Chandan’s Entrepreneurial Journey: From YouTube Creator to Business Leader
A business always takes time to be well-established or sometimes it can be collapsed due to a small loophole. However, a believer can manage it wisely through executing a wise and effective sales and marketing strategy.
Meet Chandan, founder of Smart Infovision and Benchmark. instead of wasting time on several OTT platforms like others, he started his career in 2016 by influencing creators on how they can improve their online classes and what equipment they require. Chandan started his career with his YouTube channel, and some of his videos went viral. After that, the story of lead generation and work progress starts from here. Days passed, and after the pandemic Covid-19 phase, he decided to have a workspace in Noida. Chandan owns multiple offices in Noida 1 by 1 and now he owns 8 offices and operates a team of about 100 employees.
The 7Ps Marketing Strategy: Blueprint for Business Success
Now a question arises, how does Chandan manage his multiple branches and a broad team of employees? Chandan explains it very transparently and easy-to-understand way.
He said that he follows a strategy called “7Ps of Marketing” to manage his business and It’s all a blueprint of his business strategy.
The Strategy 7Ps is an effective strategy that gives you a framework by which you can create a comprehensive marketing plan. It will help you to promote your services or a specific product. The 7Ps include product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and also physical evidence. All these are crucial elements for successful businesses in India and all over the world. So, Chandan implements this effective strategy to operate his business seamlessly.
Building and Managing a Successful Team
When he decided to adopt this strategy, he started observing his target audience and he got that almost every person thought about starting their journey with YouTube but they were not that much aware of the technical aspects. In simple terms, people were not strong technically but their confidence was enough to be an entrepreneur.
Chandan decided to be a helping hand to every dreamer and initiated a hiring process for the Manager Position in his company. He appointed a person as a manager in his company and got a complete marketing team under him while Chandan and his wife decided to handle the monitoring and reporting from Manager.
Apart from work, Chandan also respects his team from the peon to the Manager by providing them rewards according to their performance. Not only a senior position holder, but he also respects all position holders like a peon, etc., and this move makes him more different and humble than others. When it comes to monitoring the performance of such a big team of employees, his MIS team manages it all. Attendance, tasks, rewards, behavior, and feedback from the customers, as well as other important elements, are managed by the Admin in charge of the MIS team.
Investment and Growth: Turning Challenges into Opportunities
As the business is being managed by his wife, manager, and other employees, Chandan focuses on innovations, target audiences, and generating leads by promoting his brand through various PRs and other channels of promotion.
If we talk about his competitors in business, there is not much competition in this industry, as his business demands a lot of investment. We can say that he has grown his business to the next level and his competitors do not matter to him a lot. He only focuses on innovations, leads, and promotion.
Now, a new question arises if his business demands a lot of investment, then how has he grown his business to 100 CR?
Chandan says that loss calculation is more important than profit calculation. He decided to calculate his loss instead of profit. As he believed that loss could be considered as an academic investment. So, he borrowed a loan from a Bank for 45 Lacs and considered this asset as a loss and academic investment. Then, he operated his business as told above. Now, dump or we can say useless hardware or scrap equipment are available in his godown that worth about 60-65 Lacs.
Employee Empowerment: Beyond Salary – Creating Value for Team Members
Chandan and his team are working to take their business to a new height of success. Apart from current work, they’re also working on identifying the gap. Meant to say, that they were also working to find a gap or we can say a loophole where people are being stopped from being entrepreneurs. Chandan and his team are continuously trying to be a helping hand in every aspect.
Chandan’s company Smart Infovision and Benchmark not only prioritize salary for their employees, but they also give a surety of a home and take care of their emotions. A lot of employees in Smart Infovision and Benchmark got a home, a brand new car, a scooter and some got other kinds of stuff. As a home, a car or a bike is an utmost part of our lives, Chandan provides these important parts to his employees in the form of incentives.
Cash Flow Management: Navigating Financial Challenges
Now, How Chandan Manage Cash Flow in Both of His Companies Many businessmen face a lot of challenges regarding cash flow, sometimes they have to face collection, unwanted expenses, and a lot of other issues. In the end, these kinds of challenges lead to bankruptcy.
So Chandan also faced several issues regarding cash flow. Sometimes, he had to manage the cash flow by Gold Loan with his wife’s jewelry. But, the nice thing is, all these challenges were up to him and his wife. No employee was aware of these issues. Chandan and Wife managed all these on their own.
Now, you might wonder how employees were unaware while his account department keeps all the history and present of the account of the company. So, some of the key strategies are always executed by him and his wife. Both of them know very well, what to hide and what to show their employees. If everything is transparent to their employees, this could negatively affect the working environment of the company.
Chandan’s uncle used to say, that “not everything is to be told to everyone” and Chanda adopted this saying to execute it in his company. Chandan has a coach in his life to guide him in every phase of his life. As today’s entrepreneurs don’t have any coach, Chandan says they must have a coach in their life. Most successful faces have a coach to guide them in their professional life and also some have a coach to guide them in their personal life.
Lead Generation Strategy: Leveraging Multiple Channels
Lead Management of Smart Infovision and Benchmark with Chandan and His Team The Smart Infovision and Benchmark manage leads in a very clear and creative way. They handle leads on the IVR calling process. The leads are generated through multiple channels like his YouTube channel, website, and also other social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
As many of us think that if we create a YouTube channel for our business, it would not be that good. And, what if no one views our videos? This is a very huge mistake we do. You’d not get revenue with fewer views on your YouTube channel through running ads, but there are a lot of ways to take your business to the next level with it. YouTube gives you 3 different ways to earn i.e. ads, selling courses, and also it gives an opportunity to generate leads.
Chandan Mishra, a successful face earned around 5 lacs through his YouTube channel, this is not that much amount. But, he sold his product worth Rs. 30 Crore through his channel. He runs 8 channels and generates most of his leads through it.
As a businessman or entrepreneur, you should not skip any medium to be successful in your life. Just utilize each and everything whether it proves beneficial or not.
Competitor Strategy: Smart Market Positioning
Chandan Mishra has grown his business to a level that almost no competitor could compete in the specific area easily. And, Chandan executes a smart strategy to confuse his competitors. For example, Chandan decides to set up another branch in Kolkata, he set up his branch there and his competitor would also try to compete with him in Kolkata as Chandan’s branch and competitor’s branch will be a new brand for everyone and it will be very easy to compete with him. Here, you’ll note that Chandan diverted his competitor to a different spot, and he’s the only service provider in the target location. In simple terms, we can say it Chandan believes in diverting his competitors.
Marketing Budget and Future Goals
When it comes to Cash Flow Management, Chandan Mishra has a market strategy. He spends about 60 Lacs a year on marketing. He always conducts marketing with expert advice from his skilled consultants. He fixed the sales target for his team and his team always tried to make it 2x more than previous.
Now, their target is to hit IPO.
Advice for Entrepreneurs: Three Critical Components of Business Success
Chandan says that even a small businessman whose revenue is about Rs. 50K, must pre-plan their strategy. The three components Coach, Marketing Plan, and Funds are the most important for any business. They must get advice from their coaches to get a plan of further strategy executing process and plan a solid market plan with enough market budget. Apart from these, they also must get their fund ready for their startups.
So, without a proper marketing plan, coach, and enough funds, no one could be a successful businessman. You can watch the full podcast on the Youtube channel named CachBSR to get a full insight regarding the journey of a business worth 100 CR.
