Holiday season is just around the corner, and for businesses, it’s the most wonderful and busiest time of the year. The question is, is your business ready for it? With high demand and increased competition, it’s essential to build your own solid strategy not only to meet customer expectations but also to make your business stand out from the rest.

Now, if you’re on the verge of planning your preparations, you are at a good starting point, as we’re about to lay down the most significant details that you must know to make your business holiday-ready!

Filipinos love nothing more than festive decorations like parol lanterns, Christmas trees, and twinkling lights. If you ask us about the best way to catch their attention, it’s creating a warm, inviting atmosphere to give your store a cheerful makeover. Apart from the sparkling decorations, you can also get creative with how you display your products. After all, it’s what you want your customers to notice, so make it your store’s centerpiece.

Generally speaking, people are at their peak generosity during Christmas, that’s why during sales and promotions, you’ll notice long queues at every counter in the mall or restaurant. If you want customers lining up your store, you better come up with exclusive offers, bundle deals, or enticing freebies to encourage them to try your offerings.

To appeal to Filipino consumers, try your best to give them your most sincere smile. This way, you can capture their hearts and show your heartfelt intention to help. Sometimes, it’s not just about selling the product but about understanding their needs and communicating that you have the best solution. In addition, things can get quite chaotic during this season, so showing off your best smile might even brighten their day!

All your efforts will go to waste if you do not have enough stocks in your inventory. As demand surges, it’s crucial to guarantee an ample supply to meet customer needs. But of course, be cautious about overstocking too, as it can lead to food spoilage and/or financial losses.

The best way to do all this is to have dependable negosyo appliances like the Upright Chest Freezer from Condura. With its deeper shelves, you can stock more food items. Not to mention, it’s also an inverter, allowing you to save more in the long run.

To sum it all up, the holidays might keep you preoccupied, but all your labors will bear fruit once your plans are set in motion.

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In every start-up business, raising money is vital to get off the ground and to cover expenses. It’s crucial and challenging especially if you don’t have an amount in mind, and you don’t know where to get help in financing your business. The way you choose to fund your business could affect how you structure and run your business. So, before taking a risk in putting all your money into starting your business, you should be able to know the ways on how you can get the money you need. Below are the funding ideas that you can do to finance your business. Estimate start-up cost First and foremost, you should determine how much funding you’ll need to launch your business. Every business has different needs, so you need to check your financial situation and know your vision for your business to give you an idea about the financial future of your company. Calculating your start-up cost will help you request for funding and attract investors. It can help you to estimate your profit, secure loans, even save money with a deduction on your taxes (such as medical expenses, transportation expenses, and miscellaneous). Having a list of expenses can also give you a financial picture. The following are the basic and possible materials and services that needed financing:

• Equipment and supplies
• Licenses and permits
• Utilities (e.g. electricity, water, and rental fees).
• Employees’ salaries

It is also a good idea if you can talk to businesspersons, vendors, and service providers to give you an honest estimation for expenses. Prepare your financial statements Having a financial statement can help you attract potential investors or creditors. Usually, accountants are the ones who prepare for financial statements, but you may also use some software for you to be able to do it on your own. For small businesses, it comprises the balance sheet and an income statement. The former provides information about the business such as its assets, liabilities, and equity account while the latter is a report that shows the income the business earned over a specific period. It also shows the cost and expenses of the company. But you may just list down all the income, expenses, and the loss you have for the period for easy calculations. You are actually preparing this statement for you to know your total earnings and how much you’ll pay to your investors if you have any. But again, you may still consider asking a professional accountant to help you prepare your financial statements.

Develop cash flow

Cash flow is the movement of cash into and out of a business, meaning, the money that you received in the business transaction (ex. Sales of goods and services) and the capital leaving the business (ex. Money for loans, purchases, and expenditures). Cash flow has three sections. These sections designate the different ways cash can enter and leave your business. It could be cash from operating activities, cash from investing activities, and cash from financing activities. Know more about these three sections.

• Operating activities are cash used to run the everyday project of your business.
• Investing activities are cash used for investing in assets like equipment and securities.
• Financing activities are cash from loans and payments made to lessen loan balances.

By creating a statement of cash flow, you can identify the actual income your company received. Managing the flow of your money will lessen the possible surprises that you can encounter that will result in a cash shortage. Moreover, seek out advice from an accountant or your trusted business advisor to help you with the calculations. Calculate break-even point The Break-even point is where the business’ total costs or expenses and the total revenues are equal. It is important to know your fixed costs (ex. rent, utilities, wages), the revenue or selling price, as well as the variable costs like the materials and labor of production to help your company understand when one of your products or services start to be profitable or not. According to Freshbooks.com, you can use the below formula to calculate the break-even points: Break-Even point (units) = Fixed Costs ÷ (Price per unit – Variable costs per unit) Here’s an example based on the source’s own example: Your company produces soft drinks, and you are planning to launch a new flavor of a soft drink in the market. You want to know if this new soft drink is worth it on your finances. Using the above formula here’s the result of your computation. P100,000 / (P25 – P21) = 25,000

Fixed Cost P100,000 (total for the month)
Variable Costs P21 (produced per bottle)
Sales Price P25 (per bottle)

This shows that you need to have 25,000 new soft drinks in a month to get to the break-even point. An important usage of this is it will help you with your decisions such as for improving advertising strategies, re-pricing your product or service to increase demand, and setting up your budget. By calculating the break-even point, it will support you in establishing a sales price to gain profit that will ensure a successful business. Identify banks that would finance business Banks are a very popular source of business finance. So, you must render your time to know which banks will help you provide funding for your business. You should be able to carefully consider the type of bank finance that you want as it will affect your cash flow. By loaning in banks, you need to repay the borrowed money at the agreed schedule. The repay amount will depend on the rate of interest and the size and duration of the loan. But sometimes, bank loans tend to be more available to businesses that are well-established or growing. Identify banks that would finance business Banks are a very popular source of business finance. So, you must render your time to know which banks will help you provide funding for your business. You should be able to carefully consider the type of bank finance that you want as it will affect your cash flow. By loaning in banks, you need to repay the borrowed money at the agreed schedule. The repay amount will depend on the rate of interest and the size and duration of the loan. But sometimes, bank loans tend to be more available to businesses that are well-established or growing.

In any case that you acquire a bank loan, you may enjoy these following advantages.

• You will guarantee money for a certain period.
• The loan can be short term or long term.
• You don’t need to provide the bank with a share in the business, or simply, the bank will not take any shares from your business.
• It will help you estimate the interest payments because of their fixed rates.

Thinking over money can be stressful, but it will help you a lot to start your business if you prepare, list-down, and estimate all the things that are needed to be funded to give you an amount that will help your business grow. Just give yourself time and do not rush to anything that might affect your business’ finances in the future. Remember to consult your trusted business advisor or acquaintance, as well as your professional accountant to guide you with the finances. Check out our blog section for more negosyo tips.

Expanding your sari-sari store is a huge step in your negosyo journey. Branching out to a larger market requires strategy, additional resources, and funding. Growing your business or investing in a new venture always comes with a certain amount of risk, but with proper planning, your business expansion could be a game-changer for you and your revenue. As a trusted negosyo partner, Condura aims to help small business owners by sharing information on how to manage their business and teaching the correct strategies to ensure that their expansion will not lead to disappointments and frustrations. Using the income from your sari-sari store and putting it towards a new business venture is a valuable investment that, if managed properly, can be a sustainable source of profit for you.

If you do decide to grow your sari-sari store, start small and don’t jump on a massive expansion right away. Try adding a few things on your inventory first like selling prepaid electronic load or seasonal items like ice candy during the summer and school items sometime in May before classes start in June. If your sari-sari store is located in a town plaza or near a bus or jeepney terminal, selling umbrellas or slippers during the rainy season can be a great way to pull in more sales.

If you want to grow your store into a convenience store-type or a mini-grocery, make sure that you have the space to do so or scout a bigger location and do some research on the new place if there are similar types of stores nearby or is there a large volume of foot traffic within the area?

If you want to offer new services and target different customers, try investing in other small businesses. For instance, if you are located in a residential area or a subdivision, investing in a water refilling station to cater to residents could be a great way of expanding your business. If you are located near a school, hospital, church, the famed carinderia is a viable option. Just like sari-sari stores, carinderias are also a staple in the Filipino culture. One business that witnessed an increasing boom over recent years is coin laundry shops. Another option is to go the technology route and apply for your store to accept utility payments like Meralco, Maynilad, or Manila Water. Apply to become an accredited remittance partner if you have a margin of customers that are spouses or family members of OFWs and are usually getting inward remittances. Remember that people tend to pay for the convenience of your services so make sure that you also prioritize customer experience when expanding your business.

Who says that you have to abandon your sari-sari store once you’ve expanded your negosyo journey? Filipino consumers love one-stop-shops and if you can offer a variety of products and services then it’s a win-win situation for you and your customers. If you went ahead with your carinderia business, try selling some food items in your carinderia like chips, or soft drinks, and canned juices. If you like to bake, try selling your baked goods as well. Putting up a small sari-sari store within your coin laundry shop is a good way to earn because coin laundry shop customers are left with no choice but to stick around and wait for their laundry. Try selling chips and coffee so waiting customers can eat something while doing laundry. Offering free Wi-Fi can also drive your customers to your laundry shop because this means that your customers can multitask— check social media, read or watch videos while doing laundry. A sari-sari store is a good source of income especially for housewives and small business owners. If managed well, it can bring in a significant amount of profit that can be used for expansion. So before you expand drastically, measure what works for you, and refine your approach as you go.

A growing business would eventually beg the question if you need to upgrade your appliances. The simple answer is yes. With business expansion comes the need for bigger storage and a more durable refrigerator to store your merchandise. Condura recognizes that a refrigerator is a valuable investment for any small business owner and their Negosyo Pro line offers a variety of ref and freezers that suit your business and is energy efficient. The Negosyo Inverter Pro for example is perfect for sari-sari store owners that plan to sell seasonal items like ice cream and ice candy during the summer. It can fit up to 20 ice cream tubs and can store more soft drinks and juices with bigger bottle racks. The Negosyo No Frost Inverter Pro is also another option with its two-rack freezer for more storage. If you want to sell Christmas staples like hamon and keso de bola, this ref is a good fit for you. Condura prides itself on a 10-year warranty on refrigerator compressors, a 3-year warranty on inverters, and a 1-year warranty on parts and services. Carinderia owners might want to check the Negosyo Pro Beverage Cooler for your soft drinks, bottled water, and canned juices to display in your carinderia. This cooler comes with a lock and key system, which makes it a reliable choice for business owners. It also has an auto-defrost system and a power cool system. It can store up to 336 soda cans and has more wire shelves for a more organized display. There are many ways for you to expand your sari-sari store business. You just have to take your time to do some research on what is feasible and manageable for you. Take the time to consider all factors and weigh pros and cons for your negosyo before you decide on expanding your business.

The exciting part of being a businessperson is growing the business, but it is also crucial because you will experience its low and high points. A good businessperson should think and focus on business growth and how to keep up with the ever-changing situations especially that consumer’s behavior is constantly changing. It is not smart to be complacent as it does not provide long-term growth. Before your business can grow and achieve sustainability, you need to consider and follow these tips.

Manage and constantly monitor your finances

As you launch your business, you need to know how to organize your finances. It’s recommended to open your bank account to separate the business income from your assets. It will be easier as well for managing taxes, so you would know where to get the money to pay for it. You can also develop a bookkeeping system to help you become more familiar with your day-to-day transactions and to see if there are possible financial crimes. Explore and take advantage of the free tools available online.

Create a marketing strategy

Marketing strategies such as social media marketing will help your business reach the target audience and turn them into customers of your products or services. It can also provide you with the overall direction and goals for your marketing. You can put them both online and offline and help your business to go forward to reach sales goals. As part of creating a marketing strategy, it can also include an evaluation of your demographics and competitors as well as a plan of action for the next few years.

It will help if you also give yourself time to write your strategies. With this, you can identify your business goals by setting SMART criteria.

• Specific — know what you want to achieve
• Measurable — set tangible measures to gauge your results
• Achievable — set your objectives that are within your capacity and budget
• Relevant — set objectives that will help you improve your business or that aligns to your company’s mission
• Time-bound — set objectives you can achieve before your deadline

It is also beneficial if you can test your ideas by doing some research, interviewing your potential customers, and reviewing what works.

Evaluate your Marketing Plan

It can save you money if you know how to evaluate your marketing plan. Your plan consists of all the activities you need to achieve your goal. Constantly reviewing and adjusting your plan to suit the needs of the business and the wants of the customers will help ensure the success of the business. It would help if you can do an evaluation of the actions of your competitors. If your competitors copy what you have done, it means that your plan might be working. The customers’ response can be a big help in the evaluation and may help you determine the kind of reactions your marketing efforts create. Putting up a survey or getting customer service feedback can reveal what your customers are thinking and possibly would want. Looking at your sales performance and return of investment (ROI) can be the fastest way to determine if your marketing plan is effective or not.

Develop sales strategy

A sales strategy is a plan to achieve and secure the long-term revenue of the business by retaining and acquiring existing and new customers. It includes specific tactics, objectives, and marketing strategies that will help you attain your goal—to make sales. You can train your team to learn some tools required to help sell the products and/or services.

To be able to build a successful sales strategy, you need to put your customer at the center of your business. Meaning, thinking what the customers want will help you with your strategy. Giving them a first-hand experience of your goods or services can also help shape their opinion towards your business. Your sales team must provide information relevant to your customers’ needs to help them make a decision about purchasing your products and/or services. They can also connect your customers and prospects through various sales practices such as pitches and demos to make them understand what you are offering to them. Your customers can share this good experience with others and can create more sales for your business. Read more financial tips for your business here: Ways to Raise Money for Your Business

Consider Business Expansion

If for the past months or years, you have had an incredible income growth and the demand for your products and services have increased, maybe expanding your business could be your next move. Diversifying your assets can minimize the potential loss in the long run. If you are engaged in selling bags, why not expand it and offer shoes and women’s accessories? How about expanding your business into one city to another city? With that, you can look for resellers or distributors there to help you sell your products. By proper planning, you can make it happen. Taking time in creating long-term strategies and good organization in finances can help you sustain your business. It is important to continually keep records of your accounting and invest in the capabilities of the individuals inside and outside of your organization. Do not also be afraid to collaborate with your team to manage and generate ideas. More often with team collaboration, solutions can come up that will make your business soar high in the following years.

Having a business is a milestone that most people dream to have. While an appealing job to many, not everyone is fortunate enough to see through theirs in their lifetime. For those who are lucky enough to be running their own business, they are met with the perks and challenges that come with it. Though the experience can sometimes be overwhelming, running your own business can be exceptionally fulfilling, especially if you make a good profit out of it. But every now and then, your business calls you to challenge your limits and exceed your previous achievements—expanding your business. Business expansion is vital to sustaining its success and achieving growth. Being a good and responsible business-owner, you should know that your business needs to expand to increase profit and gain new customers. You could either extend your services, add new products, or target a broader audience. You may also consider growing your business by optimizing your processes to decrease overhead expenses or expanding your operations to serve more people. In doing so, however, you must understand that expansions aren’t free from any risk. You must be mentally and emotionally prepared when making life-changing decisions. If you’re set in expanding your business, here’s a list of ways to help you move forward with your expansion: Identify a target Before you make any decision, make sure you identify an expansion goal. For example, your business already makes a net profit of P30,000 monthly, and you’d want to make at least P45,000— a 50% growth—after the expansion, then you’d have to be very specific on how to get that additional P15,000. Is it an extra 200 bottles of soda? Addition of ice cream products? Or perhaps, a combination of both? For you to make smart decisions, you need to review your past sales performances and make sure that your target growth is feasible. Find patterns and observe the behavior of your customers. You may also ask yourself some questions like: Have you been often out of stock on some items? Do I have customers from a different area? Are there other high demand products that I haven’t offered yet?

Develop ideas for growing your business

Once you have your target and data, it’s time you develop ideas on how to get to your goal. Growing a business is not easy, so it’s important that you do not stop from developing ideas. You can get ideas by revisiting your customers. Understanding their needs or knowing if their behavior has changed will be able to pinpoint if your product and/or service still meet their needs. If there are changes, you can also target new demographics who could use your product and/or services in similar ways to your initial target audience. Before you make big expansion decisions, it will help if you will take the time to audit your operations first. Is there something that is not working? Perhaps, your operational expenses are taking too much from profit, or maybe that your operating hours aren’t as customer-friendly. You may find new suppliers for new products that can add value to your business. You may also look for suppliers who can offer you a better price. It’s always wise to look for direct suppliers so that you can have leverage in pricing. You must understand your business from inside and out to make better decisions and recommendations. Sometimes, the brightest solution isn’t always the biggest changes and decisions; sometimes, it only takes optimization to improve your business.

Develop a marketing plan

One of the things that you need to check is the marketing plan of your business. The marketing plan includes the business’s marketing and advertising goals. Sometimes, businesses get carried away with advertising and waste a lot of money-making advertisements that do not address their business’s needs. Evaluate your existing efforts and decide if such efforts and solutions still apply today. Research for trends and explore more affordable solutions, such as digital advertising, social media marketing, e-commerce, etc. The good thing about social media is that you can use it to draw people who are already interested in your product and/or service. If feasible, and if your market prefers online buying, you can also set up an online store to sell your products. During this pandemic, online stores are the go-to platform of Filipinos for buying almost everything and anything.

Moreover, creating your campaigns as part of your plan will help you promote your product and/or service to a wider audience. Don’t hesitate to answer important questions about your goals, and your business vision, so that you can develop an effective marketing plan that will support your company’s overall mission.

Financial growth injects additional capital

All these things will help you achieve your goals, but growing your business isn’t just about getting more money. It’s also about giving you and your business better opportunities. If your business has more money, it will be easier for you to take advantage of opportunities that will come your way, such as moving your store to a bigger and better location, buying faster and better equipment to increase your production, buying delivery trucks to expand reach, and more. It will also be easier for you to attract investors and get credit loans to further expand your business. Once you’re able to reach your financial goals, remember to spend your earnings wisely. Instead of spending your money right away, use it to fund your expansion plans further or invest it in investment vehicles that will let your money grow over time. You may also consider buying assets and quality sets of equipment that you will need in your business to help you improve your services. Need more tips? Read: Ways to Raise Money for Your Business Growth begins with an honest assessment of your business. You must learn how to identify and develop structures that will enhance your business’ capabilities. Look for ways to improve. It’s better to take risks, adapt to changes, and learn from other companies’ success. These will help you plan and create more products and services that will last in the next three to five years. Though it’s a daunting experience, it will develop leadership, and it will create more opportunities for you and your employees.