I have been reviewing my business commitments and as I have mentioned in previous posts the Philippines is a hard place to operate business, not only are the margins small but people who live in the provinces are on low wages.
I know of many people who have set up local businesses operating resorts, restaurants and bars, but they struggle to earn a living and have to rely on income from abroad to make ends meet. Don't get me wrong the Philippines is great place to live and your money goes a long way, but if you need to work the rewards are not worth the effort.
Yes you can hire workers for very little cost but to have good results you need to keep on top of what they are doing. The pace of life is slow here and you need to set aside quite a lot of time to get business transactions completed and there is a love of needing lots of paperwork.
I have been setting up a business connected with Ed Mercers 100 millionaires challenge and that has been a challenge and an eye opener in itself. As an Internet marketer branding is very important and one point I always stress is if the company has a website it is important that they use an email address connected to the website but here many companies just use a yahoo address. Just yesterday I received a reply to an email sent over a month ago to the manager of a company official email address, she apologised saying that it was a new address and she normally used yahoo. Is this the way to run a serious business?
I suppose local people who operates business just do as others before them and know no better, but for those who have dreams of expanding or attracting business from overseas they need to make great changes in the way they work, including removal of corrupt business practices.
I was happy to start setting up a business here but for the past 18 months have been banging by head against a brick wall, I now see that the time has come to move to an area where business ethics and practices are more inline with my thinking so rather than complaining, I am going to vote with my feet and an put together an exit plan in line with my goal for building serious wealth.
David Ogden
Dipolog city
+639991141149
http://seriouswealth.net
