DTI Celebrates Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Week 2014

I felt a bit of disappointment for having missed this year's SME week which was capped last July 11-12, 2014 at the Philippine Trade Training Center in Pasay City. 

Small businesses' contribution recognized during DTI's SME week. 
Photo courtesy of StockSnap via Pixabay

I was late by just a day or two when I saw DTI's print ad from Philippine Star dated 07/08/2014 showcasing the full list of activities during the said 2-day celebration.  Each day was filled with various topics on business management and demo-skills training starting from around 8am and finishing to 4pm.  All these were provided for FREE but to make sure you can avail of seats, you have to make your way early to the venue as it was indicated the seminars were given on first come, first served basis. 

I listed here a rundown of my hot picks that caught my interest from among the topics included during the SME Week Celebration. These business ideas present bright earning opportunities due to current positive trends on  health and wellness, tourism growth and environmental concern in the Philippines.  For July 11: Herbal Soapmaking, Coffee Barista, Massage Oils,  Food Cart Business and Assorted Cupcakes.  For July 12:  Photography, Food Packaging, Scrap Recycling, No-Bake Cookies, Health Breads and Healthy Meat Products.

I thought what an excellent chance to add further to my entrepreneurship knowledge and learn more new possible business ideas if I could have made it to the event.  But then anyway, I can always look forward to the same event again in 2015. And so to all aspiring Entrepinays out there, make an early earmark for the timing of around mid- to end-June next year to learn about and catch up with the activities lined up for DTI's SME Week Celebration.  

Hope to meet you there!

BIR and SSS Set Up New Marikina Offices

To all Marikina-based businesses, I'm sure you will all be relieved to learn that BIR (www.bir.gov.ph) and SSS (www.sss.gov.ph) have recently set up new offices here.  This development definitely brings great convenience as these government agencies are now located near downtown Marikina.

The new SSS Marikina-Malanday branch has based itself at the 2nd floor of Graceland Mall along J.P. Rizal or Lamuan, as the place is more commonly known.  The building sprawls a wide frontage and runs across a Shell gas station so it's definitely hard to miss.  Many public vehicles like FXs, jeepneys and tricycles also ply along this route so it's no problem going there.  Daily passers-by at Graceland Mall are the Parang-Lamuan-Marikina or Montalban-Lamuan-Marikina PUJs with terminal stops stationed at Marikina Sports Center.  I chanced once at SSS Marikina-Malanday branch and they may be reached at the following contact numbers:  920-64-46 to 55 or 917-77-77.        

SSS Marikina-Malanday office in Graceland Mall, J.P. Rizal St., Lamuan
Photo courtesy of Go Entrepinay

Meanwhile, BIR Regional Development Office (RDO) 045 has transferred from the previous Marcos Highway site to its new office building at Antonio Luz Arcade located behind Amang Rodriguez Hospital from Sumulong Highway or also, at the back of Marikina Health Office near SM Savemore if one is coming from Shoe Avenue.  The new BIR office occupies two floors with the regular monthly tax filings housed at the 2nd level while other transactions processing are done at the Ground floor.   It also now has wider parking space for just almost adjacent to it is the Blue Wave Marquinton Mall.

New BIR RDO-45 Office at Marikina City
Photo courtesy of Go Entrepinay

BIR Marikina Branch at Antonio Luz Arcade Building
Photo courtesy of Go Entrepinay

Prayers for Entrepreneurs

This red, pocketbook-sized prayer book was given to me by my loving mother-in-law one afternoon in June last year.   The book "Straight From The Heart, A Prayer Companion" is a 360+-paged collection of prayers compiled and edited by Rev. Fr. Mario Jose C. Ladra and published by St. Paul's Philippines in 2007. 

A treasury of prayers from this little red book. 
Photo courtesy of Go Entrepinay

From the looks of it, with the book fully clad in rosy red and heart visuals slightly embossed in between its title phrases "Straight From The Heart" on front cover, it proved to me as a gift really special for it opens up a wealth of various prayers from which you could draw out peace, inspiration and strength during one's down moments.  

Found inside of course are our common prayers like The Lord's Prayer, among others, and prayers for various parts of the day. Other prayers included those directed to Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mama Mary and popular saints.  It also has inspirationals and Psalm Verse Prayers, foremost favorite of mine is Psalm 23: The Good Shepherd.

Straight From The Heart also comes handy and useful for church ceremonials like Holy Mass and Novenas, and during Holy Week's Stations of the Cross.  The book seems endless with prayers for one can also come across a prayer for almost every need --- for families, for healing, for depression, for protection, for generosity, for serenity, for peace, for strength, and so on.

My favorite part is the list of prayers rolled out for students, religious and people from different professions.  I was amazed to find a couple of prayers exactly fitted for my current pursuit of entrepreneurship, and so I decided to share them as well to all Entrepinays out there. May the prayers below help articulate all hopes and aspirations for our businesses' success.

A Businessman's Prayer (from page 311)

Almighty Father, thank you for the business you have enabled me to begin and sustain.
Enlighten my way in leading and inspiring people engaged in the business organizations,  industry, and communities that I serve.
Allow us the mastery of your will for the role you would want this business to play in your divine plan.
Provide us all the resources, human and material for this enterprise.
Sustain us financially for growth and development, and keep us humble with our successes and innovative and creative in our endeavors.
Help us in our crises, and guide us in every step we take as we run and manage our business.
Let our business involvements be models of inspired integrity  and allow it to bring good health, wealth, and prosperity among your people.
Bless our business partners, clients, and suppliers.
Give us the faith and confidence that we can accomplish even what seems to be impossible.
Move us to dispense all our actions to be full of love for you and the rest of mankind.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.

A Consecration Prayer for an Enterprise (from Page 342)

Heavenly Father, you tell us in the sacred scriptures that any house that is not built on firm rock cannot withstand dangerous storms and tempests.
You are our rock and salvation.
Without you, our efforts at building up our enterprise will come to naught.
Without your grace, everything we touch can easily crumble into nothingness.

We humbly come before you to acknowledge all the many blessings we have received---                   all these come from you,
for in you do we live and move and have our being, and that without you, we can do nothing.
All our success comes from you.
Thank you for the countless favors you have showered on  (Name of company).

Loving Father, in gratitude, allow us to consecrate (Name of company) to your loving heart.
We consecrate to you our stockholders and business partners that they may be guided by Your will in their decisions.
We consecrate to you our officers - may they continue to faithfully serve you as they carry out our company's mission, vision, and goals.
We consecrate to you all our employees as well as their families.

May we all continue to do our best as we go about our work and commit ourselves to the betterment of our company, our community, and our country.
We consecrate to you our clients and customers.
May they continue to patronize our products and services.

Bless and protect all of us in our dealing with one another.
With the help of our Blessed Mother, we make our consecration to you.
In the name of your Son, Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

My Best Summer Ever of 2014: Analogy for An Entrepreneur

It had been almost a month since schools opened and news from PAG-ASA ended summer officially. But I can't help look back at the summer that just passed with special regard and soft spot in my heart.  It was my best summer ever.  It was the summer of 2014. 

Create your best summer ever. 
Photo courtesy of Unsplash via Pixabay

Admit it, it isn't always that we find strength to push ourselves from our comfort zones.  It just feels so convenient and secured to do that which we are most familiar with--- no questions, no doubts and most of all, no worries. But just last summer, I once again found myself stepping up to try something new and taking action to actualize it. And finally, making a turnaround into something real from a mere aspiration, just a dream. 

The last time I did the same was back in 2012 when I formally registered my biz.  But this time around, I knew and felt it was much different. Getting into the internet as a publisher for the first time was like venturing into an unknown space. It also ushers in a totally different experience as your actions do not affect only yourself, but a wider public audience as well.

I've long been wanting to bring my business online with its own website and to level up promo efforts via social media marketing with the highly visited facebook site. But the downside is, I'm neither the hard-core techie who understands all those HTML computer programming languages, nor the computer savvy Gen Z-er who is much hooked with the web that navigating through facebook, tweeter, google+, pinterest, linkedin, and other social media sites seems just so much like a simple task as malling or strolling by the park perhaps.  At the least, I consider myself a computer literate person with quick learning abilities and above average mental aptitude.  If these assets alone would suffice to compensate,  then I thought I can also do internet marketing just like others.  From the overall view of things, it appeared to me the world wide web was the ultimate frontier to conquer.

And so I tried and carried on.  It was the mere thought of seeing my future blog entries and business website that pushed, pushed and pushed me.  I had no choice then but to do lots of googling, reading and learning from relevant websites to help me put pieces of the big puzzle together.  Sometimes, it was also a frustrating hit and miss thing....trying out a new site and finishing on a dead-end, then try again.  It was totally a self-learned endeavor. But amazingly, one click just led to another, and another, until all my questions were answered and my thoughts were cleared on how to go about with things.  Then finally, the full picture came into view. 

And now from the time I started trying around March this year, I finally went live with my own Facebook business page last May 17, posted my first own blog entry at Go Entrepinay dated May 29,  and published my events marketing website last June 28.  Best of all, I did all these without spending a cent!  Quite trivial they may seem, but these outputs give so much sense of accomplishment to a humble and regular netizen like me without any high-flung computer expertise at all.  Couldn't believe it?  Well, I really DID!

Thinking back, what a co-incidence that all these nice developments happened during last summer.  And as we know, most people look forward to summer for good things to come their way as all the time and the world are theirs during this sunniest season of the year.  Summer means breaking away from homeworks, fun late-night hanging out with friends, finding new love, travelling to far places, finding new discoveries, and still a whole lot of possibilities one can think of!
 

But for me, I remember most the summer of 2014 as the time I rose above myself and totally evolved into another new, different, but definitely, better person in the end.  And this came about starting just from a dream, a try, a struggle, a learning, and finally, a reality. I guess that translates into an excellent analogy for the making of an entrepreneur.

So how about you?  When was your best summer ever?