A post does not need to be controversial to produce a real-world effect. I recently shared about a new restaurant I had tried, just a simple observation and a casual encouragement for people to visit early. There was no agenda behind it, nothing beyond a personal experience. The next day, it had become a full house. Customers were arriving earlier […]
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A few weeks ago, I noticed something while passing by a familiar spot. A milk tea shop that used to be there had closed down. In its place, a new one had opened. Same type of business. Same location. Same kind of customers passing through. On the surface, it looked like a simple replacement—one business out, another in. But it […]
One of the persistent gaps in sales development is the assumption that sales excellence is primarily a matter of frameworks, models, and conceptual instruction. Frameworks are useful. They provide language, structure, and discipline for thinking about growth. But they are not, by themselves, proof of commercial capability. Sales leadership is ultimately validated in a different environment—one defined by market pressure, […]
For decades, Tang has dominated the powdered beverage category in the Philippines. Leadership, however, does not guarantee immunity from change. Markets evolve. Consumers evolve. Categories fragment. I sat down with Mondelēz International in the Philippines’ Managing Director Aleli Arcilla, recently conferred an honorary Mansmith Sales Masters Award, to discuss Tang’s strategic reset for 2026. Q1: Let me begin with an […]
Early in my career, I had a routine that I valued deeply. Whenever our schedules allowed, I would ask Dr. Ned Roberto—the legendary marketing research guru who at one time served as our Vice Chair at Mansmith and Fielders—to sit in the back of my seminar. My request was simple: Audit my logic, find the cracks, and give me a […]
The Philippines remains Asia’s Catholic heartland, yet the number of people attending Sunday Mass has plummeted from 64% in 1991 to just 38% today. I call this the “Barabbas Moment.“ In the biblical narrative, the crowd was given a choice between the radical, transformative Truth and the immediate, violent “fix” of the insurrectionist Barabbas. They chose the tactic over the transformation. Today, […]
I have a confession: My most profound lessons in strategy no longer come from the frameworks of elite business schools or the high-stakes intensity of a corporate war room. They are being refined in the quiet, clinical stillness of my mother’s bedside. In business, we are trained to chase “the next big thing.” We map customer journeys, invest in AI, […]
In an earlier piece (From Sari-Sari Stores to Global Systems: Why Trust Matters, Inquirer.net, April 17, 2026), I argued that trust is the original infrastructure of commerce, and that organizations most likely to endure are those that treat it as a governance system rather than a values statement. But there is a dimension worth pressing further: if trust is the […]
Thirty years ago, I had the rare opportunity to share my start-up experience and teach a full-semester, 3-unit course on network marketing, also known as multilevel marketing (MLM), at the Ateneo de Manila University. At the time, this subject had never been formally taught at the university level. I remain grateful to Rudy Ang, then chair of the management department, […]
In an era of peak consumer skepticism, the gap between a brand’s public image and its internal reality has never been more scrutinized. For a household giant like NutriAsia, maintaining leadership with icons like Silver Swan, Datu Puti, and UFC requires more than market share—it requires a self-sustaining Trust Flywheel: Humility, Cultural Literacy, Empathy, Transparency, Authenticity, Consistency, and Accountability. While […]