Q1: Before becoming an entrepreneur, you were the Marketing Director of Unilever Philippines and President/CEO of Unilever-Bestfoods, tell us what your most memorable launches are, both successes and failures, in your corporate life and why? A1: As Marketing Director of Unilever Philippines, I must say it was the launch of Surf detergent bar which was then followed by the launch […]
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Q1: You ventured into manufacturing bread immediately after college in the 1980’s. After two decades, you launched the first two of a series of innovations, namely the Walter Sugar Free Bread in 2005 and the Double Fiber (wheat plus apple) Bread in 2006. What was the turning point for the sudden change of direction? The market was getting crowded with […]
One of the key contributions of Harvard Professor Michael Porter is popularly known as the Five Forces. Simply put, it defines the five major forces that affect profitability in an industry. These five forces are bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, competitive intensity, threat of new entrants as well as threat of substitutes. One of the many features […]
Execution involves having the capabilities to get the job done. In Mansmith’s implementation workshop, we call this the 3Cs of capabilities – coordination, competency and commitment. This helps in solving company’s execution obstacles by replacing traps with tools. A most fundamental problem in execution is when people create assumptions that someone else in the company will do certain tasks and […]
A few years ago, I was one of the plenary speakers of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship’s Go Negosyo Youth Summit. Let me share the five highlights of my talk on “Grow from Failures” where I talked about many business failures from my early days, some of which I also wrote in my book “The WE Entrepreneur”. 1. I was 23 years […]
There are so many ways major retailers selling fast moving consumer products (FMCG) in the Philippines can make money beyond buy and sell. Mansmith conducted interviews with manufacturers on their cost of selling, which revealed a list of at least 30 different charges that are or can be imposed by key retailers one time or another. When introducing new products, […]
MLM is an acronym for Multi-Level Marketing, also known as network marketing. It is a form of direct selling but with the compensation plan as its core innovation; rewarding sales from people directly and indirectly recruited. The MLM compensation plan is designed in a way that network members will recruit their own downlines, which used to be the never ending […]
I normally write marketing articles and do Q&A with industry movers and shakers in this blog, but I would like to deviate from that and instead, write about the hospitality industry. My start-up company in Jakarta started selling Waters Bio Mineral Pot for homes in the 4th quarter of 2014. To accelerate our sales, I began to visit my company, […]
Don’t celebrate yet – hold that promotion to the next position! Review your expansion plan first. Know that many situations of high sales may not be sustainable. 1. Few Repeat Customers When sales are mostly from new customers with only a handful of repeat customers – you may have lost many customers, accounts, and distributors. Retention is the problem. 2. […]
Q1: As someone who rose from the ranks, what are some of your most unforgettable experiences while starting out as a rookie? A: Fresh from college, I joined Gillette as a sales trainee where all new recruits were required to survive the grueling 6-month long boot camp training. Each month, at least one trainee would be sent home for not […]