PayPal Online Payment Facility

If you want to engage in online business,or to shop online, you will need an online payment facility to process payments of your transactions. One way of doing this is to use credit card, or you deposit money to the account of the seller if you are in the Philippines (which I did before). However, this procedure takes much of the time, and showing your bank account or using credit card will also expose your personal and financial details which can put you at greater security risks. To avoid these problems and enjoy the convenience of online shopping and the ability to send and receive money with ease worldwide, you can use PayPal online payment facility which is now available in the Philippines.

What is PayPal?

PayPal is a leading online payment facility which started in 1998. It operates in 190 countries and regions, with over 250 million registered users and 230 million accounts. It is available in 24 currencies, which enables individuals and businesses worldwide to send and receive money online, sell online, shop and pay online. It has a wide network of accredited stores including eBay, Barnes and Noble, Apple iTunes, The Sharper Image, B&H Photo Video, among others.

Why Use Paypal?

Paypal   has a lot of advantages than using your credit cards. It is the safest way to send or receive money, or to pay. PayPal can be used with MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express cards. When you use PayPal, you do not expose your credit card and other financial information to merchants and other third-parties. PayPal acts as the intermediary between you, your bank and the merchants. Thus, your personal and financial information is protected. All you have to do is log-in to your account in PayPal, and just make a few clicks. It is like you are doing Internet banking.

Opening a PayPal account is FREE. All you need to have is your credit card or bank account. In my case, I created my own account last January 2011.  Then I linked it to my UnionBank Visa credit card and eon account, a debit card which is an internet-based deposit account product of Union Bank. I am now making the full use and power of my PayPal account. Thanks to the training support I receive from Eireen Diokno-Bernardo, an e-bay power seller and  an e-commerce specialist from the Philippines.

For more information about PayPal, you can visit the PayPal website.

To also help you get started, I put together a simple tutorial about how to create an account with PayPal. I took some of the illustrations in the tutorial from my PayPal account. However, if you feel you need more training to navigate the PayPal online payment facility, I encourage you to attend an interactive PayPal 101 workshop.

How to Use PayPal

How To Start a Social Enterprise?

I received an e-mail from one of my networks yesterday regarding the event called, "The British Council: How to Start a Social Enterprise Workshop," and I am sharing this information with you. This is an important event which I believe all aspiring social entrepreneurs can benefit from it.

I am publishing the original and full content of the e-mail I received and here it is:

"The British Council:  How to Start a Social Enterprise  (Workshops)

Workshops in Cagayan de Oro and Cebu   
First batch 17 - 18 October 2011 Mallberry Suites      

Second batch 20 – 21 October 2011 Radisson Blu, Cebu   

Social enterprise is experiencing a meteoric rise in interest and relevance in the Philippines and the rest of the world. It is an entirely new way of working, a way of creating a new sort of wealth and most of all, a way of changing people and the world. It is not an easy route and the conflicts between social goals and business, values and democratic working call for innovative approaches to planning, governing, selling and managing.

The British Council has invited Tommy Hutchinson, founder and CEO of I-Genius to conduct a 2-day workshop on starting a social enterprise. The first batch will start on 17 – 18 October at the Mallberry Suites and the second batch will start on 20 – 21 October at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Cebu. The workshop aims to equip budding social entrepreneurs with information on getting started on their social enterprise venture by providing tips on business strategies and planning, marketing and communications including using new media in establishing networks plus raising finance.

Tommy established I-Genius, a world community of social entrepreneurs with members in over 90 countries. Its aim is to provide support to social entrepreneurs, encourage them to connect with one another and inspire more people to become social innovators. He has been instrumental in creating partnerships for social entrepreneurs with established organisations like corporations, media and government. He is also the brains behind I-Genius Academy which provides business training courses for entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs.

Social enterprise gurus Vincent Rapisura and Edwin Salonga from the Social Enterprise Development Partnerships Inc or SEDPI will co-facilitate the workshop. SEDPI provides innovative and excellence-driven capacity building services to micro finance and micro enterprise stakeholders in the Philippines and around the world.

This 2-day workshop provides the perfect opportunity for social entrepreneurs to learn from the very best. Workshop fees are at Php 2,500 inclusive of all meals and training materials and a completion certificate.

Registration is until 10 October 2011.

For more information on the workshop please contact the British Council at (02) 555-3000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (02) 555-3000      end_of_the_skype_highlightingor visit the website at www.britishcouncil.org.ph."

Thank you very much. Please share this to your network of friends who might be interested in knowing how to start a social enterprise.

Create Your Own Free Website with Weebly

If you are thinking about creating your own website for business or a blog, you can use weebly.com. It is the easiest way to create your own free website. Weebly is FREE, powerful and looks very professional. It is one of the Time's 50 best websites of the year.

Weebly is best for businesses that sell physical or digital products online. I was introduced to Weebly by my mentor, Eireen Diokno Bernardo, who is an e-bay power seller, Paypal and e-commerce specialist from the Philippines. We used it during our lesson with Paypal integration, and since then, I really enjoyed using it. I use Weebly for my online business where I integrated the Paypal service.

I am one of the over  8 million people and businesses worldwide who use Weebly because of the following excellent features:

1. Weebly has easiest Drag and Drop Website Builder. You can create your own website easily because the Drag and Drop Website Builder feature will do it for you. You do not need technical skills or knowledge about html and css codes.
2. 100's of Professional Themes available. Weebly has 100's of themes you could choose from, and you will definitely not have a problem finding a perfect look for your website. You can create a website that will look professional.
3. Tons of Multi-media Features. Weebly provides you with lots of multi-media features you can use to enhance the look of your website. Features include photo galleries, beautiful slideshows, high quality video and audio players, maps and many more.
4. Easy Blogging. If you want to create your own blog, then Weebly is a great application to use. Its drag and drop interface makes blogging easy. You can add photos and videos to your posts with ease.
5. Powerful Hosting. Weebly provides hosting services. It has a stable, powerful, cloud hosting infrastructure monitored 24/7. You can be sure that your website is safe.
6. Fast and Helpful Support. When I first started with Weebly, I find it a little bit intimating. But it has lots of simple, step-by-step tutorials to help beginners. The support team is also excellent in providing answers to e-mails and inquiries.  
7. and a lot more excellent features 

To find out more about Weebly and all its excellent features, you can visit the Weebly website.   

Create a free website

with Weebly!

We Can Earn Three Types of Income

 My friends together with our mentor, Eireen  Diokno Bernardo

For two days, I took a break from my work and joined a special community of people who wanted to learn how to make massive passive income. Yes, you read it right ! I attended the first ever Money Summit and Wealth Expo Cebu 2011 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino. Barely three hundred (300) people including entrepreneurs, business owners, investors, and employees participated in the Money Summit. To my personal opinion, the summit was a tremendous success. I learned new and specific ways to make more money from fourteen (14) great and wonderful money gurus. Ways that really work because they do it themselves and have seen tremendous results. They taught us that it is possible to earn three types of income all at the same time to fast track our journey to financial freedom.

Three Types of Income

During the Money Summit, each money guru, most of whom came from Manila, presented each specific way to make massive money.  They showed that if we change our mindset, apply any or all of those ways and focus on what we do best, it is really possible to earn three types of income: earned income, portfolio income and passive income. While one type of income can be preferred over another, each type of income is needed to help us achieve financial freedom and more choices in our life. Let me share with you more of what I learned from the Money Summit by looking at different types of income.

Earned Income. This is the income that we obtain from working for someone or company. This is income from active work, like our salary or hourly employment. Earned income is based on our time, effort and skill. Some activities that provide us earned income include:

• Having a job
• Providing consultancy services
• Operating a business
• Working as virtual assistant, and
• Other activities that require our time and effort

Earned income is limited. It is a function of the time, skills and effort we provide. We are working for the money. If we do not work, we may not earn the income. Sometimes even if we work harder and yet we do not feel we are properly compensated. This is the type of income most people earn because this is the easiest to do and we prefer to be employees rather than business owners. This is not our fault because we were trained and programmed to be employees. But earned income is important because through this we are able to save up money which we can use for investments. It allows us to make the other two types of income.

Portfolio Income: It is income called capital gains. It is income we make from our investments by selling it at a higher price than we paid for it. It is making our money work for us. Some examples of investments that generate portfolio income include:

With Mark So, forex guru and founder of Forex Club Asia

• Buying, flipping and leasing real estate properties (This is one of the ways I learn in the summit and I would like to pursue further)
• Buying and selling stocks (and other paper assets like T-bills, bonds, mutual funds). This is one of the topics in the summit presented by a broker firm called Citiseconline. I have been into it for a few years already, but am still learning the tricks and rules of the game. I am using CitisecOnline as my online broker.
• Online forex trading (or buying and selling foreign currencies through the Internet). This is also one of the topics in the summit which I really liked and enjoyed most. The presentation of Mark So of Forex Club Asia was very educating. I really got so excited that I signed up immediately. I invite you to join us also and get excellent forex education and online trading training for FREE. You can click here to join for FREE.
• Buying and selling collectible items. You can buy old stuffs that have the potential to appreciate in value and sell it. This was discussed in the summit by Eireen Bernardo, who is an E-bay power seller and an E-commerce and Paypal specialist in the Philippines. She is my mentor in Paypal, which is a payment processor for E-commerce. I write more about Paypal in my next article.  

Portfolio income is a good source of income because it is our money that works harder for us, and not we working for the money. However, it has also some drawbacks. To earn this type of income, first:

• You need good knowledge and experience about how these investment vehicles work. You need to know how they work and how you can leverage on them. For instance, if you want to get involve in real estate, you need to learn what documentary evidence to look for, how to finance your investment, etc.
• You need to use your money up front. You can not expect to earn this type of income if you do not have money or capital to use, even if that means small amount.
• You do not have control over this type of income. Investing paper assets or real estate gives you little control over your investments. Your control is more on the buying and selling. It carries high risks but high returns as well.

Your financial knowledge and intelligence are important because they will make or unmake you rich! That is why it is important to invest in yourself through reading books, training and seminars to gain knowledge and experience how you can earn good portfolio income, and eventually helps you to earn the other important income, too.

Passive Income.  Passive income refers to income that's being derived from the assets and businesses that you have accumulated. It is income that comes to you without you working for it. Some examples of businesses that generate passive income include:

• Income from rental properties like apartments, condominiums, etc. If these assets allow you to have excess money after paying for mortgage and other expenses. Excess money is considered passive income.
• Income from Internet and multi-level marketing
• Franchising
• Royalty income (from books, patent, etc.)    

This is the type of income that we all should be aiming for. Passive income has more advantages than the other two types of income because:

• It gives us the time and money freedom. It requires little effort, and you can choose to "retire" early because the money keeps coming in month-after-month and year-after-year. You work for yourself, not for somebody else, and you can work according to your own schedule
• You have more control over your investment. Because it is your business, you have influence over the operations and you can approximate the risks. For example, if you own a rental property, you have more control over your tenants, set the terms, and others.
• Enjoy better tax privileges. Unlike earned and portfolio incomes, passive income enjoys better tax treatment. You earn and can spend your income first before tax is deducted. For other two types of income, tax is deducted first before you can spend the money.    

I have benefited so much from the Money Summit 2011. Not only it enriched my financial knowledge, but it allowed me also to expand my network. Out of different ways to make money presented in the Money Summit, I have selected to focus into three investment vehicles to create three types of income: paper assets, Internet marketing and real estate.  

In my next post, I will write more about principles and tips about investing and other instruments that we can use to make more money and achieve financial freedom.