Business
Featuring Ms. Rajni Daswani – Head of Brand Experience & Employee Engagement
Ms. Rajni Daswani, a young and dynamic person who is the only woman leader amongst the three partners at SoCheers and her role involves everything from brand building to employee engagement to looking into ideation and bringing in new clients.
Being a Management graduate from MMK and an M.com from Mumbai University, her career started off by working as a Financial Analyst specializing in macro-economic and commodities with Anand Rathi & Motilal Oswal – renowned brands in the finance broking industry.
Working for 3 years in the finance industry, she took a leap of faith to step up in the entrepreneur world with her own clothing label Azraa – built on the idea that fashion comes at an expensive cost and good quality should be made at an affordable price tag which she chose to shut in 2 years.
Soon Rajni took her chances into a completely different domain of communication world by landing her first stint as a PR Executive at Perfect Relations (A PR firm in India), which gave her an exposure to Corporate & Finance brands like Credit Suisse, Union Bank of India, Papa John’s etc. While working in a PR industry, she realized the digital industry is booming and that’s where she would love to make her mark, which led her to start a new journey in the digital marketing at SoCheers during the year 2014.
Her role at SoCheers started with copy writing but her management skills drew her to a more Client Servicing role. Without realizing, in 2015, she was multi-tasking in multiple roles and was managing work for more than 50% of clients at SoCheers. Right from having 2 people in the Client Servicing (Brand Experience) team to over 16 today, Rajni is now the Director and Head of Brand Experience and is known as the ”Anchor” for her team.
Apart from work, Rajni is involved in many NGO activities and ensures every 6 months, a part of the profits from SoCheers goes to an orphanage in Andheri where books & other amenities are provided for these children. Ms. Daswani has been awarded under ”50 most influential Global Youth Marketing Leader” at the Global Youth Marketing Forum held on 13th Feb 2018.
SoCheers’s vision is to make a difference in how customers see brands and engage in whatever way possible and add to the society at large. SoCheers has worked across various industries and sectors such as banking, automotive, fashion, hospitality, F&B, technology, pharmaceuticals, retail, e-commerce, real estate, music &; entertainment, home appliances, consumer durables and human resources.
- What or who has been your greatest influence in business and why?
Being a person who believes in picking up the best from everywhere, influence for me can come from a great service I got from somewhere, maybe a movie or from anywhere on the streets. The key is to keep your eyes & ears open as your greatest influence can come from any corner in the world, maybe even from your Grandmother at home.
- What would you say is your greatest professional accomplishment to date?
My greatest professional accomplishment to date would be the ability to impact someone’s life. Be it through mentoring someone at work or reaching out to millions of people through a marketing campaign, the ability to impact someone’s life in a way that no one else could, gives me personal satisfaction of having made a difference. And the best part is that I get to feel that triumph of achievement quite often.
- What’s the best advice you have received in business that you wish to pass on to our readers?
The best advice would be to “Know when to say No & when Not to”. For most of my life, I couldn’t say NO to things because I felt obliged to do everything people asked of me. Than for the rest part of it, I learnt how to say NO to things I didn’t want to be doing. But eventually saying YES to things I’d never done before, got me to experiment and learn a lot more professionally. So now if something interesting & challenging comes up, instead of no I say WHY NOT?
- What has been the most effective marketing initiatives or programs you have used to promote your business?
For a business like ours, a young marketing agency, we are always looking for young enthusiastic and passionate people who believe in thinking beyond the norms set in the industry. The most effective marketing initiatives have been to do fun internship programs which give these young minds a chance to go through all the roles & decide what they want to build a career in.
- Are there any resources or tools you’d like to share with other small business owners that have helped you run your business? If yes, please describe (and include links if available).
I think the most basic resource you need is a website & an email domain. It helps you give a professional standardisation to the business instead of using personal email IDs. If you have a growing team, use an HR software to keep track of attendance, salary, deductions, etc. And for accounting purposes, get a business manager like ZOHO.com to make sure your billings are in place.
- Do you have any new projects coming up (or have you just completed a big project ~ reached a milestone, etc.)? If so, please tell us about it.
At SoCheers, we’ve recently forayed into offline marketing – whatever you need, you’ll now get it under one roof. Other than this we’ve also done multiple video campaigns which are garnering a lot of attention, it’s quite an exciting time for us. Soon, we are looking at working on multiple international brands & helping them experiment with newer age campaigns. Other than that we are looking at moving into a bigger office space and having multiple offices across India & the globe.
- What do you do for fun/relaxation?
Read, experiment with different genres of music, Paint, experiment with food & drinks, spend time with family & friends.
- What’s the best way for the readers of Fashion Herald Magazine to connect with you (feel free to include the links to your social networks and websites)?
I’m accessible on both Instagram & Twitter: @r_diaries
