"We can manifest our desires; don't let negativity cloud our mind. Know what you want to achieve and keep that desire burning, the universe will conspire"
Pritha Dubey
With a dynamic and successful brand name, Pritha Dubey, founder of Success Vitamin, has meticulously structured and scaled leaders and women entrepreneurs by cementing their will to enhance the power within to lead significant lives.
In 2013, when Rita moved out of a secure career as a business development head, she knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish in life.
The previous job facilitated her in comprehending the needs of a company and bridging the gap between an organization's expectations of skills, personality, competency, grooming, etc., and those of the candidates.
That's when the idea of Success Vitamin advanced into the picture; she decided to explore her hidden potential and paved her path to success.
And now, she teaches leaders and women entrepreneurs how to move forward with pride and confidence, create a legacy, value skills and help them achieve success in every endeavor.
Pritha started with preparing the candidates for interviews; coaching them on their appearance, body language, and communication. Once the success ratio started growing, she decided to get certified as an Image Consultant.
Pritha eventually expanded her coaching to all professionals who were looking at creating a mark and getting a chance to succeed. Gradually her coaching converted to classroom training and now consulting.
Pritha Dubey, an alumnus of IBS, Hyderabad, did her management in marketing and worked in different capacities across Banking, Insurance & HR industries till 2013.
She was associated for two years with 'Dale Carnegie Training India'. She owes her foundation to them. She is also certified in'Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centred Coaching & Global Leaders of the Future Assessment'.
Today, she is a certified instructor from 'Leaders Excellence at Harvard Square' and an 'Official Member' of Forbes Coaches Council. She is the only woman coach from India to receive this accolade.
In an exhilarating conversation with the Startup City Magazine, Pritha talks about her venture, highlighting her mantra, clients, trends, industry scenario, plans, and more. Read more about her insights in this up-close and personal conversation with the dynamic coach.
Pritha Dubey: My father always used to encourage me to attempt. He would say, "What do you fear will happen if you attempt? You may end up getting a zero, right?
And what do you get when you don't attempt, still a zero? So attempt, at least then you have a chance to score 1." And this wisdom stayed with me through every endeavor that I explored.
I did not have a vision when I was growing up, unlike many of my school friends. Which means I would always cross the bridge when it came. And this visionless journey made Metake a long route to success.
I moved from one job to another in search of my calling, not knowing what it is actually. And finally, after 11 years of research, I got introduced to a work that would change my life.
To help me succeed, all my experiences at those different corporate houses, under so many leaders, and with various team members, gave me the content, context, and concept of success that I would impart to others to make their journey to success, shorter.
My mantra is straightforward, "Attemptevery work that comes your way, no matter how scary it is. Unless you attempt, you will never know what your true potential is."
PD: Research conducted by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford Research Centre have all concluded that 85% of job success comes from having well‐developed soft and people skills, and only 15 % of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge (hard skills).
Through this research, it is apparent that almost every professional needs to develop soft skills.
My clients are all those organizations that believe in developing a well-trained team of leaders and performers, who will help grow the organization faster, retain customers, gain new markets, and build more profits.
As a coach, I work with senior leaders from across the industry and help them remove cobwebs from their minds to help them see, decide without struggling, create an environment of engagement, and grow.
PD: I am a fan of social media. And I believe one should use this extensively to build their brand. Brand Image is the perception that others have about us.
So how we come across to others is totally on us. You will find me using Linked In very actively, and I use it to share my success stories, and my views on subjects, and to impart knowledge.
I have close to 7000 first connections, and I must add value to these connections. Through them, I get a lot of work. I also believe that branding happens every day, from the moment we step out of our comfort zone.
So I treat every interaction of mine professionally. My participants and clients help spread the good word and support a lot in my brand building.
PD: I don't believe in competition, I collaborate instead. Each one of us is a work in progress. Every new person we meet knows something we don't. Every trainer, facilitator, and coach, is busy upgrading their knowledge and skills.
Why? So that they can keep adding value to their clients, each one of us is different and unique in our style of delivery and methodology. And therefore, collaboration helps us succeed.
PD: The question here is, why do you need a coach? Why is a coach so vital for you, and what do you stand to lose if you don't get yourself a coach?
I will not go and do your job for you. I will not fight on your behalf with all those who are misunderstanding you. I will not get your team members to love and respect you. I will not solve office politics.
But I will guide you. I will give you the right tools, methods, and knowledge that will help you sail through your struggles. I have a unique style of working – and it requires a corporate or an individual to have an outcome in mind.
And I design the course, keeping in mind the output, and I follow through to help achieve it. When it comes to coaching individuals, having a will is essential to me, so after my 1st day's assessment of the individual, I decide if I will take the person up for coaching or not.
PD: I am conscious of what I am doing is all that I know. And what I acknowledge is that a human mind is far too capable than we probably can fathom.
And no matter how much we know, or learn, emotions make us slip up, at times. I strongly believe in the expression of emotions. What I have developed through coaching others is that I have stopped reacting.
Instead, I respond to situations. This one change has made me look at things from all vantage points and, therefore, has helped in my relationships with others.
PD: A journey of an entrepreneur has nothing to do with being a man or a woman. It involves a vision to start with and dedication, hard work, investments, accountability, agility, sacrifice, and learning from mistakes.
Anyone who can go through this kind of journey will come out victorious as an entrepreneur.
The reason many struggles is because they are not clear about what they want, and somewhere along the way, they change their priorities, and also because getting funds is not easy, and not everyone can invest personal capital.
PD: I am glad you asked. Infusion of technology is the need of the hour and we strongly support the use of technology. We have partnered with an analytics company that we use in our Train the Trainer programs.
We video-record every trainer's delivery and analyze it to understand the engagement levels of the trainers. E.g. When could they get the participants very active, what percentage of participants got engaged,
How much facilitation vs. presentation, When was the energy of the class very low? From this analysis, the trainers understand their gaps and scope for improvement. We are also working on creating a few learning content-based gamification.
My clients are from across regions. We have started using gamification in a few of our programs like Leadership, Building Collaboration, and Sales. We also conduct coaching & training sessions through webinars.
PD: Before choosing a market we choose an industry our go-to industry is banking and financial services and our skill to start with is selling.
We understand how important it is for all businesses to generate revenue and the team that is responsible for generating the same has to be adept at it.
Banking and financial services have hundreds of direct sales forces, and we have found that getting an edge over the competition is critical. We have a very robust sales force effectiveness program for banking sales; it is customizable as per the region and customer segments.
PD: Oh yes!! in its meeting on 28 Mar'18, SEBI notified that the Top 500 Listed Cos' in India must have one Woman IndependentDirector by 1 Apr '19, and the Top 1000 Listed Cos' must have one Woman Independent Director by 1 April 20! This is a sign that women leaders are needed and the corporate world is opening up to having more and more women leaders in their system.
In the latest Fortune 500 list published in May 2019,33 of the companies on the ranking of highest-grossing firms are led by female CEOs for the first time. Considering last year this number was 24, this jump shows a change in the mindset.
I conduct a program for women leaders called"Breaking the Unconscious Bias" I would also like to urge all women to not be stuck in their prejudice.
I still find many women not taking up a certain job, not because the organization won't give it to them, but because they feel they can't do it as well as a man.
In one of my live chats with a few women leaders, I received questions like "How do I get my team of male subordinates to listen to me" Now this question very clearly highlights the prejudice a woman leader holds herself.
Leadership as a skill is a human competency, not a gender competency. As we were growing up, our parents exhibited leadership skills. Our mother was no less a leader than our father. Their styles were different, but we got influenced pretty well by both.
PD: Govt of India has initiated its SkillIndia project with an ambitious target of imparting skill training to 500 people by 2022. The MSME and Mudra schemes would help leverage adequate funding.
100% FDI (automatic route) is allowed in the education sector in India. G.O.I has taken initiatives like National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill for Higher Educational & the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill.
IMF has predicted India to be the 3rd largest economy by 2030. So the Corporate & Retail training Industry has a lot of catching up to do.
And many from my fraternity have expressed that there is a need for a mechanism to rightly connect the knowledge seekers to the knowledge givers. This industry needs to get structured.
PD: Like any brand that is starting, initially we too had our fair share of highs and lows, and we came through each even better and stronger because we learned from every such experience.
We believe in adding value and getting our clients their return on investment. And most of the organizations I meet have very capable representatives heading the learning & development division.
At the same time, we also come across a few L&D specialists who have a yearly calendar chalked out for their employees but have no vision of the output expected or value delivered.
All they need is training to be delivered at the lowest possible cost to them. These are the places where we feel our brand may get compromised and hence as a policy, we refuse such work.
PD: We are a quality-friendly firm. Hence, accountability is our biggest value.
We will always give more than what we have been hired for. Whenever we associate with any trainer/facilitator, they are always groomed on our core values V.I.T.A.M.I. N i.e. value creation, integrity, trustworthiness, accountability, mindfulness, insight, nurture.
We evaluate ourselves basis of the net promoter score and the performance change report collected from the client. Our programs are curated keeping in mind the final output expected, and we never compromise on this process since this is what makes us deliver what we commit.
PD: Our quality standards are measured by two things 1) the net promoter score. We aim at scoring 80% and above. We take the participant feedback very seriously and incorporate their suggestions wherever possible. 2).
As I mentioned earlier we are output focused. So before the start of the program, we collect the performance data based on the output criteria. We also decide the turnaround time to show performance change.
We then collect the post-training performance data to measure the needle shift. This is the most crucial evaluation report for us. And so far we have managed successfully to keep our commitments.
PD: Humbled, I wish to inspire many more. I wish for more and more women to live their dreams and achieve their desires.
I run a woman entrepreneur academy that works towards helping women entrepreneurs to become successful and realized that most of the women entrepreneurs, who are starting, are pulled back by just one thing – Fear, I want to take that Fearout off them.
PD: I am involved in grooming a lot of kids who are from a not-so-privileged background, yet have the desire and the fire to succeed. I volunteer as a mentor on online platforms like Jobs4her and Micromentor.
Apart from this, we are always available to any school/ college in tier 3 & tier 4 locations to help in skill development and grooming.
Pritha has not had it easy and hasn't always seen gains; she has struggled to reach the great heights that she has today.
She has had her share of bad bosses and made her set of wrong choices, taken some poor calls, and survived massive disappointments. But what she has learned from all these experiences is that it was necessary to have this ride to be the success story that she is today.
