Shaping Success: Influential Upbringing and Formative Experiences
Professional life and
its journey are a slow process. The beauty of it is that you are constantly
evolving; learning from experiences, inspiring interactions and in this
process, we add value to ourselves and the ecosystem around us.It is imperative to be surrounded with people
who believe in you and motivate you, people who have a positive outlook towards
life and who will help to build momentum and Fasttrack your career.
At different phases
you will find the right people to help you guide the trajectory. They can be
mentors, guide, close colleagues at workplace and so on. I have had the presence of such great people
in every phase of my professional and personal lives. Starting from my dad who
was also our school principal.
He empowered me to
become a strong personality when I switched cities for my higher education,
internships and jobs. He offered me the much-needed initial momentum as an
individual.
My first boss Mr.
Vinod Nair; he seamlessly helped me make the transition from a student to a
corporate professional. Thereon, I have been privileged to get moulded by
industry stalwarts and experienced managers and great friends.
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Navigating Challenges in Sports and Media Growth
Growth is
poly-dimensional, permanent and irreversible change. You get to learn from
adversaries. All of my sales/sponsorship meetings aren’t necessarily
successful; the best of the sales managers will only have less than 10% hit
ratio. All of your sales calls invariably start with a No. Your proficiency
lies in the way you tackle this initial resistance, persistently addressing
problem areas, offering relevant solutions, and successfully turning them into
positive outcomes.
Hence, adversaries are a source of inspiration for me to be better at your offerings and explore new paths. Constant unlearning should also be part of your evolution towards excellence. Always, Say yes to CHANGE… Please understand Comfort Zones are not so comfortable!
Diverse Expertise, Fuelling Success at Emurge
The best part of media
sales is the opportunity to meet brilliant minds in the marketing fraternity;
be part of large-scale brand discussions, mega launches, brand innovations
& makeovers among others.
In order to provide
right solutions to brands and to gain confidence from the marketing geniuses
you need to rise above their expectations and provide accurate solutions.
This phase was
exciting to me. It propelled me to constantly explore the world of brands, the
competition, quality content, innovations, attending seminars, and listening to
marketing geniuses, and having conversations with them one on one. I think this
was my confidence booster too to drive conversations and business.
In marketing it’s very
simple - try to understand the brand and product in detail, its marketing
challenges, an in-depth study on its customers and their behaviour patterns.
Most often solutions are the simplest, if the first part is done right. Things
go wrong, only when we make things complex.
Embracing Change for Success
Regularly update
yourself with the ever-changing dynamics of marketing; there is no alternative
to that. The landscape is dynamic and rarely static these days. This is
possible if you keep updating yourself with industry trends, constantly reading
& consuming quality content and listening to experts.
Try to learn from
everyone around you with sincerity - be it your seniors or Gen Zs and Alphas
who can whip up a brilliant social media big idea, given that they consume the
medium better than you.
In my stint at Procam International, I happened to work closely
with 2 large brands - Tata and Airtel.
With Tata it was a
pathbreaking experience for me because I learned in many ways how to stay young
and relevant even when you are celebrating the brand’s 150+ years of existence
with much pride, legacy and trust. On the other hand, I was privileged to work with Airtel during
their remarkable phase of transformation from a telecom company to a teletech
company at the back of a Jio onslaught.
Airtel Big Ideas like
“#NetworkOfCare”, “#PassTheTorch”, “#MatchTheFastest” are not created overnight
and neither are they efforts of an individual. It’s a collective success of a
large team and that’s why these brands are so powerful and extremely dynamic.
I have worked hard and
also a tad lucky to be a part of these conference rooms and rub shoulders with
marketing gurus and brand custodians of some super awesome brands.
Wisdom from Influential Mentors
They are the ones who
transformed me; they are the reason where I am today. It’s never about big drastic changes at one go. In the long run, these are
some recommendations to simple/small changes in working styles or tweaking
mundane tasks, and doing away with daily to-do lists, can go a long way.
Such as focusing on 2x2
Eisenhower Decision Matrix instead of to-do lists, Habit Stacking - regularly
running, playing badminton, finding me-time and self-talks during my runs has
helped me understand my flaws, address them, mirror-rehearsing pitches; all
these accelerated my growth and inspired me to tap into my true potential.
Inspiring Insight
Short cuts are short run. Enjoy the journey !