Meet, Pitch & Discuss held at Aumtara, South Extension on 11th March 2019 by Sushma Tiwari & her team has been a business meeting of its own kind. A lot of first of firsts were seen in this more than just a networking meet. Sushma gathered a space owned by a meeting inmate, she chose sponsors for her gifting from amongst the women entrepreneurs who attended the session, her panel discussion moderator and media partner were also women chosen from the attendees.
At the end, Sushma broke all norms that are practiced regularly in meets and rewarded her gift sponsors and service providers for the meet. This was an amazing initiative and a very kind gesture by Sushma. In her own words, “sponsors cannot be underestimated or labeled as free, everything has a value attached to it.”
A meeting that not only let women entrepreneurs’ network and speak for their brands, it also allowed them to be a part of a panel discussion on brand management and various aspects of business management exclusively moderated by Neeru Sood, an exceptionally well-versed brand management consultant.
With this unique concept, the meeting progressed and was a hit amongst fellow women entrepreneurs. Neeru Sood was stupendous and in a short time frame made the meeting a fruitful one which was interactive, unique, and immensely knowledgeable. By the end of the meet, all the beautiful women entrepreneurs took away a clear perception of marketing, business management, and brand management. Yesterday marked the 1-month anniversary of this extremely informative and brilliant meet.
The session began with Neeru asking participants to volunteer and speak up about their understanding of the core elements of managing a business. The first participant to speak up and share her understanding and knowledge was Richa Mongia from Live Fabulous. She stated that “Planning, having specific goals, and ensuring timely delivery are really important elements when it comes to handling a business.” To this Purnima Bahuguna from Triaanya’s Health Mantra added that “having a vision” was really an important factor.
Neeru beautifully moderating the session then asked Purnima to elaborate on “What was a Vision?” Purnima answered back stating that, “vision was to know where you want your business to go say two or five years down the line. She also stated that vision means what do you want your customers or others to perceive your organization.” Pratiksha Rai, Founder Light House Institute added, “Vision has to do with the projection of your organization to the world or what image do you project about you to the world.”
Neeru took over from here and added that Vision and Mission were the foremost important factors of a business. She highlighted that vision meant a long-term goal of a business and mission meant a short-term goal of a business. She also gave examples to explain vision and mission and stated that having a long-term and short-term objective attached to business always helps in achieving your goals and prepares you for all kinds of situations to deal with in a business. And to achieve that vision and mission a business person has to employ a Business Plan.
Neeru Sood then highlighted on what all a Business Plan encompasses which actually has several elements namely,
-Know Your Customer which is very important to understand the customer needs.
– Transitioning Want to Need through communication post analyzing the target customer and targeting a market.
– Strategizing the marketing ways by communicating via Social/Digital Media or Email-Marketing
– Promoting products and talking to the customer via social media.
Neeru highlighted communication modes and also talked about the mistakes we usually do while promoting our services or products and communicating with our customers. She stated that we talk about all that is on offer from the company and spill everything in one go which dilutes the communication. Communication should always be focused on one area. It has to have a key objective and needs to have a unique selling proposition.
According to Neeru Sood, communication should weigh all the possibilities and take-aways for the customer as the customer is very well informed these days and will question the benefits associated with your services. The communication for the customers should thus have their own unique guidelines.
She also customized the session according to the needs of women entrepreneurs and stated that women are managing 10 different things at the same time and balancing between their homes and work and also socializing and looking good all at the same time. Thus, planning in advance for communication is beneficial for women entrepreneurs as it helps them keep communication for every day ready in advance.
According to Neeru Sood, a Blue Print for communication should always be ready based upon the target customer which can be changed as per market dynamics. She also mentioned that target revenue planning should always be in place for several months or years for the earnings from the business. There can be revenue benchmarking from earlier earned revenue or projection according to gut feelings or market analysis for the business. A business should always have a target as targets always aid in achievement. She also stated that accrued revenue vs realized revenue mapping should be done by all businesses to estimate profits.
The targets set in terms of revenue should always be according to market analysis and surveying the market correctly. She emphasized the need to be aware of the market for the products or services on offer. The industry should always define our target audience as well. Neeru Sood mentioned that the product industry faces challenges in inventory stocking due to shelf life and the service industry faces challenges in pricing due to competition.
So, a business assessment should be based on the Markets, the communications, the pricing, and convincing the educated customer to pay the price via value proposition. Vedika Tripathi from You, We & Events, and Pratiksha Rai added that a USP associated with your business and a connection with the customer is very important in the service industry. Pratiksha also highlighted the fact that uttering negative feedback about another business should be avoided at all times, instead of talking positively about your brand is a good option.
Neeru took on from here and talked about team management and team handling. The man-hour analysis is a must when having a team as a team is a cost to your business. So, production hours need to be mapped correctly for the staff and also the team needs to be kept motivated. Rewards and incentives are equally important according to set targets. A control in place is necessary and giving them training constantly to keep them up to the mark is a value add to your team. Neeru, thus, touched upon resource utilization as well.
She also touched upon cost analysis. She said that actual-cost mapping is important but forgetting the non-actual cost is no good. Knowing the costs associated with a business is important because it will then help you minimize it.
At last but not the least, in her session she mentioned the potential of earnings through a blog. Affiliate Marketing and Google Adsense are source points of revenue generation for blog owners are what she mentioned. On this note, she stated that businesses who have their own YouTube Channels or Websites can generate income from the same. In the end, she concluded, this wonderful and very informative session with some Q&A round.
Neeru Sood was a star shining bright with knowledge and know how’s of business intricacies which was of much use to the audience present. Her session was an instant hit and gave a direction to the meet and of course, let all the women entrepreneurs pour about their business strategies and openly discuss the challenges they face. She made it a point to touch upon all the business ventures handled by the ladies’ present giving real-time and real-life examples while discussing the business management tips with them so as to make sense to everyone present.
The meet was very successful so was its pitch and discussion. Thanks, Neeru Sood for such a wonderful session. We all returned home with so much knowledge about business know-how!
