MY MENTORING STORY WITH CHERIE BLAIR FOUNDATION:

Manica Arumugam,founder of Addiemall, a digital marketing agency for women shares her story on founding and establishing Addiemall and how Cherie Blair Foundation for women played a supporting role by offering mentoring in her entrepreneurial journey…..

‘Ever since I finished my graduation, I wanted to venture out on my own. My parents always insisted that financial independence is mandatory for an individual and I value this advice from them, so I decided to offer a global digital marketing platform exclusively for women called Addiemall. Being a woman myself, I saw that there were only a few options available exclusively to us in this field and I felt that it was absolutely essential to connect my educational degree and my entrepreneurial idea along with a useful concept for women.

My family and friends were by my side throughout when Addiemall was being set up. My parents have been the sole support of my life. They have been friendly and supportive in whatever I undertook to do and they were the ones whom I turned to whenever I faced crisis in my personal and professional life. However, my starting phase was very difficult since I didn’t have a proper idea about functioning on areas like marketing, customer relationship management or revenue models. That’s when I came to know about the Mentoring Women in Business Programme and I was referred by a friend. What attracted me to the Mentoring Programme was the global connectivity among mentors and mentees through the internet.

I was matched with Michelle Bryant from the UK who had work experience of nearly 8 years in a software company. We got along so well at our first meeting and I must say that she was a mentee’s delight, offering me support and guidance on the difficult areas of my business. Michelle was a good friend, a wonderful guide, a source of strength and support when things didn’t work out as planned.

We worked together on shaping the structure and operations of Addiemall and through my mentor I was exposed to a lot of business growth opportunities. The results that we saw were so pleasing and all I could see was a huge difference in the growth of my business.

The most valuable thing about having a mentor is that you can rely back on somebody’s shoulders for your business challenges and problems. My mentor was truly a delight for me offering me rapport, advice and assurance on each and every step. Also the online forum with resources like conversation threads, networking, feedback forms and library materials helped us a lot in working towards the development. I couldn’t have asked for more.

The biggest changes I saw during the last year would be that we added more functionality to our website and we have had success with our Facebook and Twitter pages and our blogging section ‘Divas’. We have also signed up affiliation with a few big marketing companies. We partnered with LeanIn.org, a social networking site for women, and mymobileuni.com, a free online educational destination. We were made their digital marketing partners.

These milestones have given me immense confidence on my path of delivering quality digital marketing solutions to women at affordable price lines. Apart from that, I look forward to learning new things every day about the field that I am in, exploring new trends. My dream now is to open more branches of Addiemall in vital places around the globe like London, Silicon Valley, Sydney, India and Singapore. We want to expand not only geographically, but also technically by setting up regional websites easing local women marketer’s difficulties through online shopping.

My advice to other women entrepreneurs would be to learn more about their work field, the financial infrastructure required for the setup, the market opportunities available to them, and the revenue model before they start venturing on their own. This would make them be prepared for the burdens they face during the start-up stage.

Cherie Blair Foundation adds colour and makes a difference in a lot of women’s lives through its Mentoring Programme. I think each and every mentor and mentee cherish their experience in CBFW. I loved the whole experience that I plan to stay in the Mentoring Programme for another year.’

To Know more or contact Addiemall,

Visit our site : http://addiemall.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/addiemall?ref=hl

Our Twitter page: https://twitter.com/addiemall