Lovely Abella and Benj Manalo | Image: Screengrab from YouTube/@GMA Network
Celebrity couple Lovely Abella and Benj Manalo revealed that they used to earn P5 million a month through live selling and became a “little greedy” before their Facebook page got disabled.
The pair shared that they were able to gain their buyers’ trust immediately because they are celebrities.
“Nagkakaroon kami ng magandang credentials doon sa mga audience namin. Kumbaga, alam nilang hindi sila maii-scam. Alam nila na parang, ‘OK, pagkakatiwalaan ko sila. Kilala ko ‘to. Familiar sila.’ So ‘yung unang trust kaagad na ibibigay nila is 100 percent,” Manalo told Boy Abunda on “Fast Talk…”
(We have good credentials with our audiences. They know they can’t be scammed because they know us. They’re like, ‘OK, I trust them. I know them. They are familiar.’ So, the trust they immediately give to us is 100 percent.)
Abella admitted that live selling changed their lives and the sales that they got from were actually “high,” especially since they started during the pandemic.
Given the income they got from live selling, Manalo confessed that they got to the point where they became “greedy.”
“Dumating kami sa unang punto namin na medyo naging greedy kami (We got to the point where we got a little greedy). Nasabi namin ‘di namin kailangan ng show biz kasi okay na kami (We said we didn’t need show biz because we were okay) from doing live selling. But then God changed us, isang click tinanggal niya lahat (He removed everything with one click),” shared the actor, adding that they lost their Facebook page alongside their high number of followers and buyers.
When asked to drop figures about their earnings, Manalo said they were able to make around P5 million in sales per month.
“May isang buwan doon, sabi nila ghost month that time, walang pera ang mga tao, pero we earned at least one month ng mga P4M to P5M. That’s net. That time, sabi namin, ‘Kaya na natin ‘to.’ I mean, ‘di na natin kailangang magtrabaho. We were so full of ourselves,” Benj said.
(There was a month that they said is a ghost month when people had no money, but we earned that month at least about P4M to P5M. That’s net. That time, we said, ‘We can do this.’ I mean, we don’t have to work anymore.)
The couple admitted that they got “scared” and did not know what to do when they lost their Facebook page, but they affirmed that it was a realization for them to not be boastful as God can take everything away in an instant.
Abella and Manalo are rebuilding their platform, with their new Facebook page having now almost 40,000 likes and 96,000 followers.