TRUSTEESHIP IN BUSINESS
The Eight (8) Powers of Establishing and Managing a Business

This is an experiential sharing on how to start a business with God.  A business in full partnership with God gives the potential entrepreneur the vision of sharing the profit of the business to its employees in particular and to humanity in general.  As a mere trustee and steward, the businessman knows that every resource of the business belongs to God and therefore, he or she will only get what he or she needs and deserves from God’s business. Likewise, he or she must have the authority and credibility to teach all employees that as trustees like him or her, they should not cheat or steal God’s resources, including time, money and energy. I live by the dictum that everything of mine should be used only in a worthwhile way.


1. HAVE A THOUGHT AND IMAGINE – Everything begins with a thought and every thought develops in the mind.  The mind allows us to imagine and the results of our imagination are stored in our memory. It is worthwhile to use the power of our imagination and enjoy its fruits in the process.

2. IMAGINE AND DREAM – While enjoying the fruits of our imagination, let us put a thinner flesh and muscle on it by dreaming.  Let us not ever get tired of having a good night dreaming or daydreaming.  Always remember that happy dreams help make the cells of our whole body and mind stronger, healthier and more active.  When our imagination becomes more natural and our dreams are getting to be more visual, then, we will start to feel them and chances are, they will become real. Time, nature and God will start to cooperate with us. 

3. DREAM AND PLAN – Now, let us concretize or cement our dreams by writing all of them in the form of a plan.  Regularly review our plans and update them to adapt to the ever-changing condition and ever-challenging situations of the industry which we intend to participate in.  Let us not ever stop dreaming while updating our plans.  Everything is just six inches above our head including all great ideas that will help us with our life, even all the solutions to our problems.  So, let us not get too far.  Let us attract all good things and they will all come running towards us.

4 PLAN AND HAVE COURAGE – In putting up a business, we must have enough courage to establish it.  Courage does not come from the amount of capital, or number of business connections we have or positions we occupied from our previous employers. The word courage came from the root word “cor” which means “heart”.  Thus, courage must come from our honest, sincere and contrite heart which must also be directly connected with God’s heart.

5.  HAVE COURAGE AND TAKE RISKS – Life here on earth in itself is a risk.  We took the risk with our mother when we were born and our mother also took the very same risk with us when she gave birth to us. Both of us were not sure whether one of us would survive then.  When we were still innocent and inexperienced children, we were not afraid to take risks.  Now that we are more educated, learned and experienced individuals, the more we are afraid to take risks. If we want to become a businessman with God, the risks will always be there, but God, our Father, has already calculated all risks for us.

6. TAKE RISK AND IMPLEMENT – There is no such a thing as the right and/or the best time to implement our plans.  There are only right attitudes and vibrations to align all our plans with nature and God by trusting both of them.  For as long as our honest and sincere intention is to serve ourselves, God, our families, the families of our employees and our community, then, there is no chance for our business with God to fail.  So, go ahead and implement.   The best time is always now.  Do not be afraid to make decisions. Our decisions may save lives and limbs of other people and maybe of our own loved ones.  We should always remember that there is no right or wrong decision.  Only time can tell whether it is wrong or not.  What is wrong is when we really have to decide and we did not do it for one reason or another.  Not to make a decision at the right time and at the right place is the greatest indecision we can ever make.
 
7. IMPLEMENT AND COMMIT – Some people are good in planning but not so good in implementing.  Others are good in implementing but not in sustaining. Worst is, both of them are good in planning and implementing but fail very badly in their commitment to the success of the business.  Our commitment is to God and to ourselves and not to anyone else.  Once we commit to profit and to our investors, we will lose our focus and start running the business to impress others, instead of committing to the business itself and to its real objective of serving its employees where sales and profit really come from.  Let us always put in our minds that the most important resource of our company is our employees.

COMMIT AND KEEP
This is the bonus but the most difficult part.  Some of us would easily succumb to the pressure of the business and would always consider closing it or filing an application for bankruptcy when opportunity arises.  Putting up a business is like entering into a marital commitment with the one we love and whom we intend to spend the rest of our lives. It is a longtime, even a lifetime, commitment.  Always remember that the poorest businessman is better off and more spiritually blessed than the most successful executives or managers. This is because an executive or a manager remains as an employee who receives salary while an entrepreneur is a businessman who gives salary.


JUST A REMINDER

In putting up or establishing a business, we should not be concerned so much with the number of customers who will not help or people who will discourage us, but, rather, we should focus only on those who will help and encourage us to move on.  Had I allowed myself to fall into this trap, I would have not reached this far.  We just have to accept that in this envious world, there are some people who do not want others to succeed in life and most of them, without us knowing it, happen to be the ones who are much closer in relationship with us.

THE FOUR LEVELS OF BUSINESS CREATION AND ACQUISITION

1. SANA – Most employees like us have hopes and dreams to have our own business when we retire.  We always say “Sana magkaron ako ng negosyo pag retire ko”. I am very sorry but I will not recommend this.  Why wait for our retirement when we are too old already, with less energy after giving our best and most productive years to our employers?  The best age to start a business is 35 but not exceeding 40.   I started at the age of 30.  There are advantages and benefits in starting the business early.  Foremost is we own our time.  We may have lesser time with our families in the beginning but at least we can be with them anytime.  Secondly, we still have enough energy, and thirdly, we can make decisions on our own anytime.

2. GANA – Some of us are motivated to put a business because we just want to have one just for the sake having it because our friends and colleagues have businesses also.  Being just Ganado might be a good start but chances are, we will not be able sustain it for a longer period of time.  When business becomes merely a “fashion” instead of a ”passion” for us, we will not survive in the long run.

3. MANA – For some fortunate ones, the business becomes readily available to them on a silver platter.  Their parents or grandparents have painstakingly established it for them.  In most cases, the business is forced into us by our parents.  We try dipping our hands into it with the hope that we might be able to adapt with it and like it in due time.  We can learn to love it if our motivation is to serve ourselves and our children until we progress into serving our employees and the community.  If this happens, we can be very successful businessmen, not only by inheritance but by choice.

4. WANA – In contrast to all of the above, if the business fails, we will say “wala na” and we start blaming everybody, including the conditions, situations, the people around us and even God for the fate of the business.  We blame everyone except ourselves.  We do not even have the courage to face ourselves and ask what I have done to protect and sustain the business.  In this situation, what we do not realize is we just lost one of the greatest and God-given opportunities to serve the communities and humanity through the business.

THE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

1. THE HANDS – (1900-1975) – During the early years of business and management, the basis of productivity was measured by the quantity that the workers can produce in a specific period of time.  Owners and managers still had enough time and energy to take good care of the families of their employees.  Workers were more disciplined in performing their jobs and more committed to the company.  Honesty was not lacking because it was still a value that most of the workers practiced then.

2. THE MINDS – (1976-1985) – This was the start of the age of machines.  Production became faster.  Human hands were replaced by the more efficient and accurate machines.  However, the reduction for the need of people to do the job was not felt and did not become apparent as the number of employees was maintained not in the production line but in the administrative, sales and marketing departments.  Business problems shifted from production to human resource because machines are still run and operated by people.  The owners and management started addressing human resource concerns.  The Japanese were the first with their Zen management styles which gave more emphasis to the ability of employees to think productively.  Most of the schools for management were established during this period.

3. THE HEART – (1986-1995) – Despite the success of the Zen style of management, Human Resource is still challenged by low production, fast turn-over of employees, lack of motivation, internal squabbles among employees and other people related business problems.  During these trying years, so many inspiring and motivating management books filled the shelves of most bookstores in the country.  Foremost were the books of Steven Covey, a renowned author of the 7 Habits book series.  The books attempted to touch the hearts of normally strict, stiff and stern managers and owners.

4. THE SPIRITS – (1996-2005) – We thought we were progressing.  But some businessmen thought otherwise.  They observed that nothing has changed.  The same people related business problems still exist and persist.  Probably, we have forgotten the true identity of all the people working in the company.  They are just humans with all the frailties and weaknesses.  While focusing on the human side of the work force, we might have forgotten the “being” side.  They are all supposed to be spiritual beings with souls inside their bodies, not just bodies with souls.  They are not merely human “doings” who are qualified, classified and identified with their jobs.  They are human beings and what they only expect is to be treated as such.  A group of former top executives from different big companies came out with a book and training module entitled Self Managing Leadership (SML), which I am using in this booklet as a main resource material.
 
SOME UNORTHODOX AND STREET SMART WAYS TO RUN A BUSINESS

A. COPY AND INNOVATE – For start-up business with very limited capitalization and without any existing product in its hands, it is still better to just copy an existing and most successful product in the market and just innovate a little within the bounds of corporate laws.  Our company did exactly that.  It just copied a 35 year old brand of steroid which is only available in 5mg.  We registered Prednisone 10mg and doctors accepted it with open hands and minds. That was the start and the rest is history.  This product became the one and only in the market for a good number of years.  Our company has just celebrated its 27th anniversary in the “me-too” industry.
   
B. COPY AND RE-INVENT - Innovating and re-inventing does not need much of critical thinking but more of creative and imaginative one.  What our company did was to look for the most saleable brands, copied them and put extra ingredients or components to make them separate and distinct from their closest competitors, thus, there is lesser pressure in promoting the products as they can stand alone.  As long as we can claim the product is still the “one and only” in the market and hold on to it for the longest possible and allowable period of time, then, our business is safely in good shape.

C. COPY AND IMPROVISE – Improvisation comes in different forms and manner.  For us, it is simply increasing the volume or contents to make the products more affordable while improving the patients’ compliance rate.  Doctors normally prescribe Antibiotics preparations for children with one 5mL teaspoon three times for seven days.  So, we introduced 105mL, making our product easy to administer to the patients and more affordable.

D. COPY AND RE-PACKAGE – Some stores and customers prefer small packaging because it saves storage space.  Most of pharmaceutical products in capsules and tablets come in boxes of 100’s.  We made a survey from both doctors and drugstores and we found out that both of them prefer small packaging.  So, to satisfy them, we introduced boxes of 20’s and 21’s having in mind the benefits more affordable of price and improved patient’s compliance on top of providing the stores with more space for other products.
     
BUSINESS DILLEMA (To Grow or Not To Grow)
For some, growing the business is the basis for its success. But for us, we have to define and redefine our own standard of success.  Our choice is just to be small and simple without sacrificing the benefits that our employees deserve.  I personally believe that for every peso we make as profit, there is ten pesos or more worth of pressure.  Each time I am tempted to expand the business, I sit down, pray, reflect and meditate and ask God’s guidance. I ask Him whether I am just feeding my ego to impress other people in my desire to do it. Our company has four products directly competing with leading brands, and they sell more than a billion pesos each.  The question is whether to go head to head with the competition and get a big slice of the sales or just allow all these products to generate sales at their own pace and still earn a respectable profit with least pressures.     

BRAND FOR FUN
In business, branding is very critical.  For me, it can make or break the success of a product.  When we think of a brand, we must make sure that we feel good when we pronounce its name.  It is also advisable that we make a mock up of the packaging and look at it at a distance.  If the brand name pleases our ears and the packaging attracts our eyes, chances are, it will be very acceptable also to the consumers and end users.  The number of letters in a brand name must also be considered.  The lesser the number of letters, the shorter the name, the better it is.  Most of our products have six letters or less.  We also like to use the three first and last letters of our company’s name and incorporate them in the brand so that the products can easily be identified with the company, and our company with the product.

UNETHICAL (1983- 1998) 
When our company was still small and struggling, we resorted to some unethical but acceptable business practices such as offering a certain percentage of the allocated budget just to corner sizeable chunks of the government and non government funds.  We also offered doctors some form of perks such as plane fares and hotel accommodation, appliances, gadgets, etc., short of bribing them to get the much needed prescriptions.  We did the same to drugstore salesclerks and owners to push our products to their customers.  With these practices, our company remained small and struggling for fifteen long years and we could not understand why.

ETHICAL (1999-2010)
Getting tired and always feeling guilty, we stopped these unethical practices for more than ten years now.  Our employees were really afraid because our sales decreased by almost 30% to 40%.  But we remained steadfast and firm in this commitment.  However, we were happy when we noticed that our sales improved monthly until we were to fully recover after more than three years without resorting to any unethical practices.  Now, the blessings are overflowing.  We are able to increase the number of our products and sales personnel and consequently, our sales. It is still better to have a small business as long as it is legitimate.  There is no substitute for this and now we understand why we were struggling at the beginning -- it was because of business malpractices.

PRED 10 – A gift from God
Eleven years ago, we were blessed with one product that changed the course and the color of our business. The company as a whole including its total operations and management styles changed.  The company, with its old and ordinary products was not growing.  When we launched Pred 10, a brand of Prednisone 10mg Tablet and Suspension, our sales increased beyond expectation.  This product becomes the bread and butter of the company generating almost 80% of its total monthly sales.  It is also giving a regular source of livelihood to more than 100 employees because this product allowed the owners and management to hire more people four times its original number before this product was launched.

FOR A GREATER SENSE OF WELL BEING
Prednisone is an old but very reliable product for many types of diseases.  It is not expensive as it costs only less than Php 5.00.  Some big companies will not venture on this kind of product because of its low profitability.  For a while, since we are not so familiar with this product, we were just contented with its good sales.  We started analyzing where the prescriptions and sales are coming from and who really the users are. We found out that most of them are the suffering and dying patients like those who have asthma, lupus, cancer, severe allergies, etc. We also realized that it does not give permanent cure to most diseases but it definitely gives a better sense of well being to most patients and this gives us more reason to be more committed to producing this product.  We kept on improving its availability based on doctors’ request by making additional brand extensions available to them and to their patients such as Prednisone 1, 5, 20, 30 and 50 milligrams. These extensions further improve the doctors’ dosage management and patients’ compliance to the medication.

HIRE FOR DOUGH BUT FIRE FOR SHOW
In hiring personnel, focus more on attitude rather than the skills of the applicants.  Their attitudes have lived with them for three quarters of their lives.  We just need to observe them and try to change them by not telling them to change but by using all the provisions in our company’s policies, rules and regulations.  Give them the best benefits that the company can afford.  Make sure that it is always a percentage higher than the government mandatory rates. Give all the employees benefits allowed by our Labor code.  Do not give them the opportunity to talk behind our back because this brings negative vibrations to the environment of the company. 

Always remember that blessings are positive energies and they only enter in a positively charged environment.  When we need to terminate an employee, we do not tolerate and hesitate.  If there are valid legal grounds and after exhausting all spiritual means, we fire them at will. This is to show to the other employees that we really mean business because we know the true and real meaning of what spiritual business is. 

VALUES-BASED AND VIRTUES-ORIENTED TRAINING PROGRAMS
Values are caught, not taught and virtues are Godly decorations of the souls. Both values and virtues are original, eternal, and inherent in all human beings.  We believe in this and in the goodness of each and every employee we have. For this reason, all our training programs are geared towards the spiritual development and growth of our employees. 

We set all business plans and programs for the whole year during our annual conference at the end or beginning of each year and discuss the rest in the field.  We limit our programs to eight or ten to give more time for spiritual topics during our regular conferences.  We do not allow the employees to have numerical and mental indigestion during meetings.  We make our conference programs and schedules as light and happy as possible.  We allow all of them to enjoy each other’s company and we give them more time to socialize. We believe that if they leave the venue in a happy mood, they will create a happy environment when they go back to their respective areas of responsibility.

SELF MANAGING LEADERSHIP (SML)
The premise behind Self Managing Leadership is that “we cannot manage and lead others if we cannot manage and lead ourselves first”.  Our company believes and subscribes to this and we share this with all our employees for them to be able to use the magic of this teaching in and out of the office.  Some call this as Leadership by Example and others sometimes tell us to “walk the talk”. But for us, we take this seriously because the challenge is greater as we, the owners and the managers, have to put everything into practical form and application to the best of our abilities and commitment to the teaching.  Otherwise, it will merely be a lip service and we will not be as credible as expected by our employees. Again, the best method is still to treat each other as equals by communicating to each other as souls, as brothers, and better yet, as children of the One God.  This may not come easy and it will be too ideal to expect instant results. People are unique and they have individual backgrounds and experiences and we have to give due respect to all of these differences. We recognize and work amid these differences to create a very powerful company culture which eventually binds all its investors, owners, managers and employees.

CREATE ONE CULTURE
We are in an industry which is being dominated and controlled by big multinational companies.  The bases and standards of the Philippine pharmaceutical industry have been set by giant transnational companies since time immemorial. Filipinos still believe that imported goods are always better than the locally manufactured versions.  This makes it more challenging for us because it affects the confidence of our people especially when they are in the field making their rounds and meeting people from multinational companies. They cannot help but compare themselves with these people.  We tell our people that “it is always better to be the good version of ourselves than the best version of other people”.  We also emphasize to them that while we copy products and we are not the originator, we should not lose our own identity in the process but to just be proud of what we are doing and to focus more on what we have and not on what we do not have.

ON HONESTY AND DIGNITY
Our company subscribes to the Law of Karma and believes in the Biblical Law of Sow and Reap.  We constantly remind our employees that it is better to feed our loved ones with food coming from good source, spiritually.  This is because the money we use to buy food also has energy and it creates positive and negative vibrations depending on how the money is earned.  The very same energy goes to the food which is primarily made also of matter and energy. We also assure them that it is alright to be where we are now, in our present condition and situation, poor and not so poor.  What is important is our condition or our life itself keeps on improving everyday which makes us happy also as a family.  The rest of the blessings will surely come later.  To keep our employees always on guard, we put in all our business and office forms this reminder – “Work with Honesty and Earn with Dignity”. We also tell our employees that life in the office is like a game and it is better to just work and play by being positive and creative.  They also know that God is always pleased with honest people.

FOLLOW LIKE A CHILD AND DECIDE LIKE A MASTER
I personally think that most the success of businessmen now, even without realizing it, came from their Kindergarten years and not totally in schools of management.  Actually, our learning in Kindergarten is 10% numbers, 20% letters, 30% play and 50% values.  We learned to follow our teachers with respect and our parents with love. As we grow older and become more educated, we learn to decide like a master and this is the essence of life. The balance between being a child and master and how to become one when the situation arises must always be observed.

THE MIDDLE LINE
Personally, I consider that the real and true measure of a successful business is not how much the owners and investors earn from the bottom line or net profit but rather, how much the employees in particular and the economy, in general, get from the middle line gross revenue from operations.  If we analyze a company’s financial statements, the middle line is where every expense and disbursements are being reflected. It is this portion that grinds the operations of the company in particular and the national economy in general.  Majority of people, especially the employees, benefit from the middle line, while the limited and very privilege few benefit from the bottom line.  The middle line indirectly helps even the employees of other companies, such as the suppliers and contractors. But only the moneyed owners and investors enjoy the fruits of labor of the workers while comfortably waiting in the luxury of their expensive houses.

HANEP (A Holistic Approach in National Entrepreneurship Program)
The Government, in full cooperation with all the Chambers of Commerce and Industry nationwide, must be able to motivate, inspire, train, develop and help qualified nation-loving Filipinos who are generous and kind enough to put up small businesses and hire two to three job-seeking countrymen.  If this is implemented, there will no longer be a problem of unemployment in the country.  Not all of our high school graduates can become doctors, engineers, lawyers, nurses, teachers, midwives, pharmacists but they can definitely be entrepreneurs in their own little ways.  Selling peanuts is not a really peanut business for as long as the seller owns the peanut business.  If he or she has two or three helpers selling in other places, then, he or she is helping the economy, more than the blue collar workers in Alabang, Makati and Ortigas do.

OUR LOGO
If we decide putting up our own business later but we have developed the idea for it a long time ago, chances are, we have already created in our mind a vision on what our business would be.  If we gather all these ideas, we will be able to create our own company logo.  When we started, our company logo was a simple interpretation of our original business name, Metropharm Distributors, Incorporated or MDI, registered as a single proprietorship business.  It was rectangular and inside it, it has lines in a triangular shape forming the M, D and I. Later, when we registered it as a corporation, we modified our logo retaining some of its original design.  It became more colorful and we put a circle as background representing the energy of the sun, the original triangular lines in green color representing the mountain and the waves in blue as the foundation representing the ocean.  The three are all sources of energy and this makes our company always energized. (See picture)

THE ANGEL
It is also good to have something unique which our employees can identify and relate with and which our customers can also identify and connect to the company itself.  In our case, my wife, Ellen, requested the son of our good friend, Danny and Cora Flores to draw an angel. From then on, all our office forms, product trade boxes and promotional materials carry the image of an angel.  Some doctors, drugstore owners, suppliers, printers, etc., ask our medical representatives and administrative personnel why there is always a picture of an angel in everything we give to them and we just tell them that our company believes that there is always an angel in us because we were all born with the qualities of angels such as purity, peace, love, happiness, detachment, simplicity and many more virtues.  It is just that we sometimes do not realize and see these Godly qualities in us and in others.

THERE IS PRESSURE IN OWNERSHIP AND FREEDOM IN TRUSTEESHIP
When I put up the business, I thought it was mine, but I realized it was not.  It was for my family.  Some of the members of my family thought it was theirs, but they also realized it was not.  It was really for the employees, they said.  The employees thought it was for them and for their families, but they realized it was not.  They said that it was for the community.  And finally, one day, we all realize that it truly belongs to God, for the country and for the whole world.  This is Trusteeship in Business in action.

NEGODIYOS 
Ang negosyo ay sa Diyos na pingakatiwala lang sa atin pero hindi sa atin dahil ito ay para sa lahat ng tao. Sa negosyong Pilipino, may mga kasabihan tayo na “Hindi baling maliit, basta legit.”, “Okay lang hinay, basta kanunay” at “Bahala ng gamay, basta walang anay.

It is said that one second of this confluence age which is considered as the age of revelation, is greater than one day of this present generation.  I had lived a good life.  Please live it best by living it yourself.  Start a small business now and help others.  It is never too late.  Just make sure that it is in partnership with God, the Father, the best Business Partner ever.

Disclaimer:
This book is based on my own interpretation and experiences and does not reflect the opinion of my sources of materials.

Sources of materials and inspirations:
Brahma Kumaris including its books, tapes, DVD’s, CD’s, etc.
Brahma Kumaris Teachers and Students
Dadi Janki
Sis. Jayanti
Mike George
Purity Magazine