Happy New Year!
It has been months since my last post and since it’s the New Year, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and planning for 2017. But before that let me tell you how my 2016 was business wise.
I’ve had a lot of highs last year and a few lows. Let’s talk about the lows first.
At the beginning of first quarter last year, I was surprised by the amount of taxes I need to pay to renew my business permits. On top of that, the municipality of Pasig changed (yet again) their process and added more documents to renew your permits. It was always a pain in the butt to renew permits but 35,000 pesos later, I was able to surpass that (ouch!). See, no matter how small or big your business is, always be on the right side of the law. Follow all government sanctioned permits and pay the right taxes. Believe it or not, this will help you in the long run because you wouldn’t do or start a business without wanting to grow big eventually so better start right and save yourself headaches in the future.
Middle of this year, I faced problems with some of my staff. It was the biggest low for me since it involved a lot of my energy, my trust and monetary issues. One was accused of borrowing money from our clients while having a large sum of advance from me as well. Another issue with a long time staff I had was infidelity. I am very firm with the values that my company upholds and I was truly devastated to know that something so ugly was happening under our own roof (the personnel was staying at one of our units in Ortigas). This same person committed petty theft as well by stealing allowance and declaring higher expenses than what was actually spent and as if those weren’t bad enough, he pocketed tips they got as a team.
As a result, I had to restructure my teams and reinforce values that the company upholds. My husband said it was a blessing in disguise because we were able to weed out “problematic” people from the team who will eventually drag everyone down. True enough.
Now let’s go with the highs!
My small business is happily feeding 9 hardworking individuals who has the heart to stand along side myself while striving to give the best service to all of our clients. They are paid well, given the proper benefits and more. I have always treated my staff as part of our family and that extends to their own families. In fact, my husband frequently offers them small capitals for business ideas so that their families will have something to add to their income.
The business has gained more clients this year and forged better relationship to our loyal clients.
I was able to find great suppliers to help my business grow.
My husband has helped me structure incentive programs for our staff.
We structured a hiring process to make sure we are not going to get bad hires which are costly, by the way.
Over all 2016 was a great year for the business and those lows has helped me structure the business to a more stronger and customer centered company.
I hope your venture went well too! Let me know through the comments below and perhaps we can exchange some ideas!
