When I was in Osaka, I saw a group of ladies dressed up almost like Sailor Moon complete with poster, speaker and microphone singing in the street… Nope, they are not beggars, if that’s what you’re thinking, hehe!
They are self promoting. I admire their courage, and I should learn from them. I’m sure all of us have talents and gifts from God, but sometimes some of us tend to hold back because of fear of getting rejected, fear of failure or fear of failing again.
In my journey, I was very courageous at one time, ran a 42KM marathon, climbed one of the tallest mountain, provided training to hundreds of people and left a high paying job to start a business. I feel great!
but because of challenges along the way, unmet expectations, and disappointing results weakened the courage inside of me, and lowered my self-esteem. And during these times I’ve learned a valuable lesson to overcome it and bring back that courage inside of me!
My lesson on bringing back the courage inside of me.
Forgive yourself and don’t blame others
Put a deadline to the pain
Take a bath, play a classical music on comp. and drink a chamomile tea and relax
Browse through your previous achievements
Have a gratitude heart, I’m sure you have a lot of blessings
Talk to God, not to complain but to thank him for the blessings
And just let it go
Feeling the pain means you are human, and it’s natural, but dwelling on the pain is not going to help. Overcome it! Bring back that courage inside of you. Live a happy and productive life.
In Japan, I’ve encountered a restaurant that leverages on vending machine to take orders and payment! pretty cool!
There are 2 vending machines in the restaurant
once paid, the machine will output a thermal paper indicating your order number and it will send an electronic message automatically to the kitchen telling the cook your order number and what you’ve ordered.
after a few minutes, someone will bring the food and match the customer and the food by order number
Very creative and efficient, the restaurant doesn’t need to hire a lot of staff, since the vending machine takes care of the front end.
The con side of this restaurant, are first customer won’t be able to change orders. Once he/ she pressed the wrong button, that’s it!
Second, the order number that they produced is just a piece of thermal paper, it is hard for the waiter to see and match the food and customer by order number, specially if there are a lot of customers.
what they can do is announce the order number and ask the customer to get the food instead
or there is a holder where you can place the thermal paper that can easily be seen by the waiter
Overall, this is a brilliant idea
Vending machine business model has been around in Japan for more than 100 years already, now they’ve different types of vending machines, some of the machines are selling beverages, ice cream, noodles, snacks, non food items and other products
Usually when we travel, we seldom eat at restaurants that are found in the Philippines. But since my brother-in-law is a fan of Shakey’s Philippines, he wants to try out Shakey’s Hong Kong!
We ordered thin crust pizza and chicken wings
And to my surprise, the quality and taste of Shakey’s pizza and chicken wings were superb, YUMMY! A lot better than here in the Philippines, well… the price is a lot expensive too…
These are what I’ve learned
QUALITY keeps customers coming back
I will definitely eat at Shakey’s again, when I visit Hong Kong
LOYALTY CARD also keeps customers coming back, if only I’m based in Hong Kong, I will definitely get one. (Note that they leveraged on the QR Code – similar to bar code, and they also promote their FB Fan Page)
“a man without a smile should never open a shop” ~ Chinese Proverb
That is so true, I can still remember the first time I visited a wet market, I was overwhelmed with a lot of stalls selling the same staff! The first thing I did was to check on the prices, but I realized that the selling price was almost the same! And I end-up buying from the market vendor who gives a warm smile 🙂
So remember to SMILE! I’m sure it’l increase your customers 🙂
JR (Japan Railways) thought me a valuable lesson, I took the train twice from Osaka to Kyoto, and this is what I observed! When the train is 5 minutes near the station, each JR staff who’s assigned to clean the train will be stationed where the train exits are, and they’ll all face on the same side, once the train arrives they’ll face on the opposite side, and greet each passenger “hello and goodbye”, after all the passengers exit the train, they will go inside the train and put the cleaning sign, and all the staffs will clean the same way.
What did I learn from them? I learned about the importance of System, a detailed procedures or routines to perform a duty. I also call it “The Operations Manual”.
Why should I have an Operations Manual in my business?
1. It organizes your business, and it helps achieve consistency and efficiency.
2. It helps remove you in the Business and place you on the Business instead (You may see tasks that can be delegated therefor you’ll have time to grow your business)
3. It helps you measure the result and allows you to improve the system further
How do I create an Operations Manual?
1. First identify the major tasks in your business like Sales, Accounting and Finance, Employee Training, etc.
2. Start writing down the process in each major task (it can be in a flowchart type/ step by step form)
3. Compile it into one Operations Manual and share it to the board of directors
For the business to grow, I strongly believe that every employer should have an Operations Manual!
I’m blessed to have visited the Nissin Instant Ramen Museum in Osaka
Ando Momofuku is the founder of Nissin, and known as the Inventor of Instant Noodle.
He is just like us, ordinary person who encountered a lot of challenges and trials in life, the following are some of his challenges based on Wikipedia
1. his parents died when he was at an early age. He was raised by his grandparents in Tainan, Taiwan
2. he was convicted of tax evasion in 1948 and served two years in jail. In his biography, Ando said he had provided scholarships for students, which at the time was a form of tax evasion.
3. he lost his company due to a chain reaction bankruptcy
but in spite of challenges, he founded Nissin Corporation. And on August 25, 1958, at the age of 48, and after months of trial and error experimentation, Ando marketed the first package of precooked instant noodles.
I was surprised that Nissin Instant Noodles even went to space! Amazing
you may be thinking, isn’t instant noodle not good for our health? hehe… Ando passed away at the age of 97 and he claimed that the secret of his long life was playing golf and eating Chicken Ramen almost every day. He was said to have eaten instant ramen until the day before he died
I salute Ando, for his perseverance and contribution to the world
