Guides for seeing competition anew

Beverly Dayanan’s story is an inspiration to women and to those who started with nothing.

Born in Davao Oriental to a Spanish mother and father from Carcar City, Dayanan grew up without their own home and juggled work and studies to finish college, majoring in Political Science at the University of San Carlos in Cebu.

Today, this formerly homeless lady from Mindanao is building homes for people in the Visayas and Mindanao. Dayanan is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Contempo Property Holdings Inc., developer of Bamboo Bay Community, a condominium project on Hernan Cortes St. in Mandaue City. She also owns and manages Sunberry Homes, Inc. a real estate development in Lapu-Lapu City.

“Today, her expanding home project networks and land assets totaling close to billions of pesos makes her the richest self-made real estate developer in Cebu and one of the country’s most successful woman entrepreneurs in the housing industry,” the group behind the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award said when they awarded Dayanan with a Gold Award early this year.

Here, Dayanan shares some of the books where she draws knowledge and inspiration as a leader of her own company and in the highly competitive field of real estate.

“Primal Leadership” by Daniel Goleman offers an encompassing approach to leadership, Dayanan said. “Beyond skills and smartness, it is more of the ability of a leader to connect with others using emotional intelligence— competence through empathy and awareness—that resonates, drives, and moves positively the followers, down to the subconscious level,” she said.

Another of her choices is “Blue Ocean Strategy” by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim, which refers to a marketing theory that provides a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant. This book, according to Dayanan, shows a new face of competition, where instead of the common strategy of operating in the “dog eat dog” and bloody red ocean market, the new thrust is to work in a totally underplayed field.

She also chose “See You at the Top” by Zig Ziglar, which embodies life’s philosophies in business. Known to her employees as a gentle leader, Dayanan recommends the book to her fellows in business, with the author communicating the values of faith, love, optimism, and enthusiasm.