Blogging & Entrepreneurship with Miss Malini

Malini Agarwal better known in the Bollywood, Fashion and Lifestyle world as the very charasmatic, MissMalini, is a famous blogger and celebrity in her own right. So when ShethePeople in the first edition of Bombaywaali for 2018 posted an invite to  meet her in person on January 12th, I  was definitely not missing it.

Walking into Title Waves at Bandra, I see Miss Malini standing next to her book "To the Moon" happily posing for a click.  People who know me, will shake their head again in good humour for sure. Oh yes, I did walk up to her right there to ask for a selfie.  Never miss an opportunity in life, I say. What worst can happen, but a No!

Miss Malini took the stage with author Kiran Manral and as the evening unfolded, I realised that there was so much to learn from her. What endeared me more was the fact that like me, she chose to explore whatever came her way....and as we know, she made a success of it too from pioneering an Indian lifestyle blog and a website that touches 4 million lives from over 200 countries with a social media following of over 7.5 million.

So what does one do when you have an awesome woman like her sitting across you on a stage. Naturally, you whip out your mobile and start recording her conversation.  That is exactly what I did and I even asked a question.  Here are transcripts of what I recorded.

Miss Malini gave credit to her mother, Manjulika (a selfie with her was mandatory) for her support and what she has been able to achieve.  She shared, "Actually I have to give credit to my mom for that. When I wanted to become a back up dancer, she said 'okay, I am coming to watch with a handy cam'.  She would record everything but she would cut off everyone's heads and just film me, which is amazing. I could just go and try new things. I was lucky to be at a point of time in every career where something new was happening."

To a question on blogging as an entrepreneur, she responded "There is a difference between hobby blogging and entrepreneur.  So people who are blogging as a hobby, do it your own way.  As an entrepreneur, you need to think a little ahead and you need to make a business plan. You have to think about where I am going to be a year from now. What is my mission, what is my vision and how am I going to make money out of it and how can I make it sustainable. Step by step but the most important thing in this is to find that, whether it is  going to be an entrepreneur, what is the USP. Are you just selling to people, is it just content. Is your money going to come from advertising or from selling your product on the blog. You need to decide all those things,  You also need to decide what your benchmark of success will be, is it money, is it fame, is it influence or is it making a difference. So they are very different things so they may not all be money. There might be something you are doing as a project for social work or something, so there money is not the main thing, it is really about getting the message across. So first decide those things, question what your agenda is  and what you would measure as your metric of success".

A few tips she shared along the way in her own words were  >>"you really have to figure out what you really want to do on your blog or Instagram handle and then find the right tools to do it...."   >>"find the gap, or what are you doing differently, or what is the identity that you have that nobody else has out there"  >>"find something that speaks your voice, and  that is unique and that is what is going to make you stand out".  There is an A to Z in her book on digital brand building which will help you to understand more on reaching out to people.

I too, often wonder, why do we need to feed on stories mud-slinging and tearing films down. I may not like a film but I always believe that so much hard work goes into making one, that It was heartening to hear that there is someone out there like Miss Malini who prefers to use the positive vs the negative when reporting about Bollywood. Talking about Bollywood blogging, Miss Malini shared "Bollywood blogging is very complex. There is tabloid blogging, or there is reviewing or there is documenting a fly on the wall experience or doing much more lengthy pieces.  So what kind of content do you want to create. Having a personality and identity makes the biggest difference. The ones who stand out to me who have been Bollywood bloggers have been influencers."

Interestingly I could identify with her totally when she was asked about finding time for herself.  Like her I have always loved my job and the things I do today, that  her saying "I think the balance really comes from finding time to make things that are most important to you, your focus.  For me honestly, my job and what I do is so much fun. It is probably why I spend most time on it." seemed just right to me.

Like Miss Malini, even I abhor the advertisements that talk about fairness creams. Forget about whether it works or not, but have you seen the way the advertisements are presented.  I recently saw one on fairness cream for men.  The man removes his head band and there is a fair skin under it while the rest of the face is dark from the sun.  Really !! I can clearly see the dark make up used for the face.  Terrible sharing for vulnerable men and women out there who have been told fairness matter. Miss Malini too believes that, "The problem with fairness creams is the emotional damage they do. Our skin is a representation of our rich history, why hide? Feel beautiful with the skin you are in."

Then it is Q&A time and I ask a good question and got her  book  "To the Moon" duly autographed that read "Continue to be the rock star you are!!" I guess my madness showed, because wow, in a few minutes Miss Malini had got me totally. I am going to cherish those words forever indeed.

My question to her :.

Hi Malini. It was a pleasure listening to you and especially about the blogging, because I do blog but as you said I do not focus on any blogging, particularly any topic till now and I will probably seek your help on that.  My question to you is that networking is important for entrepreneurs, I do know that, but how we go about it is really not the right way, I've seen.  Women think that walking into an event, meeting women, talking to them, sharing your cards,  and that kind of thing is really networking. But to me I am not very sure that whether you actually achieve what you set out to achieve in that way.  What tip would you give me if I were to walk in for a specific networking  for maybe growing my own business, or sharing my own story or learning more.

  

Miss Malini replied:

Great question. So the one thing I have learnt about networking is that the best thing you could do when networking is don't  spend that time talking about yourself.  When you go to a room of people you want to meet, go and understand their story. Ask them what they do, how they came up with the business, their plans are and tips because one they will be endeared by the fact that you care about their stories. So you are going to be memorable immediately and you will learn something from them.  I am a talker and the one thing I had to teach myself is to listen more talk less, because you are talking and you are not learning anything from them. Let someone else talk and then you will learn. So when you network, go in and ask people their stories and genuinely listen. It is more effective if you went and spoke to three people and had that kind of a conversation than you went and handed your cards to fifty people. In most cases it is going to be dropped somewhere and forgotten. People don't really use it until they really need someone's numbers, right. So go and have a genuine conversation and ask that person about themselves. They will always come back and ask you, your story.

I too truly believe that the more friends you make, the more people you meet, the more you talk to people and connect to, the more you get to learn..... and I do just that.  The number of stalwarts that I have met at #ShethePeopleTV #Bombaywali like  RJ Malishka, Tisca Chopra, Bachi Karkaria and many more has indeed been an enriching experience.  As the quote says -

"I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path

for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention

 to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks

or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door"  ~ Marla Gibbs