A Christmas message to entrepreneurs:
Are you a successful entrepreneur? Then you must be enjoying the fruits of your hard work. Not only in terms of profit and a good life for yourself and your family, but also in the psychic sense. It is a greatfeeling– the sense off having contributed to the building up of the community in particular and the economy a large.
Nevertheless, you couldn’t have done it by yourself. Entrepreneurial success could only be possible with the help of other people – your employees, your suppliers, your business associates, your customers, your community.
This Christmas season, consider giving back. As Butz Bartolome, himself a successful entrepreneur as well as a business mentor, puts it: “Be a little Santa in your community,”
Bartolome suggests several ways of giving back.
One way is to give discounted prices on special days, This will also increase your sales, considering that most people have more money to spend during the holiday season.
You can also provide financial support for a good cause, e.g. support for abandoned animals, the orphans, the homeless. You can donate to shelters for abandoned women, out-of-school youth, single mothers, the neglected elderly.
Some entrepreneurs distribute bags of grocery to the indigent in the community. This may best be done with assistance of the barangay government who can help identify the beneficiaries.
You might consider a “ham in every home campaign.” This will perk up the Christmas eve celebration in poor households where a holiday ham is a luxury.
And what about organizing a medical mission to a community that can hardly afford the cost of medical services? You may or may not provide the prescribed medicines, depending on your budget.
“It doesn’t have to be Christmas for you to start giving back. Be generous and share your blessings and I assure you that what you give, you will get back a hundredfold,” Bartolome says.
After all, to whom much is given, much is expected.