One of the premium benefits of becoming a Yomillio member is that you get to attend the networking events we organize, by ourselves and in partnership with industry associations.
The latest in this series was a “Community Sales for MSMEs” event where the organizing partner was the Confederation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CIMSME).
Speakers at this event in
vited to share their expertise included:
1. Coach Suresh Babu, Founder Director, One Life Academy;
2. Ashok Vohra, MD, Evoma;
3. Gunaseelan, SIDBI; and
4. Gopinath Rao, Asst. Director, MSME Development Institute.
Now I’m going to provide brief excerpts of these experts’ bios and what they said (stay tuned for detailed posts on getting MSME loans approved from SIDBI, and how MSME DI can help you start, run and grow your micro, small or medium scale business.)
After that, I’ll show you what should be the takeaway from a networking event. The takeaway from this CIMSME event was such a smashing hit that it will make you want to attend all our future events.
Network and Net Worth, by Suresh Babu, Founder Director, One Life Academy
Suresh Babu, Founder and Director of One Life Academy, is a professional speaker, performance coach and trainer. He works with start-ups, companies and hundreds of individuals, using his experience and skills to unlock their potential and skyrocket performance.
His experience includes being a Professional Development Resource Manager at Microsoft Global Services India.
Coach Suresh talked about the connection between your net worth and networking. A very good example which he gave was about expanding your business network to other cities, which directly increases your net worth as a business.
Sales and selling, by Ashok Vohra, Managing Director, Evoma
Ashok Vohra is Managing Director, Evoma and an investor and mentor with a diverse array of interests in many different types of enterprises.
He also happens to be a former sales team member of IBM, and shared some of his sales secrets with the attendees.
The one point he highlighted was that startup founders who know their own product don’t tend to make good salesmen for their own product, because sales is about understanding the client, as opposed to understanding the product.
How to get an MSME Loan from SIDBI, by Gunaseelan, SIDBI
Gunaseelan is a manager with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), who was until recently located in Ahmedabad and is currently based in Bangalore.
He explained in clear and simple terms all the government schemes (CGTMSE) and their criteria under which SIDBI can approve an MSME loan, which will make it easier for you to approach banks, submit your loan proposal and get it approved.
SIDBI can sanction upto Rs. 5 crores, with a moratorium period of up to 16 months during which you only need to pay interest. The combined principal and interest payments kick in only after the moratorium period ends. It takes them only upto 20 says to sanction a project, provided you submit all the required documents on time.
MSME business growth support, by Gopinath Rao, Asst. Director, MSME Development Institute
Gopinath Rao is an Assistant Director at the MSME Development Institute, Govt. Of India. He talked about the RBI Governor encouraging DGMs of all agencies to support approval of funding under government schemes, about the new definition of an MSME, and about how the government supports MSMEs in the country in many different ways.
For starters, his own organization provides training for MSMEs who are applying for government loans and are required to undergo training. They can even create project reports for you, which is again required if you are applying for a bank loan.
Most importantly, he explained how the MSME Ministry is working with various public sector units (PSUs) and organizations such as Indian Railways to ensure that 20% of all their contracts go to micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the country, as required by law. Government also provides funding and infrastructure support for development of clusters in different industries. This includes hundreds of acres of free land and crores of rupees in grants for purchase of machinery and equipment.
The networking takeaway
Coach Suresh asked all attendees to exchange visiting cards with each other, and explain their product or service to the recipient in less than 60 seconds. This “speed dating networking” was an unusual networking takeaway that doesn’t happen at other startup or business events held in Bangalore.
Furthermore, one thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that at the end of each speaker’s speaking time, they were also asked to write down their name, phone number and email on the board so that all attendees could connect directly with them as needed.
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So any attendee who was interested in starting a new business could get in touch with Mr. Gopinath Rao to get help with their business proposal and project report. They could get their SIDBI loan approved (upto Rs. 5 crore) by meeting Mr. Gunaseelan, and then come back to Mr. Gopinath for help with government contracts.
If you need any help like this with your business, get in touch with Yomillio right now.
Call +918041147466 or email [email protected]
