A Profile of Success – MARLY TANG

There are no secrets to success, nor there is a formula to attain it. Success takes a ton of determination and hard work, a load of preparation and an eye to spot opportunities when there seems to be none. It also means looking for it outside your comfort zone.

This has become the mantra for Marly Tang, a graduate of LANDBANK’s Management Training Program and is at present a Junior Management Associate assigned at the Electronics Product Department.

Her business undertaking is rice trading, an endeavor that is quite divergent from her being a Certified Bookkeeper, Certified Tax Bookkeeper and an MBA graduate. She started her rice trading in July 2011 by offering to buy the rice allocation of her co-employees and selling them to neighbors. And she also sought the nearby parish church as her customer for its feeding programs for parishioners.

Going up to Baguio to visit her youngest son who is studying in Philippine Science High School – CARC, she buys fresh vegetables from the La Trinidad growers that she adds up to her store to sell.

When LANDBANK’s rice allocation program to employees was stopped, she decided to make side trips from Baguio to her hometown in Nueva Vizcaya to buy the rice produce from her kababayan. Marly offered a good price for the produce of her townmates because she saw that the other vegetable traders/middlemen were buying them at a pittance. Later, they also started to sell her their other produce.

With an expanding customer base and more growers willing to sell their produce to Marly, she needed additional capital. She approached CBMPC of which she was an associate member since 2017 for a business loan of P250,000.

Seeing the opportunity to widen her customers’ base and expand her rice and trading business, in 2021, she opened another store in Balagtas, Bulacan selling rice and vegetables. The store is managed by her eldest son. With her family now fully immersed in the business, her husband decided to quit his job as an engineer at Engineering Equipment, Inc. to manage full time the growing business, while Marly is still employed at LANDBANK.

Has the pandemic affected the business? Hardly, says Marly, who saw the opportunity to sell her goods online offering delivery practically at their customers’ doorsteps. Their online store, ARJMK, which takes on her husband’s and children’s initials, is on the roll catering to a wider customer base, including Landbankers to as far as Cavite, Antipolo and Las Pinas who prefer online buying because of fear of contamination of the dreaded virus.

Marly is contemplating on getting a loan from the coop to be able to purchase a hauling vehicle now that her trips to Baguio and Cagayan Valley have become more frequent.

Marly is confident that with CBMPC as partner, she can attain the full potential of her business venture.