A dream job for many would be to have a career in Radio, For Yashvi Mehta, it was more of a stepping stone. The former Radio Mirchi RJ is now an independent marketing consultant helping brands find their voice, create better brand experiences and communicate more effectively to their customers. Yashvi’s career path has included advertising agencies in Mumbai, radio stations, and ultimately being a solopreneur which provides us insight into how marketing has changed over time.
Yashvi’s Advertising Daydream
Before Yashvi became a radio jockey, she had hopes of going into advertising. With a BBA under her belt, she was faced with the decision between journalism and advertising and ultimately decided to follow her passion and pursue a career in advertising because she believed she would have better opportunities for employment.
Yashvi wanted to work for one of the largest ad agencies in the industry and eventually landed a job at JWT (now Wunderman Thompson) in Mumbai. She was able to support and build upon her previous experiences creating advertisements for big name brands while also gaining experience working in the fast-paced environment of an agency. However, the sparkle wore off after a short time.
“While working at an agency taught me many lessons, what it did teach me is that organizations like these often create a structure where everything gets dumped on teams, and it was not an environment I wanted to remain in for the long term.”
When a Pandemic Changed Everything
Yashvi was one of millions who saw their career plans turned upside down during COVID. She came to Ahmedabad after leaving her job in Bombay. Next came the unexpected: a family member asked her if she wanted to submit an entry into the Radio Mirchi’s RJ Hunt contest; by now, she had already developed confidence through advertising, copywriting, auditioning and content creation. Yashvi threw herself into the competition and became one of its winners and started her own radio show.
Why Radio Mirchi Became Her Real Classroom
Yashvi has fond memories of Radio Mirchi. She feels confident that they continue to provide some of the best opportunities for developing talent in the industry.
“The training and growth opportunities for talent at Mirchi are among the best that I’ve experienced anywhere. The RJ Hunt was also a very well-structured process. One of the aspects I appreciated most was that all the RJs have their own unique voice.”
This experience gave her skills like communication, engaging an audience, creating content, and developing her personal brand, skills she later used as an entrepreneur. However, after a few years of working there, Yashvi was beginning to feel the need to pursue something greater. At the time, she was in her early twenties and realized radio would not be her career for the next ten years. Instead, she discovered that she had an affinity for the digital world.
Building a Business as a Consultant
Most entrepreneurs create a business plan for several years before starting; however, Yashvi’s company evolved by itself over time. Yashvi began working with her first client through social media. The brand was originally in B2B, and the product category was doors, an incredibly hard product to market. Rather than focusing on traditional advertising, Yashvi made it her goal to tell a story about the brand. After serving the first client, it opened the door (pun intended) for Yashvi to begin working as a marketing consultant in a much larger capacity.
Why She Doesn’t Want to Build a Traditional Agency
While many consultants later become a full-fledged agency, Yashvi has made the conscious choice to methodically progress down a different route. Having previously worked in an agency, she found that her passion lies in problem-solving and strategy-building versus managing large teams. Yashvi’s business model is similar to many fractional CMOs as she is essentially serving as a marketing leader to companies in order to help them grow, without having to be a full-time employee.
When a client requires a website, Yashvi finds the right expert; when a client wants to further develop their branding, or requires assistance in defining and executing a campaign, Yashvi assembles a team of experts who can address the client’s needs. Ultimately, Yashvi’s goal is not to sell services, but rather to eliminate disagreement and uncertainty by solving each client’s specific business problem.
Why Marketing Consultants May Be the Future
It has been my experience that many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed when they start their businesses. While they have clear visions of their products and how to run their business, marketing is usually put on hold. Digital marketing continues to evolve as well as become fragmented with respect to all the disciplines that support it, which include; performance marketing, SEO, content creation, influencer marketing, social media, AI tools, websites and branding.
Entrepreneurs need someone to help them make sense of the big picture and do not need 10 different consultants telling them 10 different things. This is where the opportunity exists for marketing consultants and Fractional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). Interestingly enough, Yashvi is starting to see this shift in markets like Dubai as companies are becoming much more open to hiring strategic marketing leaders rather than relying solely on traditional agency models.
Ahmedabad’s Evolving Business Landscape
Yashvi finds Ahmedabad to be at an exciting point in its development after visiting both Dubai and Mumbai. The city has a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial spirit currently, as well as considerable investment capital on hand, especially within the real estate, manufacturing, and food business industries.
“Companies have great products and resources,” said Yashvi, “but marketing has too often been seen as an afterthought. Fortunately, that’s changing now, especially since the younger generations have begun to join their family businesses.”
Second-generation entrepreneurs will be leading this charge because they are technologically savvy and well versed in content creation, social media use, and personal branding compared with their predecessors.
“I frequently advise business leaders to step in front of the video camera because, at the end of the day, people relate to people and not to brands.”
Her belief is that while AI will not displace marketers from their current positions, it will provide a different form of compensation to those marketers who can leverage effective strategies, create compelling stories, and understand how people behave.
Building Squirrels: A Consultancy, Not an Agency
Yashvi runs her consulting firm Squirrels, guided by a completely different philosophy than most consultants. The way Yashvi operates is by defining the business based on how it delivers to clients, rather than on the types of services she provides. This means that instead of asking if a client needs SEO, performance marketing, or content, Yashvi will first want to learn what the client’s goals are as a business before figuring out what services she can help them with. Marketing for Yashvi is not a combination of strategies and tactics; it is a process. An ongoing process that involves continually doing research, experimenting, analyzing the results, and telling a story.
Follow Gujpreneur for more stories of founders and changemakers building the future of Gujarat.
