Watch our moderator Shruti Venkatesh from Outlook Business in conversation with three prominent Amway business owners, Shivani Gupta, Rashmi Pachnanda and Nidhi Aggarwal who talk about their journeys as women entrepreneurs.
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#AmwayBuinessOwners #AmwayPanel #Women #Business #OutlookBusiness #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
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00:00 India is slowly but surely embracing the power of women in shaping a society and more importantly
00:08 contributing to the economy's growth.
00:11 Founded 60 years ago, ladies and gentlemen, on this spirit of entrepreneurship, Amway
00:18 is a firm believer and supporter of women entrepreneurs and has inspired them across
00:24 the globe.
00:25 Amway India today has more than 60% of its direct sellers comprising of women entrepreneurs
00:32 and today we have with us three such women entrepreneurs, Amway business owners who will
00:39 take us through their entrepreneurial journey and share their experience with us.
00:44 May I now call upon Shruti Venkatesh from Outlook Business to please join me on stage
00:50 to moderate the chat with three Amway business owners.
00:54 Let's welcome all of them with a warm round of applause.
00:56 Shivani Gupta, Rashmi Pachnanda and Nidhi Agarwal.
01:04 Shruti, over to you.
01:17 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
01:25 I hope you're having a great time this evening listening to, you know, the many, many inspirational
01:29 stories of our women entrepreneurs.
01:32 And you know, the best thing about self-employment or entrepreneurship is that you get to be
01:36 your own boss.
01:37 And I'm lucky to be sharing the stage with three women who have kind of, you know, successfully
01:41 scaled their own, you know, kind of, you can say their own startup, the Amway way.
01:47 So you know, I want to begin with you Rashmi to, you know, understand when did the entrepreneurial
01:52 bug kind of get into you?
01:54 Why did you want to start entrepreneurship?
01:57 I'm actually born and brought up in Delhi, graduated from here and married to a shipping
02:02 captain, merchant navy captain and sailed with him for a few years.
02:06 And I did my master's in computer systems management from NIT.
02:10 So when I got married to him, I started sailing with him and we were sailing for a few years
02:14 till we realized that when our children were born, our son was born, I mean, we couldn't,
02:20 I couldn't go with him.
02:22 And it was not easy.
02:23 And that is when you migrated to Australia.
02:25 So we migrated to Australia a few years, almost 27 years ago.
02:30 And I was working there as a programmer, software programmer for seven years.
02:34 That's when somebody introduced this model to us.
02:37 I didn't think much of it then, but my husband did because he was bit of an entrepreneurial
02:42 in nature, though he was a shipping captain.
02:44 So he wanted to make this thing, okay, let's start.
02:47 I was pretty apprehensive, but then now we thought, okay, let's give it a chance.
02:51 And we came back to India to do the launching bit and all that.
02:56 And slowly, slowly, when we started building it, you know what, found so many, so much
03:01 of goodness in it.
03:03 It is not just, it was a complete package.
03:06 And then with women entrepreneurship coming, wow, it became such a beautiful thing.
03:10 I mean, it just became my passion because we work in health and nutrition, we work in
03:15 creating more entrepreneurs who are also independent, start having their own incomes, their own
03:20 identity.
03:21 So it became more enriched and enriched in last decade.
03:24 So it's just that I would say it got accidental, like accidental entrepreneur got into it.
03:32 Until then, slowly, slowly it got into me and last one decade I've been really absolutely
03:37 sold out to the idea.
03:38 Moderator (Anita Loh): So Shivani, do you also want to give us a brief of how you were
03:41 introduced to this model of business?
03:43 Shivani Nath (India): Hello everyone, I'm Shivani and I basically come from an industrialist
03:48 family and I did my master's in management and I did my law.
03:55 And initially I was always multi-talented, like, you know, I've had a keen interest in
04:00 sports, in classical dance and into academics and like, you know, I always wanted to pursue
04:08 in a corporate sector and always I had a dream, you know, like to scale high, high, higher
04:15 heights and⊠but there was always a limitation to it.
04:20 Slowly and gradually I came to realize that doing a job, you have lot of limitations.
04:27 You have⊠don't have that much of flexibility and when⊠when you know what happened, like
04:37 I came in association with a team of people who are very enthusiastic and they were talking
04:43 about some goals, some dreams and putting in hard work to fulfill those dreams and I
04:51 love the association, I love the power of entrepreneurship.
04:56 And then I decided that there is a tremendous possibility in a⊠in a being an entrepreneur
05:02 and the time flexibility, the way you can manage your children, the family, your in-laws
05:08 and then I decided to be an entrepreneur.
05:10 And then Amway has given me a platform where I can manage when⊠it has instilled in me
05:16 the capabilities which I had within me to lead people, to motivate people, to mentor
05:24 people, to enhance their lives.
05:27 And how has that been for you Nidhi?
05:28 Nidhi Agrawal - Hi, I am Nidhi Agrawal and qualified MBA and as Shibani said, I belong
05:35 to an industrialist family and you know, when I started my journey, I was just eighteen
05:40 years and that was in my blood, I really want to do something, I really want to prove myself,
05:47 you know, as people used to say, women can't do this, women has many responsibilities,
05:54 they cannot handle, you know, business life as well as, you know, house life but I want
06:00 to prove myself and in that way, I was in looking zone and job was not my style and
06:07 I really don't want to be in a job family or the job class, I really want to do something
06:13 my own, you know, the life of choices I was looking and the real thing I was looking in
06:20 that way, yes, I want to prove myself with all the flexibilities and with that I got
06:28 this opportunity and I started my⊠then I got married after four, five years and my
06:37 husband also a part of the business and we started together and we proved and today we
06:44 have significant business in Amway.
06:46 So Shibani, if you can tell me what was your first year of entrepreneurship like and you
06:51 know, when was that moment where you felt that, okay, you know, this can really go a
06:55 long way, this can really be scaled up substantially, what was that moment like?
06:59 Yeah, see as a new startup, every new startup has its own phases and similarly, it was there
07:05 with me also but yes, slowly and gradually when I was there in association with the team
07:11 of successful people and talking about positive, positive attitude, slowly and slowly when
07:18 I started putting in hard work, effort, I started seeing money in it and when my little,
07:25 little small dreams started fulfilling, then I realized that yes, my big dreams can also
07:33 be fulfilled through this opportunity and then I started giving it full time and yes,
07:42 this company Amway sponsors international travel every year and it was a dream destination
07:49 for me when Amway sponsored us for a Switzerland trip, that was way back in 2011 and since
07:55 2011, we have been traveling international every year through this corporation and then
08:01 I came to know like, yes, it can be a bigger dream come true.
08:07 And the same question to you Rashmi, if you can tell us what the first year was like and
08:11 when did you taste the initial success?
08:13 First year was not like when you start something, you have more failures and I think it was
08:20 when we, we were also with the team of success, we have a very strong support system, it teaches
08:25 us a lot of things which taught us that persistence is one thing which we need to keep and that
08:30 is one quality I think every entrepreneurship needs to have.
08:33 So that's okay, one day is a good day, another day is a bad day but that's how you have to
08:39 just take it in your stride and keep carrying on and that's what we did basically and when
08:44 the start, when the success started, you know what it basically gave us, I would say like
08:50 flexible option, flexible hours of working, no bosses and you know, you can design your
08:57 own day, you have more choices, more freedom and it's the best way to I think work, not
09:04 in a job environment and then you are an entrepreneur, like entrepreneurship is an idea which comes
09:09 to you every day, so you are thinking out of the box and you're applying those ideas
09:15 and having fun with it.
09:16 So I think after a while, it just became so addictive that we want to like, every day
09:21 is a new day and we just love it.
09:23 Perfect, Nidhi, if you could also tell us that.
09:25 First year was, the moment you start something, see this is like with maybe every women, you
09:33 know, the moment you start something, it's full of surprises.
09:36 First year was like, you know, you are always in puzzle, people don't take you seriously.
09:43 In my case, people used to ask my age, they used to laugh, they don't know the direct
09:49 selling industry and you know, as I told you, I am from an indigenous family and the Bela
09:55 family, so people used to ask, why are you doing this business, why are you not putting
10:00 or investing some money in franchise business or you are starting something like that, but
10:05 I took it as a challenge, first of all and I want to really prove myself, I can take
10:12 a challenge and I can prove myself.
10:14 One thing, another thing as an qualified MBA, you know, my guru was Philip Kotler and he
10:21 used to take the name of Amway, which was sufficient for me to prove myself and with
10:27 that, the thing was, it was like first year was like a kind of stuff, you know, you are
10:35 always in, you are always stuck up with something, but my take out from this, like you have to
10:45 believe on yourself, you know, you have to keep courage with you and you have, you know
10:51 the story actually, you know from where you will get the success and the moment you have
10:56 faith, there was no stories of direct selling, proven stories in front of me, but I thought
11:04 when it is possible, why not, that was the thing.
11:07 I would like to add one thing more, you know the first year is more challenging, even more
11:12 because you know people accept you to be in job, the people expect you, you know to do
11:19 the same thing what others are doing and you are little bit skeptical that whether my decision
11:25 is right or wrong, that I have put in my job and entered into entrepreneurship, so that
11:30 is little bit more challenging, what the people have the perception towards me.
11:35 And you know lastly if you could kind of give me two things that you know being associated
11:40 or doing entrepreneurship with Amway has been beneficial, there are two things that you
11:46 could point out.
11:47 You could start.
11:48 It has given us a life of choices and then you know what it has also given us something
11:54 that we can, where we, every day we know we can make a difference in somebody's life and
11:59 that is what actually drives you and it is not the material possessions and the money
12:03 that you get, of course that is there, but it is the person you become after that journey
12:08 and the more resilient, you are ready to take chances every day and that is what I think
12:15 I love about the whole thing.
12:16 Sure.
12:17 Nidhi?
12:18 Yeah, see as we are talking about empowerment of women or women entrepreneurship, my key
12:27 thing is I really want to empower women through the opportunity, one thing without you know
12:34 compromising so many things because as we are talking about women has many roles to
12:39 play, you know, their mother, their house takers, you know and they are taking care
12:44 of so many things, so with that this is an opportunity, awesome opportunity and apart
12:50 from this, another thing is like passive income, the moment you will settle, you will just
12:55 go through on one significant level, it gives you the life of choices as Rashmi is talking
13:02 about as well as you know passive income is possible in this business and so many flexibility,
13:09 life of choices and so many things, after 20 years, you know, I started my journey in
13:14 the age of 18 and after 20 years I can say I am, you know, building my business as well
13:21 as I am taking care of my family, my kids and you know I am giving them the quality
13:26 life as well as I am touching thousands of people's life through the opportunity which
13:30 was not my thing which is from the opportunity side with this.
13:35 Sure.
13:36 Shivani?
13:37 People normally don't follow followers, people follow leaders, so I feel like you know this
13:46 opportunity is a blessing, you know, where you lead people, you motivate people and you
13:51 keep adding value in their lives, you touch so many lives, you help ladies, you know,
14:00 who are there in their homes, you know and they really want to do something big and you
14:04 are there to hold their hand and tell them, I am there with you, I am there with you,
14:11 come together we will make it happen, come together we will make our dreams fulfilled.
14:16 So I love this opportunity where it's a noble cause, where you fulfill all your dreams,
14:23 where you can make a good combination of your family, you know, there is a rewards and the
14:28 four fundamental principles of this corporation, the freedom, hope, reward, recognition and
14:34 it's an amazing opportunity which has entirely changed my life to 360 degrees and today I
14:40 feel privileged that⊠privileged that yes, it has made me a woman of substance.
14:48 Thank you.
14:49 What a wonderful way to end the panel.
14:50 Thank you so much for sharing your journeys with us.
14:53 Thank you for having us.
14:54 Thank you.
14:55 Thank you.
14:56 Thank you so much ladies for sharing with us the Amway experience.
15:03 Thank you very much.
15:04 Thank you.
15:05 Thank you.
15:06 Thank you.
15:06 Thank you.