Getting The Edge In Professional Selling — Terence A. Hockenhull
ONE OF THE MOST common objections is: “It’s too expensive!”
The statement by a customer that something costs too much can mean a number of different things. Normally, we interpret it as a client’s way of saying that the item does not represent good value for money. The customer is telling us that the item is not worth the price that the salesman is asking.
LONDON — Having tackled Shakespeare’s works on stage and screen, actor Ian McKellen will host bus tours of locations used in his movie adaptation of Richard III as part of a film program marking 400 years since the playwright’s death.
When President Joseph E. Estrada stepped down amid a popular uprising about 15 years ago, one of the failings laid on his doorstep was his supposed attempt to interrupt the trade liberalization begun by Corazon C. Aquino and continued by Fidel V. Ramos.
Optimism over the quality of life rose to a record high in the fourth quarter, while confidence about economic growth prospects perked up during the same period, pollster Social Weather Stations Survey said in its latest report.
Dubbed “carmaggedon” by locals, business leaders are warning Manila could come to a total standstill despite grand government plans to tackle its traffic.
WEB DESIGNER Maria Zurbano kisses her three-year-old daughter goodbye and sets out in the pre-dawn darkness for a torturous commute through the Philippine capital.
Her ordeal, a return trip of up to six hours every weekday, is expected to get even worse as the number of cars explodes in the chaotic Asian mega-city of more than 12 million people.
Dubbed “carmaggedon” by locals, business leaders are warning Manila could come to a total standstill despite grand government plans to tackle its traffic.
“Physically, during these trips, I feel ill. My back is always hurting. It affects my health to have to sit down for so long,” said Ms. Zurbano, 36, as she waited for a bus outside her home at 5:00 am.
After finally ending a cramped minibus trip of just 17 kilometers (10.6 miles) to the financial district of Makati, she despaired of being trapped in a traffic hell.
“Traffic just gets worse and worse. I just get more stressed and stressed but it doesn’t look like anything will change. I will just have to learn to bear with it,” Ms. Zurbano said.
“Traffic just gets worse and worse. I just get more stressed and stressed but it doesn’t look like anything will change. I will just have to learn to bear with it.” — Web designer Maria Zurbano (Photo by AFP)
HUGE TRAFFIC COSTS
Traffic in the capital and its surroundings is already costing the country about P3 billion ($64 million) a day, or about 0.8% of gross domestic product, according to government figures.
And it is steadily worsening as an emerging middle class fuels an auto boom — car sales rose 23% last year with nearly 300,000 new vehicles hitting the roads.
Compounding the problem, decades of infrastructure neglect has left Manila with a just a few major roads across the city and their gridlock “peak hours” often last for three or four hours.
Commuters have few other options with Manila’s dilapidated rail network tiny in comparison with neighboring Southeast Asian capitals such as Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok.
A chaotic private bus and minibus network with drivers who regularly flout traffic laws by, for instance, stopping in the middle of roads to pick up passengers, is widely perceived as adding to the problem.
“This is going to be the most critical problem the next administration faces,” John Forbes, a senior adviser at the American Chamber of Commerce in Manila, told AFP.
Mr. Forbes warned Manila risked becoming “uninhabitable” in the next three to five years — meaning people would simply be unable to get around the city — if urgent action was not taken to build roads and rail lines.
Elections for a successor to President Benigno S. C. Aquino III, who is required by the Constitution to stand down after a single six-year term, will be held in May.
Mr. Aquino has proved a generally popular president but he has been the target of fierce public criticism for a perceived lack of urgency in updating the nation’s creaking infrastructure.
He earned widespread condemnation midway through his term with comments that worsening traffic was merely a sign of a growing economy.
Commuters have few other options with Manila’s dilapidated rail network tiny in comparison with neighboring Southeast Asian capitals such as Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok.
‘DREAM PLAN’
His aides have since sought to project a sense of empathy and urgency, pointing to new expressways and the extension of a train line as planned projects that will ease the congestion.
They have also emphasized the adoption in 2014 of a “Dream Plan” to fix the urban chaos, which outlines $65 billion of infrastructure spending by 2030.
The plan envisages a wide range of massive and unprecedented projects for the Philippines, such as a subway, satellite cities linked to Manila by high-speed rail, relocating air and sea ports, as well as many new roads.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, an economist who has studied the traffic problem, said the plan’s huge price tag is within the government’s reach.
“Financing should not be a problem because the funders are ready,” Mr. Beltran told AFP, pointing to the nation’s improved credit rating that will allow cheaper loans, as well as expected help from the Japanese government and multilateral lenders.
But many experts believe there is little chance of many projects going ahead.
They point to the nation’s chaotic and corrupt democratic system, as well as a strangling bureaucracy, which prevent infrastructure development.
A glaring example is the construction of a 19-kilometer light rail line on the outskirts of the capital that was meant to have been finished by the end of last year — but it has not even been started.
Touting the project in 2013, Mr. Aquino joked he was ready to be run over a train if it was not completed by the end of 2015. But his government has not even finalized the tender process.
Gilbert Llano, president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, a government think tank, echoed the ironic tones of many experts when talking about the government’s infrastructure plan.
“It’s called a dream plan [because] it will stay in the realm of dreams,” he said. — AFP
By Pola Esguerra del Monte
Assistant editor, BWorld University
The 1280×720 screen burst to life.
AMERICANS ARE BUYING more pizza than ever, but Pizza Hut — which has been feeding that appetite for more than a half-century — is getting a shrinking slice of the pie.
The Binge — Jessica Zafra
“YOU’RE the kind of lawyer guilty people hire,” the embezzler’s wife tells Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). Even the most clueless criminal can tell that the protagonist of Better Call Saul is a shady character. But when the AMC series begins, Jimmy has not fully embraced the shady side. He’s still trying to do the right thing — it’s just that in Jimmy’s world, “good” and “bad” are relative. Yes, he gets a pair of scam artists in trouble, but he does bargain their punishment down from death to one broken leg each. All things considered, that’s a great lawyer. Great-ish.
