Former OFW scores success with 'coffee' business

MANILA, Philippines - Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) now have a concrete reason and opportunity to aspire for success in business in their own country instead of continuing to serve foreign employers and sacrificing togetherness with their loved ones. A successful business formula is credited to the feat of a former OFW who is now able to tend to her bustling Gano iTouch business. Named Armi Golen Aligonero, this former OFW shall soon be joined by her seaman husband, who is due to retire in a few years. The business they put up in cooperation with Malaysia-based Gano Excel International which is bannered as Gano iTouch in the Philippines, is the fruit of the small investment they made from their combined hard-earned money. Their initial investment of P50, 000 made in 1996 was recovered within the same year and has by now grown by leaps and bounds.

“We increased our investment to P200,000 in 2008 when I decided to become a stockist in preparation for my retirement and that of my husband,” Armi disclosed.

The investment the couple made three years ago has again long been recovered and their business has by now grown substantially. Gano iTouch assistant marketing manager Renz Solinap said, “Return on Gano iTouch investment is between 30 and 32.52 percent.”

“On top of these, Armi earns much more because of her twin operations as both a center and a coffee shop that serves exclusively Gano iTouch coffee and other products,” he added.

“I first opened my business in my Iloilo hometown as a home-based center, but the moment I saw with my own eyes, how promising the business could get, I secured a small space in the Marymart Mall in the heart of the city,” Armi herself narrated.

“Growth was faster in the mall and so as soon as I found the chance to buy the rights to a bigger mall space, I decided to expand the center, simultaneously operating a coffee shop which I named Coffee Time, using our own Gano iTouch products,” she continued.  

Asked how much she spent when she set up the center cum coffee shop at the mall, she said, “We shelled out three hundred sixty-four thousand pesos (P364,000), for the rights and rental requirements, but that investment was well worth every centavo; besides, the amount already came from the return on our investment.”

Even this latest investment made by the Aligonero couple has also already been recovered by now and Armi is all set to go to a pleasure trip to Malaysia as part of her incentive for her business performance. What’s more, Armi is not the only one to enjoy this reward which is part of the annual incentive offering of Gano iTouch. A total of 50 Gano iTouch stockists will soon be on a flight bound for Malaysia for an all-expense-paid pleasure trip.  

“My husband and I look forward to his retirement in just a few years, maybe in 5 - 6 years, both of us actually slated to retire almost at the same time,” Armi, who concurrently works 2 -3 days a week as a clinical instructor at the Iloilo Doctors College, shared.

A nurse by profession. Armi was an OFW herself in 1982 who came home in 1995 after fulfilling her employment contract in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where at some points she worked with multi-nationalities as Intensive Care Unit Nurse in a Military Hospital. At the same time, she was in and out of the hospital taking care of the members of the Royal Families (Late King Fahad Ben Abdul Aziz).

Armi has three children, aged 9, 14, and 20, who also get to have their own work time and coffee time at their own corner in Marymart Mall. It looks like even business time is bonding time for this OFW family.

Asked how Armi got to learn about the Gano iTouch business, she said, “Through my husband’s friend, and I feel that it’s now my responsibility to share it, too, to other OFW families, so they can have not only the comfort God has allowed us to enjoy but more so, the opportunity for constant togetherness in our family, and health brought to us by Gano iTouch healthy coffee, made out of the King of Herbs, red mushroom, grown in the world’s largest organic plantation of Ganoderma Lucidium in Alo Satar, Malaysia.”

“A family that’s able to stay together, even able to do business together, work and enjoy together, is what everyone must strive for. As OFWs we miss out a lot on these sweet things in life.”

According to Armi, before she could really share about this Gano iTouch business by driving other OFWs to open both websites www.ganoitouch.com and www.ganoexcel-malaysia.com, she’d first like to share one truth: “Power comes from prayer, and the secret of a successful business is continuous prayer.”

Sharing this opportunity is for Armi Aligonero her way of paying forward.