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Friday, October 22, 2010

Mang Inasal's P3B secret

Mang Inasal's P3B Success Secret


How does one go from one restaurant in his neighborhood mall to selling 70% of his company for P3B in seven years selling Ilongo style native grilled chicken?


Two weeks ago, we talked about the finalists of the 2010 Entrepreneur Magazine Entrep10 Awards program. But the entrepreneur whose name is splashed all over the business headlines for the past few days is Edgar Injap Sia III, the founder of the ubiquitous Mang Inasal. The Jr MarketingRx was one of the judges in the 2009 Entreprenuer Magazine Top10 Awards that gave four thumbs up (including the "thumbs" of my feet) to Sia III during the judging process. 


Mang Inasal's success would make any entrepreneur green with envy:
- from one store in Robinson's mall in Iloilo in 2003 to 303 stores as of today
- P3.8 billion in sales a year
- sold 70% of his Mang Inasal's holding company (Injap Investments Inc) for P3B to Jollibee Foods Corp.
(he will be paid a P200M deposit and 90% within 30 days of closing of the deal; the rest of the 10% to be paid over the next 3 years)
- Sia III is only 30+ years old!


According to the data and articles that Entrepreneur Magazine gave us judges (we were trying to get a hold of Edgar, our fellow GoNegosyo Angelpreneur and a recent Most Inspiring Young Entrepreneur of Year Awardee, for his comments) here are the 7 secrets, yes, I know, 7 again, to his P3B success:


1. Ready, Fire, Aim! Sia III was presented with an opportunity when a slot at the Robinson's mall in Ioilo was vacant. He reserved the space without knowing what to put up. His gut just told him that there was an opportunity since he saw potential in the space. It was only after a few weeks that he came up with the concept of a Chicken Inasal fast food store. The first fast-food, value for money type of Chicken Inasal restaurant. His approach to expanding to Metro Manila and Luzon was the same: "I was not very familiar with Manila, because I was born and raised in Visayas. I only visited once a year, and it was usually for very short stays. So I knew I was in for quite a challenge taking Mang Inasal to Luzon," Sia III told Entrepreneur magazine.


2. Work your butt off! Sia III worked his butt off day and night. He wasn't afraid of getting his hands literally dirty. Sia III was known to work long hours and help mop and clean up the first store. Then he would come home and help prepare and marinate chicken for the next day. He realized it was going to be lots of work, but he didn't give up. His work ethic and attitude brought him through lots of disappointments and trials. 


3. Think Innovation!! Simple Innovation pays dividends. Just don't copy, copy and add something of value. Sia III entered the chicken Inasal scene late. There were established restaurants already. But he simply did the "Positioning" game of Al Ries and Jack Trout and scored a slam dunk. Mang Inasal was the FIRST Chicken Inasal restaurant that would be a fast food type outlet (quick service) with unlimited rice. For P49 a student or office worker could have a filling tasty, grilled chicken meal. 


4.  Think BIG! Sia III started getting franchise inquiries fast but held off for two years before offering the first franchise. He did the right thing by networking and getting help from the Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) and coming up with a franchise opportunity that was affordable. For about P800,000 start up franchise fee, you could have your own Mang Inasal franchise. (Total investment is about P3M-P4M). After his first franchise offer in 2005, there are now over 300 branches/franchisees. 


5. Think Marketing! The marketing message of Mang Inasal remains simple and focused. All you see is a picture of a tasty looking piece of grilled chicken, the name Mang Inasal, (sometimes you see the price: P49) and a bold tagline : "Unlimited Rice!"

6-7. There's more than 5 secrets to Mang Inasal's success. :-)


The story of Edgar Injap Sia III, aka Mr Mang Inasal will surely inspire many entrepreneurs and marketers for years to come. Thank you to Entrepreneur Magazine and GoNegosyo. Get a copy of Entrepreneur Magazine's December 2010 issue featuring the Top10 Entrepreneurs of the Philippines. 


WE welcome your comments and questions. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or DrNedmarketingrx@gmail.com. God bless!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

uncomplicated marketing - lessons from simple entrepreneurs

Reality check.


That's what the Jr MarketingRx-er had when he sat as a judge in yesterday's Entrepreneur magazine's Top10 finalists screening. Most of the entrepreneurs we interviewed and peppered with questions didn't really have a clear, verbalized grasp of what their marketing strategies were but one of the finalists best described it for the group. 


"My best marketing is being the most reliable and consistent supplier of quality ________ (you can fill in the blanks here with whatever your product or service is) to my customers."


This is from a serial entrepreneur (defined as someone who can't stop putting up new businesses when he/she sees a natural opportunity) based in Davao who multitasks. He doesn't have a marketing team. But he oversees about five businesses. Two of these businesses does more than P150M in revenue per year. Of course, this entrepreneur is not in consumer marketing but his straightforward, simple business to business marketing philosophy was a wake up call for me. Basically, this entrepreneur from Mindanao gave me a refresher:

Focus on the two foundational "Ps" in marketing--Product (focus on quality and delivering what was specified, in the quantity that was specified) and Place (making sure that the customer gets the product where and when he wants it) and your customers will be the one who will chase you. (His clients are multinationals like Dole and Del Monte.) The entrepreneur explained again that this was the best form of marketing for him. Simple and uncomplicated.


Another Entrep10 finalist, a restaurant owner in Quezon City, does about P160M a year for his two restaurants. Recently, he was approached to expand through franchising. When asked about his marketing strategy, he mentioned something about having flyers, ex-deals with tv stations to plug and promote his restaurants, a loyalty discount card and someone on his staff who put up a Facebook Fan Page which has "something like 300 or 3,000" fans. "Sorry, I'm not sure. I'm not a computer person.." His unverbalized marketing strategy, revealed as we probed with more questions, was his focusing on the personal touch--being there at the restaurants for the past 19 years making sure that food quality doesn't slip or suffer (that's the base "P" again - Product); and greeting and talking to his customers directly making sure that they have a good dining experience. He gets feedback directly this way and makes changes swiftly. When asked about his pricing strategy, he said "my marketing pricing strategy is that I have not increased prices for the past so many years. This makes my customers happy and keeps them coming back."


Simple and uncomplicated.


Another Entrepreneur10 finalist that we interviewed flew in from General Santos. Here was a veteran entrepreneur being nominated for his new microfinance venture. Again, he had a simple answer to explain their success in microfinance. "We go from Barangay to Barangay talking to people and offering financing to those who can't get financing from banks or who have been (victimized) by 5/6 (loan sharks.) When they come to the office to transact, we give them coffee. That's enough. No one else does that," says the GenSan entrepreneur with a twinkle in his eye. He focused on a product/service that people needed to a people (market segment that was underserved or unserved) and treated them like real people (give them hot coffee and a chair to sit in. Hey, that would be nice. A bank that served coffee to its customers while they waited for their transactions. Hmmm). 


Real simple. 


In the 40 years that this former bank employee and GenSan entrepreneur has done business he has focused on the basics and the simple to execute. He has grown his group of businesses (Microfinance, Rural Banks, Shipping, Fishing, Farming) into one of the most successful but most low key and humble multi-billion business empires in Mindanao. "Manny Pacquiao used to work for me. He was a laborer. Nagbubuhat ng isda.(He was carrying fish). Later when he became a boxer, we formed a trust group that would help him and teach him how to manage his wealth. But sadly, he has surrounded himself with gamblers..." But that's another story.


Sometimes it's nice to hear these stories from entrepreneurs and "marketers" who are out in the field doing the actual work and not sitting in a made-in-China particle board office desk pecking, surfing and "laboring" away on a laptop. We columnists and professors like to harp on the complicated and newest marketing strategies when the simple and uncomplicated will do. 
    
WE welcome your comments and questions. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or DrNedmarketingrx@gmail.com. Happy birthday to my Swato, Margot Roberto.God bless!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Major, Major Market trends in Publishing part 2




Last week we presented two major market trends in book publishing.
Trend #1."Books are not dead...they're just shifting in how they are published and where they can be purchased."

Trend #2."eBooks will eventually outsell printed books"

Here are the next 3 major market trends (and we close with this.). Again, aside from the Manila International Book Fair exposure and observations made two weeks ago, the trends we cite below are from the MarketSquare presentation of Jim and Ellen Elwell, senior executives of Tyndale International, one of the largest Christian book publishers in the world.

Trend #3. "The democratization of publishing through new methods"
Anyone who is an aspiring author, or a writer whose manuscript submissions have been rejected by established publishers can now turn to Print on Demand or Self Publishing methods of, well, publishing.

With Print on Demand services, an author can order super small quantities (as low as one or two copies--one for your mother and one for your cat) with a turn around time of 24 to 48 hours. In the Philippines, there is Central Books (central.com.ph) which can turn your manuscript into a book in 10 days. Their website boasts of having published more than 500 titles since they introduced their service two years ago. The minimum print run is just 50 copies and service packages start at just P5,000 plus cost of printing. 

Then there is Self Publishing. According to the Elwell's almost 3/4 of the books that were published in English in 2008 were self-published. In the U.S. there are bookstores that are dedicated to displaying and selling self-published books. Boulder Book Store in, well, Boulder, Colorado practices the "micro-distribution business model" and offers authors different packages to display and sell their books. According to Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab (niemanlab.org) the Boulder Book Store "charges its consignment authors according to a tiered fee structure: $25 simply to stock a book (five copies at a time, replenished as needed by the author for no additional fee); $75 to feature a book for at least two weeks in the "Recommended" section; and $125 to, in addition to everything else, mention the book in the store's email newsletter, feature it on the Local Favorites page of the store's website for at least 60 days, and enable people to buy it online for the time it's stocked in the store.And for $255 — essentially, the platinum package — the store will throw in an in-store reading and book-signing event."

In the past few years in the Philippines, many of the well-known business and "inspirational" gurus, like Francis Kong, Bo Sanchez, Josiah Go, Francisco Colayco and Dr Ned Roberto (your Sr MRxer) have taken the self-publishing route with much success.

Self-publishing has become democratized because of the internet. Now you can turn that manuscript, powerpoint presentation, or speech (have it transcribed) and turn it into an e-book. Sell it on various websites through affiliate marketing or just give it away as a free download on your own website and you're a published e-author! Another route is Amazon.com's self-publishing company, CreateSpace.com. There are no set-up fees and you can self-publish not just books, but also audio and video. In the Philippines, Vibal Foundation (vibalfoundation.org) offers authors assistance in turning their books or manuscripts into ebooks. Apple's iPad also has between 45,000 to 60,000 ebooks now available for free or for a fee.

Trend #4. New Methods of Marketing.

Authors are leading the charge not only by self-publishing their work but also self-promoting their books through social media particularly Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Before writing this article through Google docs, we received an email alert from Bo Sanchez's Facebook page. It was an invitation to "Like" his Truly Rich Club page and get a free chapter download for free. The thing is, Bo doesn't even know that he's done this. He has a "Social Media Marketing team" dedicated to posting  such offers, blogging about his books, populating other websites and blogs with comments about his books, uploading videos on Youtube, etc etc. The result is over P1.8M in sales every month (which funds his many ministries and charities) from digitally publishing and monetizing his book, Truly Rich, on his membership site, TrulyRich.com. (See also IM-BC.com)

Our Rx for our friends in the publishing industry:
1. Create, develop and implement a digital marketing strategy. Embrace the new technologies and the new trends.
2. Put together a social media marketing and internet marketing team who can leverage on these new methods of marketing.
3. Study further and learn from the case studies that we mentioned in the past two weeks.

WE welcome your comments and questions. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or DrNedmarketingrx@gmail.com. God bless!