Opening a business amidst many other businesses in high competition business location in the Philippines
As I promised you by eMail, I went yesterday to SM Clarkview to have a last minute on-site look again before posting you my reply. I am living opposite Clarkview since a year for more than 50% of my time. Hence I go shopping to SM Clarkview at least a few times per months since SM Clarkview opened last year.
Yesterday my visit was around 1PM until 3 PM - a regular Wednesday afternoon during Christmas time. Yet with or without Christmas time, the picture at Clarkview always is the same - you see a number of sales-girls nearly equal to the number of potential customers. There are but a few occasions and times of the week when Clarkview SM is kind of crowed with hundreds of shoppers. Normal is like yesterday with a huge mall and the few visitors are getting lost among all the sales-girls ...
Hence despite the ideal location, there seem little demand for such a huge mall. The question hence is would you get enough customer potential for dental work ? Would people who actually went from remote province or other city regions to Clarkview be willing to spend another hour or so for some dental work ?
Of course with the many people working across Clarview along Fields Avenue you may hope for such regular nearby patients - but honestly most people working in these tourist oriented shops and locations along Fields Avenue barely get the legal minimum salary, many get MUCH less than legal minimum salary and how could they ever afford to go shopping in SM ??!!
As of yesterday I have seen NO dentist office/dental clinic or similar in SM Clarkview - I also have seen NO empty space for a new business there. All available spaces seem to be rented out to business already. Hence if ever you want to rent a space there, you may have to queue up in line with potential other businesses waiting.
Looking at the rather low number of regular shoppers in SM Clarkview and at the prime location of the shopping mall - there is a fair chance that the rent and overhead of a business is far too high to be affordable and most of the time you may struggle to cover the overhead expenses alone.
Nearby - along Fields Avenue however we have the long new line of small, clean shops on the North side of Fields Ave with some 140+ new clean shops of all kind, from cellphones with cellphone accessories fashion boutiques, more than a dozen Internet cafes, many beauty parlors / hair dressers, travel/tour agents and at least 3 dental clinics.
The nature of all these much smaller business locations amidst the walking area of thousands of people makes this Fields Ave locations to be more affordable and may be also more profitable for some business owners. But here again I walk along these locations at least once a day when having breakfast outside and at any time of the day most these business have more personnel than customers. Most even have no customers at all most of my passing by!
The question is whether it is wise to open another dental clinic at a location where you have already several established dental clinics just within less than 50 meters ?
Your beautiful house in northern samar you mentioned in your eMail - what about opening a dental office there, inside your house or directly adjacent or nearby - working at a beautiful place you love, working where your family and friends are at home and at ease ?
In provincial areas might be far more occasions for a reasonable and pleasant work than in most cities are. The simple fact that you own a house and thus would have no rent or overhead to pay means that you can work far more affordable without financial risk. Working at Clarkview SM may end up working all month long just to cover overhead and expenses for rent, etc - while living far away from a beautiful house/home at the same time may mean very little quality of living, little or no REAL joy of life ...
Angeles like all other cities is NO place to stay and to be happy at all. It might be like in my situation a temporary solution for a year or so - or a part time solution part of each months and rest in the islands like I do currently for one reason only - to better control and manage my huge web site. Soon I plan to go to a suitable provincial location again as before for many years.
When looking at your home in Samar - think flexible. You may have a part time or emergencies only dental office, spending the other time for love, family, friends, charity or anything you love to do and enjoy to do that feels like a true content of life to be done with all your heart and soul. May be you two have other interests in common that involve part of God's beautiful nature ? Look for example at my work as a professional web publisher - any even similar job that involves any kind of writing, publishing, editing, photography or many other exciting topics you can share with all world, could easily be done from a beautiful island location. Specially if you have a regular part time electricity already at your Samar island location.
Your wife should think partner-wise. With your wife working or waiting from 9 AM to 10 PM at SM Clarkview in her dental office ... what would you do all alone all day long ? Barhappy because you may be lonely all day and bored in a boring city all day ??
Life, love and a loving relationship is far too beautiful to be wasted in cities. You have but one eternal life and that has started yesterday and is to be enjoyed today and all future days day after day with a useful, meaningful purpose of life - a purpose of life both partners in a relationship may be able to share together - also new and exciting things.
I had a clinic for alternate medicine in Germany before I left for Asia and I know that to have any kind of clinic or to be any kind of healer, therapist or doctor never is meant to be a full lifetime job: Most doctors, healers and therapists have their life destroyed by decades of exposure to ill and thus also most difficult people. All people professionally around ill people always need healing from God each and every day to maintain their own health and wellbeing as well as to maintain their own happiness in their love-relationship and family. Healing jobs are meant to be part time and the remainder of time being spent with something more fun and more natural and healthy. Most importantly husband and wife are alway meant to have a mutual "job" they can do together and share together all life long.
Love and Bliss
hans
