| (philstar.com) Updated July 28, 2010 12:00 AM |
MANILA, Philippines - 1. Mr. John began peddling soap, thread and candles at age 15. His day began at five in the morning — he biked to neighboring towns to sell his goods. On market days, he rented a stall, laid out the goods from the bike, and made about P20 a day, enough for him to survive and to buy even more goods for next time. He called those days his Bicycle Age.
2. After two years of biking and peddling, at 17, he entered his Batel Age. The batel was a small, very utilitarian boat that defied the open sea and took him farther from Cebu, all the way to Lucena, from where he took a truck to Manila, with companions twice or thrice his age. The sea trips took two to three weeks depending on the weather, and the land trips another five to six hours. On the batel, he read books like Gone with the Wind under the great blue sky to pass the time. Traders were always in fear of sea pirates and the bad weather. Once, the batel hit a rock and sank. Mr. John’s goods then were rubber tires — everyone in the batel held on to those tires, which meant he saved all those traders and those traders saved all his tires.
3. Mr. John put up his first company, Amasia Trading, when he was in his 20s. Mr. John converted a two-floor building on Borromeo street in Cebu into a residential apartment which became their office, warehouse and place of residence. He and his siblings worked as bodegeros, clerks, delivery boys, cashiers and collectors while pursuing their degrees. This period proved to be the beginning of a very successful collaboration between the siblings.
4. Mr. John has very clear priorities in life: his family and his business. Although he spent a lot of hours at work, he never failed to set aside time for dinner with the family. Every night, he came home straight from work to have dinner with us. On Saturdays, he brought his kids with him to his office. We stayed outside and played while waiting for him to finish his work. Sunday afternoons were always spent with the family in Makati Supermarket, eating spaghetti and hamburger — only spaghetti and hamburger — until the waiter said to Mr. John: “Hamburger again?” We also rode those small mechanical horses that bobbed up and down when you drop in a coin. Before merienda, we were dropped off in the books section to choose books while Mr. John checked the display of his URC products. Mr. John never spoiled his children but when it came to books, we could have anything we wanted. He would take all of us to the bookstore and we could buy as many books as we wanted. His focus was always on education and self-improvement.
5. Mr. John has a mini library everywhere: his den, his bedroom, his office. He starts reading all the local papers and the Asian Wall Street Journal during breakfast. He continues reading while on his treadmill and while watching CNBC. He pores over books on history and science. At night, he reads Business Week, Fortune, The Economist, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Financial Times and other such publications, as well as research from investment banks and 200 annual reports of local and foreign companies. He used to keep all of these categorized in his library until the doctor advised him to get rid of it. The dust they collected gave him an allergy.
6. Mr. John’s children all bear either his name or his wife’s name. Robina comes from his name, John Robinson. Then myself, John Lance; and Lisa, from Elisabeth; Faith and Hope because there was a lot of trouble in the country at the time they were born, which was in 1970 during the First Quarter Storm, so Mr. John thought of naming the twins Faith and Hope; and Marcia was born on Martial Law day.
7. Mr. John and former Bangko Sentral Governor Gabriel Singson used to play golf at Wack Wack Country Club regularly on Sunday afternoons. Every time Mr. John would hit the ball, he roared loudly: “See? See that Gabby… what a good shot!” His voice was so loud that it frightened the other golfers putting on the green ahead of them, normally over 300 yards away. After golf, the two would have a snack at the clubhouse, their favorite pancit lomi, which at that time was only P30. They ordered only one bowl and split it equally. The Gov once said: “When the Governor of BSP and the top businessman in the country share a P30 bowl of pancit lomi, then this country can be a tiger economy, if only for its austerity.”
8. This incident happened during a flight to Davao on a competitor airline (this was before Cebu Pacific started servicing Davao). The flight was delayed and Mr. John waited for an hour in the pre-departure area. When it was time to board, he humbly stood up and went to the aircraft, only to find out that the flight could not take off yet. Everybody was angry. A poor stewardess was the shock absorber of the crisis. When a foreign passenger insulted the stewardess, Mr. John interfered and told him that if he didn’t like the country, he was free to leave. After a moment, the foreigner kept quiet. Mr. John earned the admiration of the airline staff.
9. Mr. John dropped by my office one day and excitedly told me that he had acquired an airline franchise, Cebu Air. I reminded him of a quote attributed to Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic fame: when he was asked, “What is the quickest way to become a millionaire?” Mr. Branson answered: “Start as a billionaire and put up an airline.” I also told him about an article I read on the airline industry, which said that if you added up all the profits of the airline industry since the invention of the first airplane by the Wright brothers, you would end up with a negative number. My father, the perpetual bright-eyed entrepreneur that he is, told me that I shouldn’t listen to what other people say and be more optimistic. Plus, he had already signed a contract to acquire four planes for the new airline. As he was leaving the room, he asked me if I wanted to run the airline. I didn’t think I had too much of a choice, so I accepted.
10. A few years back, Mr. John was traveling through Asia, when he came upon a very interesting product in China: brewed tea, in ready-to-drink bottles. With his diverse line of businesses, he visited supermarkets, convenience stores, and factories throughout the country. And everywhere he went, he saw the ever-present tea. Though this had been widely available throughout China and Japan, he had never seen this product in the Philippines. Intrigued, he gave the URC management team his marching orders in May of 2004 — URC would get two PET production lines to launch a green tea product within six months. Initially, the situation looked grim, but again, relying on the same business acumen and foresight he used before, Mr. John had seen an opportunity. The winds were changing, and throughout his travels he had seen that wellness was becoming a worldwide trend. He believed that even here in the Philippines, people would start focusing on improving their health. URC was tasked to bring C2 to the market by October 2004. And after only three years in the Philippines, C2 became the runaway market leader, single-handedly driving the growth of the RTD Tea market.
***funny and inspiring isn't it??***reference: http://www.philstar.com/microsite/2010-feature/the-philippine-STAR-24th-anniversary/article.aspx?articleId=597175&publicationSubCategoryId=515
take care and God bless...
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