Shilpa Panchmatia is a business growth strategist working with ambitious business owners to help them achieve more profits, more time and more joy in their life. With over 21 years as a business founder, owner and partner, she has experienced the joys of a successful exit and the lows of cash flow, challenges of building a team and keeping clients happy. Shilpa is also a trained NLP coach since the past 20 years. In an exclusive chat with Asian Voice, she spoke about the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
Q - What books/novels/newspapers did you read while growing up?
I started getting interested in business from age 12. My maternal uncle would visit regularly and I would always answer the house phone where he would ask me what the economy was like in the UK, I would get scared that I didn’t know so would spend my pocket money buying the FT instead of cola fizzy bottles.
Early on in my life I got interested in personal development, the power of the mind and how we can manage our thoughts to control our beliefs to give us an optimum mindset for success. I wanted to be successful from an early age and I read all that I could to help me understand. The personal development revolution was just starting and classics like Rich Dad Poor Dad and Think and Grow Rich were my favourites. Mindset with strategy and execution is a good formula for success in anything, business, sport, life.
Q - Who is a Passionpreneur?
Great question, everyone asks me that one ! Simply put it's someone who has plugged into his or her passion and turned it into a profitable business while positively contributing to other people's lives. In other words, they've created businesses to make money doing what they love.
I love working with passionpreneur and in my own life I have started businesses in areas that I have been really passionate about.
Q - We're still living in a man's world. What do you do and suggest women to follow so that an idea never gets rejected just because you're a woman?
That notion is changing slowly but surely, look at the number of women in business today and the rise of female entrepreneurism. It wasn’t like this when I started my first business 21 years ago, I was always the little Indian girl in the room, never taken seriously.
Since the economy no longer depends on muscular strength, women are able to take on more challenging and complex roles and start and scale businesses. Men and women are equal and complementary in their diversity.
Some great lessons that I learnt working in male environments were:
- Get out of your own way. I wish I had learnt this sooner but they teach you to be nice and kind and sweet in life. To get ahead you really need to believe in yourself and trust yourself. Positive self talk is essential and knowing when you need to learn new skills and knowledge to excel. The world is constantly changing, being abreast with new skills is essential together with learning to trust your gut.
- Learning to take small steps and focusing on little wins each day is a way of life that is very enriching and lets you reach long term goals without mental and emotional anguish.
I have had to learn patience and appreciate slow and steady progress. I learnt this with my daily yoga practise, everyday I would make tiny progress, but when I stuck to a daily routine and took small regular steps over time I saw a massive difference. Operating this way requires a tremendous amount of patience as well as confidence in your vision and your ability to reach your long-term goals.
-Embrace your centre and failure if it comes to you
Business can be a real struggle sometimes, it’s a massive roller coaster of a journey with wanting to quit one day to having funding the next and a growth in sales. The pressure to perform is massive. I have always found myself up against the traditional views of womanhood and the role of a woman in society. With raised eyebrows, sideway comments and critical questions. Always remember to stay focused, take care of yourself and your family and remember this is all part of the journey.
Ah and expect failure, all the time, it's part of business and definitely part of the rites of passage. I always think of Edison’s quote when I fail at something.
Q - Please share three fundamental points that any woman must adhere to while planning or aspiring to become an entrepreneur.
Learn from rejection, don’t feel dejected by it. Is your idea strong, is your market research deep enough, is your sector and audience clear enough.
Know when to go slow and know when to speed up. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint hearted, you do need to take some risk to succeed but always ensure its calculated risk and always listen to your intuition !
Embrace being a leader and being a woman, bring people together to inspire and motivate them. Women are known for using a transformational leadership style, it’s a great way
Q - What does a woman need in terms of support (financial and moral) to reach where you are today? What was your support like?
Formal and informal networks are really crucial to women in life and business- they don’t succeed without them. Find a support group, a mastermind peer to peer group, a sponsor or a mentor to champion, support and challenge you.
Before I started my first business, I ensured that I had sufficient financial reserves to bootstrap my business. Access to finance and funding is so much easier today for female entrepreneurs with banks and accelerators easily accessible.
If you’re wanting to work with Shilpa, she is launching a new Mastermind Peer to Peer group which will meet monthly remotely. https://shilpa-p.com/