Adventures of a Beauty Queen

Rossana Llenado, founder and owner of Ahead Tutorial and Review Center gives Q&A TIPS!!

Had a delightful time lunching over the weekend at Momo in Eastwood with Rossana Llenado, the lady and mom of twins behind the highly successful AHEAD Tutorial and Review Center. She had some GREAT suggestions on how beauty contestants can prepare themselves for the DREADED Q&A portion.

Rossanna Llenado says the first important thing is – you NEED to believe is that nobody is bobo or born stupid. So the impression that beautiful women are dumb is just…  well…  DUMB! Rossana insists that people who seem bobo just lack exposure and training.

Now while  that’s good news for Janina San Miguel et al. it doesn’t mean that beauty contestants should ‘wing it’ or say bahala na si Batman and depend on their looks to save the day.  Preparation is STILL CRUCIAL!

AHEAD’s founder says the secret to hurdling the beauty pageant Q&A portion successfully is continuous education. You have to be learning something new all the time. Rossanna Llenado says she practices this herself by making it a rule to attend one leadership or marketing or management seminar a month. Even if she is an Agora Entrepreneur of the Year winner and has been managing Ahead Tutorial for the past 15 years, she still believes there is much more for her to learn.

And to think that under her watchful eye, Ahead Tutorial became one of the Top 3 tutorial centers in the Philippines in it’s first year of existence. That’s like placing 2nd Runner-up in Ms Universe! LOLOL!

Next tip from Rossanna Llenado – focus on general knowledge and then discuss these things in English. You can do this by reading newspapers, books, magazines and online journals and then conversing in English as often as possible with someone close to you about the things you learn. Read all the time, Rossana says! Education shouldn’t stop after college.

Rossana adds that adopting a confident attitude is another important key. If you believe in your heart that you CAN answer whatever question they throw at you, it’s 50% of the battle won. I, personally, have seen contestants give strange answers to pageant questions but because of their confident way of speaking their mind, they still score high! That’s a little tactical secret for you

The next tip from Rossana Llenado: Come up with a list of possible questions and practice answering them. I think this is a really great tip from her; I have interviewed many beauty queens and a lot of them admit they don’t really prepare for the Q&A. They just trust in thier abilities. Now while that might seem like a form of confidence, IMHO, I think that’s a reflection of fear or indifference or even cockiness.

Now girls who speak English well and are chatty should STILL practice for the Q&A portion if they want to better themselves. At least that’s how I feel about it! Rossana Llenado says try to make yourself obsolete. In other words, try to become an impoved version of yourself EVERYDAY.

SO, if you want to improve your Q&A skills – for a beauty pageant, a job interview or self-impovement, Ahead Tutorial and Review Center can help you prepare. Rossana Llenado says many celebrities have turned to Ahead Tutorial for help like Anthony Pangilinan (GMAT review), Maxine Magalona, Janice de Belen, Rica Peralejo, Andi Eigennman and Ding Dong Dantes to name a few.

If you are interested, click here to visit Ahead Tutorial and Review Center or search them on Facebook. Rossana Llenado says the company has grown to 10 outlets across Metro Manila and in a couple of provinces. Call up the headquarters at 920-0055 for more information.

AHEAD Owner Rossana Llenado (seated in black) with me, the blogging beauty queen (LOL!) in white beside her. With us are a group of lady bloggers who ROCK! See the dessert display behind us? I got the Jackfruit Sans Rival, YUM-O-LAHHH!!

***For the sake of transparency, I’d like to inform Adventures of a Beauty Queen readers that this article was not paid for nor did I recieve any ex-deals.  If I ever do accept payment/ex-deals for articles in the future, I will be certain to inform you.