. Neither does a follower. A clear purpose gives the people beyond what good pay or even passion can bring. For people will reach for anything and strive continually to meet the purpose – if they envisioned themselves being an important part of that great purpose they are up to.

After that Butch, his father Nardz stepped towards the podium and took his turn. Manong Nardz, as he is popularly called, stated his nearly-Cinderella story coming off from humble beginnings to a big finish as president of GMA.

Coming from a not-so-rich family from Pangasinan, Manong Nardz financed his own schooling through limpia bota sideline or shoe shining.

After saving money, he bought comic books and fixed his bike. From there, he launched his business of renting out comics and bike.

When he reached college, he worked as a clerk in a government office to augment his educational needs. He said the lack of printing machines during those times, made him stamp hundreds of thousands of government envelopes. He spent eight hours a day just stamping “for official use only” on piles of envelopes, every working day.

Good for him that he believed in something vital to the success of any individual: no job is too big or too small.

He then graduated accountancy. He took a bookkeeper position in an abaca firm, even though he was a CPA already that time, thinking that there is more to him than just a bookkeeper.

It didn’t take long for Manong Nardz to rise in the ranks and became the assistant general manager.
There was an opportunity for him to be the next general manager of the company, but somehow, it was not meant for him. His belief was that “when God closes a door, He will open the window”.

This ‘misfortune’ led Manong Nardz to take the dilapidated and sunken station of GMA to be his next vocation.

Lo and behold, after many drastic and faith-filled measures, GMA grew to be one of the country’s best stations now.

Surprisingly, amidst all the great talks and fascinating success story I was more focused on the underlying story I see during the event. I was more amazed not on the principles they both are sharing the public, but more on the “story behind the story.”

While hearing the speeches of the Jimenez father-and-son tandem, I was dwelling on the thought of where true leadership would matter to me.

More so, during the time that Butch was reading the foreword he wrote for the book of his dad. I was moved when Butch said that to him and their family, Manong Nards was like a rainbow. Though it was a belief that at the end of the rainbow, there is a pot of gold – for Butch and their family, Manong Nards was both the treasure at the end of the rainbow and a representation of God’s promise after the turmoil.

Seeing Butch, the principles he said in the speech, is the epitome of what his dad Nards has taught him, directly and indirectly. And that I say, is one of the best things that Nards can take pride of until the day he dies.

Bottom line is, for me, the family should be one of the first followers of a true leader. This is both a privilege and a challenge.

I would miss out one of God’s greatest privilege for my existence – leaving a LEGACY behind – if I won’t live up to the challenge of leading my son (and my children in the future) to lead them to a life worthy of living.

To me, that’s Beyond Business. Family goes first more than anything – except God ofcourse.

By the way, there is a re-run of this engagement on the 18th of June, 7pm at the Assembly Hall of Every Nation Building, Fort Bonifacio Taguig for only Php 500 (inclusive of dinner).

I hope you take the time out to participate in this rare event.

You can contact Every Nation Secretariat Office at Tel (632) 817-1212 loc. 224 or 0918-951-5826 and look for Ms. Mayet Lempin.