Tag Archives: sikat na negosyo

How to Find Your Passion

by: Francisco J. Colayco

*First published in Good News Pilipinas on August 5, 2013

You might recall my advice to people choosing the best business for them. One main factor is the need for “passion” for the kind of business they choose. As time passes, I begin to see more and more how his word “passion” can be misinterpreted or misunderstood.

Let’s look at this further by understanding some ways you can follow in determining your passion. Remember that you are looking at your passion that can be your business.

You can ask yourself the following questions. You will surely have a long list and you will not know everything in one sitting. It will take days, even weeks and months. Keep a diary. Take notes and review what you have written each time you add an entry. Maybe, you will cross out some items as you come to know yourself more each time.

  1. What is it that you really love to do and seem to be good at it? Let’s take the example of cooking. Let’s say you love to cook and are happy doing it. People say the food you cook really looks and tastes good. So let’s say you think that cooking is your passion.
  2. If you in succeed doing it, will you be so proud of yourself? In the case of cooking, each time you are able to make a special dish you are particularly proud of yourself. You practice so often so as not to make any mistake. Your self-pride increases as you continue your love for cooking. Still good for the example that cooking is your passion.
  3. If you do something the complete opposite, will it destroy your self-pride and cause you strong embarrassment? Still in the case of cooking, when you prepare a dish that is really bad, do you say it is because you are not practicing enough? Or is it really embarrassing because your level of expertise clearly is far too low from where it should be? If your standard for excellence is low that you are willing to accept major lapses in your skill, then perhaps, cooking in this example, is not your passion.

Want to know more? Read the rest of the article by clicking here

Simplified Analysis of Your Business Break Even

by: Francisco J. Colayco

It may be that readers may be less interested in the analysis of a business. However, I’d like to address those who might want to learn for a business they now have or for their planning of a future business.

Break-even in business means how much you need to sell (i.e., how many units of products you need to sell at a given unit price) so that you will be able to sustain your business. Break-even does not mean you are losing money but it also does not mean that you are making money. If your sales are below your break-even, you will be incurring losses and if it is higher, your will be making money.

For big businesses, there will be finance people who can do all the required analysis. However, for a small business, the owner will have to do the analysis himself and it may not be so easy for those who do not really have experience. I will try to help you to compute break-even. You do not have to think in a complicated way. You can just use the simplest forms possible.

1. You need a “Profit and Loss Statement” or P&L of your Business preferably per month. This means you have to calculate your Sales, the Cost of Sales and Expenses for every month.
2. The “Cost of Sales” or CS is what you spend to make the product that you sell. If you are just trading or in “buy and sell” like sari-sari stores, your CS is the amount that you pay for the products you sell.
3. For your Expenses, you need to separate into Fixed and Variable expenses. The variable expenses are those that are directly related to the product when you make a sale. For those in trading, your variable expenses are your CS and maybe commissions you may pay depending on how much you sell. If you are a service business, you may not even have variable expense.
4. Fixed Costs are expenses you will spend whether you sell anything or not. Examples are rent, utilities, telephone, salaries and benefits. Notice that these are expenses that do not change much when there are small changes in sales. You will spend these amounts whether you sell or not. Of course, if your sales increase very much, you will probably have to add people and spend more fixed costs. But let’s just assume that these are fixed costs for our break-even analysis.

5. The basis for determining your break-even sales is your sales price per unit of your product (e.g. per kg, or per piece or per hour, etc, etc).

Want to read more? Click here for the rest of the article!