The Greedy CEO from San Francisco, CA

One of the best things in life are free sometimes in freelance writing. Today, I went under cover to meet the greedy foreign CEO in San Francisco, CA.

Coming from my dad's family of engineers and inventors, sometimes we are familiar names in the world of engineering, manufacturing and design and construction. I have heard of some questionable companies from overseas that are recently in the San Francisco Bay area trying to be "the great consultant's" in the world of patents and inventions. So one day I sent my resume to one of this questionable companies and as expected was called for an interview with a CEO from one such company.

As any sales person would do, I made my research beforehand to know more about the company. Found out the company does a lof of things for medical and manufacturing inventions. This company had postings all over even the internet but did not seem to really ring a bell.

In the magnificent empty office floor in the financial districr I was wondering if it was a start-up as the cubicles were mostly empty and quiet or was struggling. I knew before hand that it has transferred from another office a few blocks down the road but it was supposed to be in existence now for a few years

Sales people are really very good sometimes in accessing what was going on. Mr. CEO was about 20 minutes late but the receptionist was very accomodating.

When Mr. CEO came and he ask about my sales experience I did not use the family background but rather on other sales related experience as the question anyways was about sales exerience. Right there and there immediately, Mr. CEO said that he made a mistake on my resume that it was not a good fit as what they were needing was someone who can speak and understand the Engineering language. He then said if this person was available as this person was from another division selling direct to consumers and then went outside and went back that he was not there but would past on my resume

No where in the original discussions or even postings that the company ever indicated the specific need except they were looking for a person with sales experience.

I guess either Mr. CEO wanted me to lie or immediately turn the situation around to say that I know the engineering language etc.., The culture of best selling practices I guess is not that much important as he was a Mr. CEO who will do everything to sell the product or service.

Of course he and I agreed that it was not a good fit but the question of integrity and sustainability is the point of this story. In selling or perhaps where I come from my training was to know what was the need of the client and the consultative process of fullfilling the need while still being ethical and moral and still making a sale. At least now I understand why the empty cubicles and the quietness of this place. Worse this can be a hoax. All I can say os good luck to Mr. Greedy CEO from San Francisco, CA and I am really sorry for whoever clients, customers and even employees that you will generate from your compelling business practices.

Choosing Inspiration in Times of Crisis and Challenges

Choosing Inspiration in Times of Crisis and Challenges

Staying in touch with reality and spirit is such a big thing during challenging times like we are experiencing in this economic recession.

If it is a major catastrophic event such as job loss, not enough money to pay bills, on the verge of foreclosures, piling debt, and the likes one can only do so much but we can always change our way of thinking such as choosing our own way of inspiring and motivating ourselves.

Taking a small deep breath can be very refreshing for our soul and sanity. It can be merely having some quiet and meditation time, praying, watching TV or maybe perhaps reading a book so that our minds are preoccupied on positive things vis a vis all the negativity that we hear, read and see around us.

When we remember that material things in life were created to give comfort but in the end the most important is our self, our health, our spirit, our self, faith and spirit. Then when one feels inspired you can merely tell the difference it does to effect our lives. Perhaps it's attitude or culture but it is up to us to choose our own destiny.

Having our thoughts are forms of energy harmonizing our spirit so that we can self-realize today, give thanks, and hope and still look forward for tomorrow. By staying in spirit, we are directing and producing the events that occur in our own life no matter what is out there without being non-realistic of the actual realities of life.

Thus is one of the inspiration I had to pre-occupy myself and certainly grateful when I was writing, " How Do U Integrate Success in a Small Business" with ISBN No. 978-143-48-07595 as it gives me more value added to keep on going to be sustainable.

No Money, No Jobs, Nada

No money, no jobs, nada
Is this America? Or are we back to a third world or developing nation somewhere where extreme “POVERTY” is at high, crimes at increasing levels and there are so many homeless people asking for change to survive.
Back in a new high rise building, I was talking to one of the contractors who has been working on the property the last two years. His first statement was that normally in construction, he never runs out of work. There is a job already waiting for him before he even finishes a job like these.
As I was just about to say “same here”, he quickly followed through saying that this is the first time in 20 years that he does not have a job waiting after he completes this one.
Then suddenly I tried to breathe and sigh thinking I am perhaps not that crazy at all. For a while I thought all this madness and suffering of barely surviving was just my own illusion and experience. There are times I would think I did this to myself. Certainly not. It is not also a trend but reality is that it is now a way of life. Whatever happened to the America who use to be the land of dreams?

What is the loyalty effect?

When a person or consumer have an inner bond or feeling the said behavior can be associated with a loyalty behavior.

In developing management teams over the years I have always zeroed in on the "Loyalty Effect".

For a customer, there are both the internal and the external factors that affect his/her relationship with a business. External factors may come in the form of "AFFORDABILITY" for the product and or service and unique ability of the seller to find their product need. Normally, they have tried several areas on finding the product but they are unable to so they seek refuge for the said business in creating the ultimate experience they need. Another area that the new customer wants especially for online shoppers today is the "ease" of finding the product and simple userability for them to navigate an e-commerce site for example.

While studying on a business planning class, the question was how does one meaure that the business will succeed?

My brain servers were suddenly having a high traffic volume as I can analytically come up with a lot of measurement ideas and tools. However, it comes down for a successful business to endure their has to be a very good rating on "Loyalty Effect".

Value is a perceived value when the customer places the order that the business offers. It can be inter related to price, performance, aesthetic value, feeedback, reputation, brand recognition, being trendy, awards, testimonials and even the association of the company with an industry community association or organization. This business has to be offerring something that the customer wants or needs.

Value I believe results from having a good "brand" and much better than other similar companies offerring the same products and services. Yet, sometimes business owners tend to forget the magic rule 8:20 referrals. Word of mouth is a major influence today in an e-commerce driven marketplace. Customers are the ones creating a more high valuation for the products as they have this romantic personal and sentimental connection with the company or business.

When we started our vision focusing on the "Youth" we have found out we are like keepers of histories, memories and life experiences. Customers were coming to us as they are involved in the selling relationship. Its' like when we dine at night going to the same restaurant for example, we have a high loyalty to the business than for a place we only go once is a while.

Feedback and criticsm should be very well entertain because only through this is the way customers are meaningful for the business to sustain and ultimately become more succesful. If we do not provide this important element in our business models we are losing investment opportunties from our loyal pool of customers.

In the case for example of http://www.affordable-booksonline.com/ it offers comparable rare, out of print and antiquarian books. The loyalty effect rate experience between 6-8 out of 10 compared to other online independent retailers.

Through the support of the companies aggregrators, customers are able to find and access Affordable Books on line in spite of the strict competition. Thus, it is extremely important that a business must provide the predictive value to be useful. Human behaviors and emotions are the hardest to predict most of the time. Some customers just want to try something new, they might have a personal problem at home, just lost a job, mad at their boss, recently divorced and or even looking for friendship or love.

In final, when we exercise loyalty effect, we need to make sure on the privacy and security of data and information for the customer. No business does not involve a customer and because of the internet today, bars and expectations are raised on a daily basis. So if we create the value, personal touch and niche towards customer loyalty then a business will ultimately sustain itself.

Intangibles, The Building Blocks in todays Competition

A little exhausting but very fruitful day as I had the opportunity to interact with about 20 visiting cultural exchange business students from Asia today.

As expected the question was raised on why I think my company differentiates from all the rest as after all our products at http://www.affordable-booksonline.com/ was not unique and a commodity.

So I had to respond with my endless stories again. A few years ago I helped some dot.com businesses who were business friends of mine achieve the so called "Business Model innovation". It started when as I recall we had just written a statement to the APEC Economic Leaders Summit in November of 1997. In that statement, I had the opportunity to make a statement on how important young emerging business leaders are to the then powerful APEC Business Advisory Council. Of course, I had the confused faces on this young leaders visiting group suddenly.

I then proceeded to say that my role was to take a product which was free yet combined with different product variations and services that can be offerred with this free product.

On my past business endeavors at that time, winning the Design Plus Award in 1993 from the Frankfurt Premiere Stationery Show was a big deal and am extremely proud. We outlived our competitors as we were the first to offer the so called "Sinamay" ribbon or Abaca fiber ribbons used by so many florists' today. I pioneered on having the honor of working with my team a very great German Expert on Merchandising Design named Hannelore Riedner. We tap other experts from the United Kingdom, Japan and France through the help of technical grants from foreign governments as we were start-up small business then.

From a buy and sell trader, we became a manufacturing brand known all over Europe and the United States. Then came our distribution companies who help us to form alliances with a lot of people to make sure that our products are well concentrated on places it can be useful.

Companies can easily emulate the business model, distribution or even the profit-zone innovation. However, my brand management and strategic leadership will just make everyone crazy for this in an inherent culture, behavior and lifestyle.

The ability to engineer, adapt to crisis at all levels and extremes regardless of what people think and perceived you or me shall and will be the driving business performance metric.

http://www.alexesguerra.com/
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Sustainability 101 for Start-Ups

Today was a very informative yet joyful day.

A greek journalist met with me today for an interview with a major European Daily. He immediately proceeded in asking me, " Mr. Esguerra, did you again joined the saga of merchandising trends by having "GREEN" as your color motiff for your blogs and your new venture, http://www.affordable-booksonline.com ". My entrepreneurial trait would have readily responded yes or no but my analytical side rephrase to him the question, " Why do you think I did that ?"

He then replied, is that what is in right now in the US market being and going green? Then I asked, why are you here today meeting with me? He said because my friend in the European Parliament recommended that you be a good source sensing start-ups in North America.

Well just to cut the chase here, the friend he refers to was once a student of mine in Environmental Sustainability. What needs to be clarified is that we have used the green concept because we had one of the most brilliant web designers on the bookselling industry.

And he did not come up just with the idea, he had to study me and make a few weeks of more in depth research even before presenting the idea to me. Only when he knew that I would allowed it executed was the reason why he had presented it. People don't know although our mission is affordability, when it comes to delivering the service to the customer, I pay more than the industry standard as I don't employ directly and indirectly un-intelligent beings as value, quality control and customer service will never be sacrifice in my world.

In 1987, when we formed the then DLE International Group out of our garage and after selling my used car for $25.00, we were already an exhibitor at the 107th California Gift Show in January 1988. Our first sales was $5,000 and our first order came from the master of the christmas decor importers, Kurt S. Adler. A year after the company was born we had $60,000 in Export Sales having been two International Frankfurt/Nuremberg and Manila Shows.

By 1989, I became President of the Christmas Decor Exporters Assn, awarded as Young Entrepreneur of the Year and co-founded the Federation of Handmade Paper Makers Assn. All this while a company grew to $300,000 Sales, had intangible assets, machineries, even own our factory beside the initial garage, employed 20 direct workers and had a subcontracting network that employed about 3,000 Filipinos by 1993.

You might be wondering what and how does this makes sense about the topic of "Sustainability 101 for Start Ups"? If you have not yet understand this, I suggest that you go and refocus what ever business plan you have in mind.

Sustainability is the lacking ingredient why a lot of businesses closed down in a recession climate like today. If you are a master on this subject then here is your chance to becoming rich. This is the way America has to come to terms so that it can come back as one of the global mighty nations that Asia now enjoys.

Being smart in business and expert in numbers or marketing are essential but if you do not know how to use this great tool that is not thought in a normal college life then you need to start working on it now. This is why some of my best allies are Germans, Canadians and Japanese.

If you have not notice, the amount of businesses starting does not compensate for the amount of businesses failing whatever advertising gimmicks are there in this world.

Go Green, Act and Save the Planet but if you are not a true environmentalist, don't even try niche marketing as this subject has been here for ages and milleniums.