Today's Issue
- Publisher's Turn:
- SME News
- Article: Sweat the Small Stuff
- Testimonial Callout
- Events: Six Sigma (Monday 19 February), Health and Wellness (Monday 19 February), Innovative Packaging (Monday 19 February), How to Start a Business (Monday 19 February), Exporting Made e-Z (Monday 19 February), and 5S of Good Housekeeping (Monday 19 February), Food Safety (Monday 19 February), and more
PRESIDENT Arroyo will ask the Senate anew to pass the bill amending the Magna Carta for SMEs during the two-day special session that she called.
Trade Secretary Peter B. Favila said the President will submit a letter to the Senate reiterating her earlier communication to the Upper Chamber certifying the bill as urgent in a bid to have it included in the long list of measures that should be approved in the extra session days on February 19 and 20.
The House of Representatives has already approved the bill, but it still awaits approval on second reading at the Senate.
Among its salient features is the raising of the banks’ minimum mandatory requirement for SME lending to 10 percent of their total loanable funds from the current 8 percent.
Also, it would ease the restrictions on the alternative compliance to allow banks to engage more in direct lending to SMEs.
To read more, click here!
Article:
Sweat the Small Stuff
Sales professionals who can proudly point to a handful of high profile “top rung” clients may feel that they’ve reached the Promised Land, yet this is not always the case. No, wait; let’s put this more directly.
Sales professionals who exclusively cater to and cultivate their top rung clients are playing a dangerous game with potentially unacceptable consequences.
Here’s why: while most sales professionals effectively cultivate their top rung clients, they assume that they’ve thoroughly worked their lower rung—and even lowest rung—clients. This is often an error!
Many smaller clients aren’t as small as they appear; they’re merely small in terms of the volume of business that they’re doing with particular sales professional (such as you). There’s every rational reason to expect that smaller clients are in fact doing business with other sales professionals (such as your competition).
And the consequences?
Well, besides the obvious loss of business that’s on the table, there’s the very serious problem that one of your smaller clients is doing business with your competition, which means that your competition and not you! Maybe more aggressive in their sales technique and ultimately win all the business.
To read more, click here!
Testimonial Callout
For those who want to share their thoughts, just simply send us an email to info@sme.com.ph and place on the Subject header: SME Testimonial. The best testimonial will also be featured in our SME.com.ph Web site.
Publisher's Turn
From the usual Editor's Note, we thought of coming out once-in-a-while for the publisher to speak his mind. I am glad to write for this week's issue.
I recently had the opportunity to view Columbia Pictures' The Pursuit of Happyness featuring real-life father and son team William Smith and Jayden Christopher Syre Smith. The elder Smith plays Chris Gardner, a self-made man who achieves his life-long dream after selling a minority stake in his brokerage firm and making millions in the process. In one memorable scene Smith's character declares: "Don't ever let somebody tell you, you can't do something... You got a dream, you gotta protect it... if you want something, go get it. Period." This is a powerful affirmation for small and medium entrepreneurs, who like Chris Gardner are after their own dreams.
In another scene, Gardner shows up for an interview dressed only in jeans, with a jacket thrown over his undershirt and hair smeared with dried paint. He'd been arrested the night before his interview for failing to pay parking tickets. His winning remark that makes the panel pick him from among 20 candidates for internship: "When a person asks me a question and I do not know the answer, I would answer 'I do not know the answer' but I will find the answer."
Smith's character is tenacious. On gaining entry into the internship program, he persists despite the lack of salary or a reasonable promise of being hired. Though his contributions are underrated and his ideas go unappreciated, he does not allow the fire of his passion to fizzle. Instead, he applies his personal smarts and determination to propel him further up the corporate ladder.
At one point in the movie, Gardner's wife Linda leaves him and their son Christopher. During this low point of his life, Smith's character spends no time attempting to put the blame for the failed marriage on Linda. For Gardner, mistakes are unavoidable. He learns from them and avoids them in the next leg of his journey. He draws from his pain, picks himself up and moves on.
Smith's Chris Gardner is the archetype of the man who is building a bridge across a torrential river. That man does not allow discouragement to get the better of him, nor does he surrender in the middle of an ordeal. He remains resolute in getting the things he wants out of this endeavor.
Like Smith's Gardner, an SME owner who faces a major challenge should muster the strength to find a better route to the other side, no matter what it takes. No complaints, no 'ifs' and 'buts'. He either finds a new staging point upstream or down; or revisits his initial calculations and works on the most appropriate bridge design.
Our SME readers will certainly appreciate and identify with the incredible sacrifices made by Smith's onscreen character. To reach your goal, you must be able to recognize obstacles and limitations, and from there be able to develop the dogged determination and approach to surmount them.
Running a business is a lot like living your life. It requires a constant process of learning. The ability to absorb lessons is a mark of advantage in business, sport or other human enterprise. Will Smith's Chris Gardner made this discovery and ultimately found his happiness. I hope you will too.
ADONIS C. YAP
Publisher
