Coach, I Need Advice on my Traditional Business.

**I want to acknowledge one of our online Community members for inspiring me to write this blog.**

Our online interaction earlier gave me a lot of realizations on myself, traditional businesses and the CA2020 Power Investing Plan.

This member is a traditional business owner from the province who was hoping to get a sound advice from me on her traditional business.
These were the facts presented:
a. She is into the retail business whose performance was ok in the first 3 years of operation. Now on its 5th year, patayan na sa presyo 'pag holiday.
b. She wanted to know the best profit margin for her business since she plans to lower the price of her goods for December to be competitive then normalize the price by January.
c. Her family wants her to close one of her stores due to the difficulty in paying her weekly obligation to suppliers due to lack of sales income per week.
d. Her market according to her is "captured." There were no marketing efforts established during the conversation.

During the course of the conversation, I learned that:
1. I can't give sound advice on traditional businesses because I was raised in a family of employees. As a civil engineer, my late father opened an iron works business whose customers belong to his close network. The business had to close down because the knowledge (and the close network) wasn't transferred to the family. We were then "sheltered" by our mother by encouraging us to finish our studies and to work for a good company so we won't experience the headaches of having an unstable income from a business.

2. Hey, I'm really in a big business. =) The currency of our stage one business is in dollars and we are not even affected by its fluctuations. The holidays are just like ordinary days where we do our mission of educating people, growing in the process and earning as a result of that growth. I learned that traditional businesses have to tighten their belts during this season to give way to increased sales (with a lower profit margin of course).

3. I would still want to go to traditional businesses AFTER I become financially free so that price wars won't even have to be a concern because I have passive income from doing the businesses laid out in the Power Investing Plan and I have a vast network of partners who are financially free as well.

4. I choose to learn the non-conventional way of doing business. Kaya nga innovative franchising. This is where the whole Community can give me advice that works for that type of business. In the traditional setting, your competitors won't readily give advice so you end up doing your own research in forums and in other avenues. With CA's stage one business, we, the Coaches are the guinea pigs. Before we implement a system, we make sure that it has already created the results that would produce results in the most efficient manner. We teach through tasking and we learn by doing.

5. I value my time. I can go on my own to start a business and experience its hardships for the learnings but why not undergo the learning process with ease and grace? In my mind, it's just clear that I want the best life for my family. I have a big "why."I want to give back to society and to this Country at the soonest possible time. I'd just have to leverage on OPE (Other People's Experience) and focus my energy on what I know is working.

I invite you to take a few moments to assess your current situation.
If you feel that you are still carrying buckets instead of building pipelines and you are part of this online Community, you don't know what you are missing. As our multi-billion dollar company says, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."