3 Important Conversation etiquettes

Conversation is the art of presenting yourself in front of people. It is the way you capture attention of the people. Effective communication is a skill of sophistication. Conversation etiquette comes with some do’s and doesn’t and every individual should be well aware of conversation etiquette. Wherever you go, the most basic thing through which people judge you is by the way you communicate and present yourself in front of them. You need to capture the attention of the person you’re talking to by knowing the important conversation etiquettes and by avoiding the common mistakes made while having a conversation.

1. Responding with surprise to the news given by people

Whenever your friend or your colleague tells you about something or some news he has been wanting to tell since so long and responding with a phrase like “Oh Really!” is not a good way of taking your conversation further. It might end up the conversation. It shows you disinterest towards their conversation. It’s not that bad to say this phrase but putting a bit of effort can cheer the person sitting in front of you. This forms a major part of soft skills.

2. One word phrases to be avoided for professional communication

Answers like “awesome”, “cool” are the words which do not add much spice to the conversation. It’s good to give positive replies to the person and encourage them. These words can be used to confirm what one is trying to say. However, they may make the conversation dull. Try to make it a bit interesting by asking some questions if not sure about what else to ask.

3. Do not interrupt for effective communication

Have you ever experienced this thing? Well everyone might have. People often tend to interrupt in between conversations to make up their point. Interruptions are a total turn off. If you want to capture the attention of the speaker while you speak, you must listen when he speaks. Whenever this happens, the other person feels like you are least interested in their experience and more in making up and presenting your point. Avoid them.

Top 10 MLM Companies in India 2018

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), also known as pyramid marketing, referral marketing or network marketing is a type of marketing strategy where a company gets profit from the non-salaried workforce, whereas earning of such participants are in pyramidal form. Each participant needs to make a team in order to earn profit. Profit increases with an increase in team members. New joiners need to perform a certain task to be part of the group. Tasks can be to download some apps and refer others or to pay a certain amount of joining fee. As a result, companies earn huge profit and pay incentives to its participants. Countries such as USA, Malaysia, Columbia, Thailand, and India are dedicated followers of such marketing strategy. Top 10 MLM companies in India are:

  1. Mi Lifestyle Marketing Global Private Limited

Mi Lifestyle Marketing Global Private Limited deals with multiple lifestyle and health-care products. Established in 2013, today it has been among the top MLM companies in India. This company offers online registration for its distributor membership. You need to purchase its product worth Rs 1000 to attain its distributorship.

  1. Amway India

Being one of the oldest MLM Companies, Amway is famous for its product quality. In order to be its distributor, you can register yourself on Amway website. It offers 6% to 21% commission on its products.

  1. Herbalife

Herbalife is a USA based company which deals with herbal products. You can join this company as a distributor through online registration and by purchasing its membership kit. It gives 25% discount on all products to its members. Additionally, members can earn profit by selling these products at their marked price.

  1. Forever Living Products

Forever Living Products offers health and skincare products. You can be its distributor without paying any membership fee. This company provides discounts on all its products. Moreover, its distributors can earn profit by purchasing these products at discounted rates and selling them at their marked price.

  1. Vestige

Vestige deals with health and personal care products. Its distributors can earn 10-20% profit on product price. Also, they can earn 5-20% profit as bonus on their performance. Additionally, 14% profit as their direct bonus.

  1. Modicare

Being one of the fastest growing MLM companies in India, Modicare supplies a variety of products such as healthcare, homecare and cosmetics. It offers 20% discount on all its products to its distributors. Performance-based bonuses are also provided to its members.

  1. Win Nature International Private Limited

Win Nature International Private Limited offers ayurvedic products especially ayurvedic medicines. It provides both, discount (on its product price) and bonus to its regular distributors. You can register yourself as its distributor by visiting distributor login page on their website.

  1. Tupperware

Tupperware is famous for its cookware. Being among the top 10 MLM companies in India, it provides discounts based on its products to its distributors. Distributors can further sell these products and earn a profit.

  1. Oriflame

Oriflame is well-known for its beauty products. You can register yourself online as its consultant or distributor. It offers 20% discount in addition to performance-based discount to its members on its products.

  1. RCM

RCM supplies cosmetics, garments and grocery. Its distributors get 15% discount on all its products. distributors can earn incentives by selling these products plus 10% to 32% profit can also be earned on products purchased by any of the group members. RCM also offers performance-based bonus.

These are certainly the top 10 MLM companies in India, which are growing rapidly and have been estimated to grow higher in upcoming years.

By – Darakhshan Anjum

Startup Idols ©

Benefits of Internship Programs in Today’s World

Benefits of internship are countless, it is an efficacious way to gain experience on how to survive in a work environment. It urges a person to realize his/her interests in that particular field. Internships prove to be a medium to develop new skills and make new connections. Above all, it helps a lot in the recruitment process. Recruiters are more likely to hire a person who has some experience rather than a person with a generic resume. Hence, the benefits of an internship in today’s world cannot be ignored.

The purpose of the internship is simple, they are just there to provide practical work experience to the people in the field which is completely new to them. As mentioned earlier, in today’s competitive world, practical work experience carries a major significance while entering a market. So, here are a few benefits of an internship program.

1.      The opportunity to learn more about yourself

Internships offer a medium to analyze your skill set and your field of interests. By working in an organization for a certain period for a certain position and in a certain field can make you aware whether it fits you or not. To achieve your goals, it is extremely important to know yourself and work accordingly.

2.      Developing professional network

Networking is basically exchanging information and establishing relationships to advance your career. Taking up an internship can help you know people and build deeper relationships with strangers. It would definitely advance your communication skills. So, this is another benefit that an internship program offers.

3.      Apply Knowledge learned in the classroom

There’s a difference between learning things and practically applying them. The advantage of an internship is that it helps one to apply that knowledge in the field and actually test the knowledge.

4.      Develop and build new skills

A person learns various new skills in an internship program. These learned skills can definitely help in future employment and might give a leg up in the competition in the future application process.

How to Get an Internship in Myntra!!

Myntra is a premier e-commerce platform that blankets around 2000 different brands. It is a one-stop shop for all your fashion needs. Once you know how vibrant their office and work culture is, you’ll surely want to intern with them or even take a job with them. It might be a dream for all the fashion enthusiasts because the variety and the quality of clothing Myntra has, none of the e-commerce has such an option and variety. The interns that Myntra requires are for finance, design, software development and management for the duration of around 1-6 months. One can apply by these 3 different ways. Here are some tips to get internship in Myntra:

  1. Emailing the resume

Those who wish to intern with Myntra can send out their resumes to them. The team will get in touch with you as soon as they go through it based on their requirement.

  1. Campus Recruitments

Few of the reputed colleges have Myntra as one of the recruiters. The colleges like BITS Pilani, IIMs, IITs etc.

  1. Internshala

Myntra posts the requirements on internshala whenever they need. So, you can check it out from there. Internship in Myntra has been one the preferences among e-commerce developers.

B.Tech students can apply for internships in development, web or app, data analytics. MBA students can apply for marketing, sales and stuff and designing students can look for in sourcing and merchandising. Myntra gives full freedom to its interns. They are always open to the new ideas and take them into consideration. One can also receive a Pre Placement Offer from the manager if they like your work. So, keep searching for their availability. Once you are in, make sure to stay focussed and work with full enthusiasm for the biggest e-commerce website. Understand your responsibility and work accordingly. Stay spontaneous and relaxed. Also, do know the latest happenings in the industry and all about its products.

4 Top Free Blogging Sites-

Blogging is a great way to get connected with the world. You can blog to express your passion for your hobbies and to connect on a personal level with others. Starting a blog of your own can be a challenge, blogs do help to promote a business. But creating your own blog for the first time can be exciting, what if you are not very sure about becoming a blogger? Are you ready to pay for something you are not sure about? Well, I don’t think so, no one is willing to pay for something they are not sure about. Free Blogging can solve this problem, you can start a blog for free and then when you become absolutely sure about blogging, you can start a paid blog. Since blogging is much more than writing or posting photos, finding suitable sites for your needs is important. You might want to have a blog on the sites that are easy to use and has customization tools to give your audience everything they need to read and interact with your blog.
So, here are 4 best blogging sites that provide both free and paid services to make your small blog into a big hit.

1.      WordPress Blog Platform

WordPress is one of the most popular and powerful blogging platforms in existence on the Internet. It provides both, free blogging services as well as a paid one. It also has a free personal publishing platform. Millions of users prefer it for its extremely user-friendly interface. It comes with a set of features, designed to make your experience pleasant being a publisher. With WordPress one can easily:

  • Publish and edit posts
  • Sort articles in categories
  • Search within your content
  • Manage users’ access
  • Change your website themes and more.

Moreover, it is also a platform that helps to create a dynamic website by having full control over the content from the back end. Overall it’s a good option if you are thinking to start a blog.

       2. Ghost Blog Platform

Ghost is a popular personal blog site. It provides one with a simple, clean interface that makes it very user-friendly. This platform is great for beginners because it is easy to use. However, expert bloggers may also prefer it because of its interface compared to other blogging services. The downside to Ghost is that it is difficult to install. But once it’s done, it can be a great tool for any blogger.

        3. Drupal Blog Platform

Drupal is a great option for blogs associated with businesses. It is not just a medium for blogging, but it acts as a complete content management system. Along with the blog, web pages, and other online content can also be created and organized within this platform. Drupal does not host blogs for users, so bloggers using this platform will have to find their own host at some other place. It is not a platform that readily accommodates beginners. It is much better for those upgrading from a free blogging platform and a bit less for the bloggers just starting out.

        4. Weebly Blog Platform

It is another free blogging platform that is great for businesses. You can easily maintain a blog on the website with Weebly. It provides a wide range of easy-to-use features, including drag and drop options for those who do not want to learn coding to make simple changes. Since Weebly can be used for blogging and web building, business owners find this platform a lot easier to use than other platforms where blogs and websites are created separately. Weebly focuses its services on those who want to quickly create and update a blog without a lot of hassle.

A Successful Entrepreneurs Meetup in Mumbai Organized by The Lifestyle Portal

On Saturday,11 August 2018 a seminar was conducted. It was The Lifestyle Portal’s 1st Entrepreneurs’ Meetup. The Meet-up that was held in Mumbai comprised of 23 diverse participating businesses. There were around eighteen participants who presented a talk based on how challenges helped them in their entrepreneurial journey. The speakers at The Lifestyle Portal’s 1st Entrepreneurs’ Meetup were oblivious to the fact that they were being judged. The judgement was on the basis of their presentation, concept and business model.

This event was different from other contemporary meetups. The Entrepreneurs’ Meetup in Mumbai was not limited to exchange of visiting cards and conversations. Rather it was more attentive towards furnishing time to all entrepreneur attendants. It encouraged them to predominantly promote their respective brands. Not only this, it also enlightened the participants on how to run and protract their business. It further illuminated them on how challenges can turn out to be beneficial to them.

THE MEETUP

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Tanya Munshi with Sanjay Mujkherjee & Avishek Ganguly at The Lifestyle Portal’s Meetup in Mumbai

Above all, it was quite heartening to see an assemblage of women entrepreneurs across various age groups who attended the meetup. At the Meetup, there was an amazing line-up of visiting speakers, an outstanding blend of emerging entrepreneurs and also an impeccably devised schedule for the session. Meanwhile, Sanjay Mukherjee, a start-up mentor and Founder of The Mountain Walker and RedstoneSummerhill and Avishek Ganguly, a talent acquisition specialist and the Founder of Calls Incorporated extended their mastery to all the participants dipped in wit and hilarity. They came into the limelight and highlighted some relevant yet subverted characteristic of sustaining a business. Raina Khatri Tandon, a Breakthrough Coach and Rituparna Mitra, a sustainable living evangelist also inspired us with exceptional examples.

The Lifestyle Portal’s 1st Entrepreneurs Meetup in Mumbai.

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Some Presentations along with Funtime at the Meetup

The narratives of the emerging entrepreneurs at the Meetup in Mumbai was quite an epiphany. They fought against all odds to demonstrate their endurance in their entrepreneurial journey. It was a marvellous experience to see everyone presenting their narration with eloquence. The fact that the speakers were unaware of being judged, made the seminar all the more exciting.

LATTER HALF OF THE MEETUP

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Furthermore, the latter half of the Meetup was open to all the attending entrepreneurs. All 23 entrepreneurs were allocated a three-minute duration to showcase their brand. It was established on the concept of ‘challenges’ and how they have carved out a niche for themselves through those challenges. Consequently, this round was quite an incredible learning platform for one and all. The participating entrepreneurs gave an intricate delivery on almost every challenge they met and how they vanquished them. This further ignited their determination to progress.

Challenges of Our Entrepreneurs

For some entrepreneurs, the challenges imposed on them was to economically support a family member. While for others it was providing an opportunity for their children to lead a good quality of life. Others had to overcome the challenges of acquiring an identity for themselves, and even flip their career choice or give in to their fondness of becoming an established entrepreneur.

WINNERS

It was quite a task for Sanjay and Avishek to assess such a diverse group. After much contemplation, the judges came up with some parameters for assessing the participants’ 3-minute presentations on a scale of 1-4.

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Tanya Munshi with Aparna Garg – Founder of Let’s Get Lost and Apoorva Mairal – Founder of The Sweet Store

Ultimately, it was Aparna Garg, the founder of Let’s Get Lost who won the Best Presenter award. Anushree Chatterjee Patni, founder of Goregaon Highway Pulse bagged the prize for the Most Innovative Concept; and Salloni Malkani, co-founder of The FBAI won the award

PARTICIPATING ENTREPRENEURS

Some of the notable entrepreneur participants who presented a talk for the first time in their careers were Shraddha Kiran Sawant. She is a Dealer in Floria Naturals Products which specializes in herbal soaps, cow therapy soaps and many more. The other participating entrepreneur was Neha Chavan. She is a Founder of Elegant Jewels known for reasonably priced daily fashion jewellery. Then we had Megha Kumbhar, who is a Founder of Nurturing Talents.

Our participating entrepreneurs were happy they attended the meetup especially to listen to each other’s triumphant entrepreneurial journeys and to extend support to one another and shape this event into a success.

MEDIA PARTNER – STARTUP IDOLS

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The Lifestyle Portal Joins Hands with Startup Idols as their Media Partners for The 1st Entrepreneurs Meetup

Startup Idols feels proud to call our self the Media Partner for such a great meetup by TLP. Moreover, it was quite an honour for Startup Idols to join hands with Tanya Munshi for The Lifestyle Portal’s 1st Entrepreneur Meetup. Our services range from Digital Marketing, Content writing, Graphics Designing to Web Development. We also provide space to our clients for publishing their Press Release and blogs that surely helps them to acquire online presence on a large scale. Startup Idols also supports fresh ideas and mould them into a success story. Our mission is to encourage start-up entrepreneurs and assist them to reach a bigger audience worldwide. Though our headquarter is located in Kolkata, we serve clients across nations.

The Lifestyle Portal – Tanya Munshi

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Tanya Munshi – Founder of The Lifestyle Portal at the 1st Entrepreneurs Meetup in Mumbai

Tanya Munshi expanded her e-publishing platform – The Lifestyle Portal into an expedient and lucrative business. She has been tirelessly working on building her brand and focusing her strength on reconstructing the 7-year old e-publishing platform into something that holds meaning in the sight of other entrepreneurs. As a result of her hardwork Tanya Munshi has been highly successful in her endeavour.

The journey is not easy though. It demands enormous patience. Many of the entrepreneurs who have been featured in the Lifestyle Portal come with a passion to build something for themselves and bestow meaningfully to their families and society.

There is a surety that these businesses are surely going to triumph as they contribute to the society to a great extent.

Tanya Munshi, the Founder of The Lifestyle Portal, has been the backbone of this entire event where she has put her heart into the work. Tanya’s ability to single-handedly conduct this meetup has surely left us all impressed. We are already awaiting another meetup like this.

Photo Credit: Anand Rohimal

Startup Idols ©

Top 3 Marketing Automation Tools for Small Businesses

One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing over traditional marketing is marketing automation . Marketing Automation Tools not only saves your time that would otherwise be spent on manual tasks, but it also optimizes itself and becomes effective over time.

We have been using marketing automation for our business and for our clients, and we keep forgetting that we take all these tools for granted.

In this blog, Startup Idols wants to give you a small overview of the marketing automation tools for small business that one should use. These tools communicate with each other via API and help to automate lead generation, lead nurturing and sales.

Table of Contents

OptinChat

OptinChat is a lead generation tool that is developed by Deepak Kanakraju in partnership with a Tech co-founder. Through OptinChat, it becomes easy to talk to all the website visitors and collect their name and email IDs for newsletter subscription. You can easily sign up for a free version of OptinChat at OptinChat.com.

OptinChat has direct integrations with many popular email marketing tools. And, for those people who are using an email marketing software that is not there on the list, we have Zapier integration that talks to more than 500 different applications.

Zapier

Zapier is one of the best email marketing software because it helps if you do not have a developer in your team. Especially because developers do not come so cheap. Zapier can do most of the tasks related to marketing.

Whenever you get new email subscribers. You can send a welcome mail to them using Zapier.

Drip

According to SMEs, Drip is the best email marketing tool. Drip can do so much more than a normal email marketing software. You can also set up advanced automation such as dynamic drip marketing and the behavior-based email triggers using drip. It has all the advanced automation tools. But drip is focused on the businesses based on consumer. Most of the other advanced CRM and marketing automation tools are built for B2B businesses.

So, these are the top three marketing automation tools that you must use for your business. But, marketing automation is a broad concept that deserves a course of its own.

I hope you liked this article. Stay tuned for the upcoming articles.

Meanwhile, you can also read Startup Tips for Starting Your Own Business.

By – Pallavi Singh

Startup Idols ©

 

5 Tips on How to Stay Self-Motivated

Motivation is an important element of life. One should know how to stay self motivated. You must be thinking what is self motivation? Why is self-motivation important? Don’t worry; I am here to answer your queries. Motivation is that push a person needs to achieve his/her goals. Honestly we human beings are very lazy and do not like to work until there is a need, but life is it is a roller-coaster ride and we cannot lie back and wait for an emergency. Therefore, Startup Idols is here with, 5 tips on how to stay self-motivated.
Here we go:

1.     Celebrate Little Wins

No matter how small the victory is, celebrate it and appreciate yourself at each point this will help you boost your level if motivation. Do not wait for others to appreciate you or encourage you. Do it yourself to stay motivated. Even a small appreciation from your boss, colleagues and family members is worth celebrating. If you celebrate these small victories, it will help you to stay focused on the bigger goals and to keep yourself and your surroundings really happy. So, celebrate every success small or big.

2.     Keep Your Cards Close to You

In order to stay motivated, always keep your cards to yourself. For instance, you are having a new diet plan or the project plan. You are not required to announce it to everyone. You can share it with your family members, or with your close friends but announcing it to the world would not help. It might turn things upside down and also spread negativity. So, try to keep your cards to yourself.

3.     Stop Comparing

Put an end to comparison is one of the most important tip to stay self motivated. Be gentle on yourself and do not compare yourself with others. Yes, in today’s world, the competition is at its peak. But everyone has their own abilities and skill sets. No two are the same in any manner. Also, today’s world is of social media where people share their success on the daily basis which might demotivate you a bit but that might not always be true. So, you need to stop comparing and focus on your goals.

  • Always Do What You Love

If you are passionate about something and you work towards it, success will follow. Butit should also help you to have a living. You need to make sure that you are able to make a living out of it because ultimately at the end of the day, that is something which matters the most.

5.     Take Criticism Properly

Criticism can work wonders to boost your confidence. At the workplace, even if people have no such intentions, they might end up creating a negativity inside you. But you must turn all negative criticism into positive motivation. Failure is a state of mind. If you think you can succeed, no one can stop you. So, instead of pondering over past disappointments, make your route towards positive energy required to work harder with the help of our motivational ideas.

6 Common Interview Questions Asked To An Intern

An internship is a great way to explore yourself, benefits of internship are countless. A great intern can turn out be of great help for the entire company. Interview questions for an intern is more of a good conversation because you are not permanently hiring them. Hence, you can be a bit relaxed. To help put people at ease, and to make the screening as effective as possible, many companies call applicants in advance to discuss the process and expectations. This way interns are able to prepare properly and feel more confident on the day of an actual interview. So if you are going to interview as an intern Startup Idols have yore back we have prepared a list of 6 common interview questions that are asked to an intern

1. Why do you want to join us?

the most common and obvious interview question mainly highlights the interns’ interest in the company and also their career interests. A day before your interview be sure to do a brief research on the company. this will surely help you answer this question.

2. What skills do you have that will help you in this internship and where did you get them?

From an interviewers’ point of view, this questions tells whether the student can make the connection between learning and doing. It’s an indication he’s the right intern to hire.

3. What are the expectations from the company?

It helps to understand whether there is a good fit between the role and the candidate’s expectation. Also, it saves first day surprises for both the parties when it’s too late.

4. What are the other commitments you have during the internship program?

Some may have exams or a technical competition that they have to participate in, a long family trip or may even be pursuing another internship/training in parallel or freelancing. Knowing all this beforehand would save lot of heartburn later.

5. How do you manage multiple projects at once?

This can help you understand whether the applicant is able to multi-task or not.

6. Do you have any questions for us?

The last question should be to give the applicant an opportunity to ask questions from his side. It might seem like something of a throw-away, but this is one of the most important questions one can ask. Not only does it give the applicant the opportunity to cover anything that might not have been covered throughout but also provides further insight into their motivation and personality.

By – Nayni Jain

4 Easy Ways to Use Social Media to find a Job

To find a job online is much more than updating your profile on LinkedIn or hiding those party photos from your FaceBook account. It has been found that more than three-quarters of recruiters use social media to find out their potential employees. Studies have found that one in three employers have recruited their employees because of something shown in their social media accounts. So, now it is very obvious that there are many advantages of using social media to find a job, it is easier and more convenient. Are you confused and don’t know how to start?OK, we know to find a job can be overwhelming. Hence Startup Idols is here with 4 easy ways to use social media to find a job.

1.      Create Relevant Profiles

The first and foremost thing you have to do to land a job on social media is to build compelling profiles that show your job history. LinkedIn is one of the best sites to find a job, but Facebook, Google, etc are also on the list. These profiles should not only demonstrate what you’ve accomplished but also your strengths and your interests.

2.      Network

To get a job, you have to connect up with the people in the industry. LinkedIn groups are an excellent place to do this. Also, you can join several groups on Facebook too. But remember to join the ones which are active and vibrant. Then start introducing yourself to the members.

3.      Do Not Directly Ask for a Job

The next thing you need to do is talk to the professionals about the career. Even though you are hidden behind the screen you should not directly ask them for a job. Let them recognize you as a potential employee on the basis of your intelligence.

4.      Research

The next step is to find out what channels employers are posting jobs on. LinkedIn might be a good place to start as many employers are taking advantage of its extensive job board. Facebook has a new job board. Instagram and Pinterest may be the right avenue to identify new opportunities. It depends on your industry and the position you are looking for. Make sure you know where you should be investing your time.