Oryspa Spa Solutions Inc. founder and chief executive Sherill Quintana has always advocated entrepreneurship for the youth.

As a pioneer in the utilization of agriculture waste products like rice bran, Quintana continues to influence women and the youth to become entrepreneurs. She said starting out early in life would help young people learn values of hard work, elevate their level of confidence and develop a keen understanding of enterprises and how it affects the community around them.

“I always tell my children, even if their career paths will not lead to entrepreneurship, to always know and be aware of how money comes in and how much goes out. It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor or a teacher or a journalist, you can always find a reason to start a business. It could be a side hustle or a passion project,” she said.

Noting the country’s young population, with a median age of 24 to 25 years, Quintana believes that the young citizenry is a force to reckon with and, collectively, is massive enough to help rebuild the economy faster from the pandemic–if only many of them would be enterprising enough to engage in small businesses.

Educating her children early on the merits of engaging into entrepreneurship is one of her responsibilities as an informed entrepreneur.

She mentioned that one of her children, her second child studying Applied Physics at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), has developed a digital app that has won the best business concept at the university. Go Biz kid is a fintech training platform for young entrepreneurs. The app is vetting its functionality and relevance in the marketplace.

Her children take turns on running the family’s event’s place located in a newly-erected company building. The same building will also house Oryspa’s expanding wellness brand. Quintana’s 16-year-old daughter is usually present to look after the joint sibling enterprise. Having an entrepreneur for a mother must have rubbed off the keen sense of entrepreneurial spirit on the Quintana brood despite their young age.

Second core business

After 20 years of providing premium spa and wellness products, Oryspa is scaling up to create an integrated wellness brand. Oryspa Skin is envisioned to be the company’s second core business. The brand, set to offer wellness and beauty services, will be launched before the year comes to a close.

“We are opening a wellness service business that we can integrate with our spa product retailing segment. While we are offering typical spa services using our products, Oryspa Skin is more of a spa training center for entrepreneurs who are reviving or venturing into the beauty and wellness business,” Quintana said.

She noted how expensive it is to pay for the training of massage therapists and wellness experts, who most of the time run off, bringing with them the skills the business owner paid for.

The spa training concept offering is a competitive package of training for therapists, an exclusive supply of Orsypa products and key business insights for spa investors.

“Many spa businesses have folded in the pandemic. I think it is high time we reboot, revive the spa business not only to provide wellness services for those who crave for it, but also to give spa owners a chance to rebuild and even franchise their own brands through Oryspa Skin,” Quintana said.

Oryspa has teamed up with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Public Employment Service Office (PESO) to train unemployed people and help them gain employment in the health and beauty industry.

“We have a lot of manpower available, but lacking specific skills set. If you have people you can train, you don’t have to worry about the supply of your manpower. We can train them, have them certified,” Quintana said.

Potential of franchising

As a professional and multi-awarded entrepreneur, Quintana wears many hats. Apart from being the CEO of her own company, she is also the chairman of the country’s biggest franchising group, Philippine Franchise Association (PFA). She dabbles as a professional and power speaker on franchising events, sharing her knowledge on branding and entrepreneurship. She also actively mentors start-ups and companies that are looking to expand their businesses.

Starting out 20 years ago, Oryspa Retail has found an ally with the PFA, which the company joined a year after it officially launched the Oryspa brand at SM City in Calamba, Laguna.

“We were very happy that we have successfully pulled an out-of-the-metro launch. During those days, the thinking was always to launch a brand in a metropolitan setting, which we defied and, thankfully, survived. Going into franchising has helped the brand expand exponentially. Not only are we known as a good brand locally, we have also branched out overseas,” Quintana said.

Oryspa has presence in the US, Singapore, the Middle East, Russia, Poland and other European countries. It has recently opened another store in Las Angeles, California.

Quintana noted that the pandemic has brought out the worst and the best of an enterprise, and of an entrepreneur. Oryspa experienced what the rest of businesses did. There were branches and franchises that had shut down and adapt to changing times.

“We shifted to franchise distributions, which is a smaller business model compared to a full franchise. Why? Because many entrepreneurs during the pandemic had difficulty catching up with payables. Operation expenses is one of the biggest problems of an entrepreneur during the pandemic. They wanted to maximize their meager capital but the economy was down. So, we offered these packages for them. We call them franchise distributors since they operate on a smaller territory where they can sell,” Quintana said.

She said the company has always been after the empowerment of micro-enterprises, noting Oryspa’s humble beginnings from being a household enterprise.

The company introduced a scaled-down model of distributorship especially one that works well in the provinces. The concept allows a distributor-entrepreneur to purchase a package of Oryspa products for retailing to the community.

“This package already gives more than what the distributor paid for. A retail package guarantees an income of more than a fourth of the capital spent for the package. We are glad that this model has become popular especially with micro-entrepreneurs in the provinces, who have only so much to spare for a small business. We truly believe that this business model is helping many small entrepreneurs get back on their feet during and after the pandemic,” Quintana said.

Oryspa Retail has gained the following of almost a hundred micro-entrepreneurs nationwide. The business model also provides store franchise owners flexibility to serve the demand of distributors by creating their own network of retailers.

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