Jungle Connect – Samar Singla w. Samar Singh Sheikhawat

It’s another episode of Jungle Connect, where the CEO of Jungle Works is in conversation with the very known and experienced person who can rule any marketing with his brilliant mind and communication, Mr.Samar Singh Sheikhawat. Marketing is complex and contains a lot of risks at different levels, whether an executive or being a CMO of a huge company, marketing will always have it’s complexity. So as to have a clarification on some of the marketing myths, Samar Singla is in talks with a person who has played multi roles and discusses the life of being an avid marketer. 

About Samar Singh Sheikhawat

Samar has been working in the industry for the past 32 years, which gives him immense knowledge on how to be with this fast paced life of the corporate world. He has worked with different MNCs and has a brilliant portfolio that can make anyone dream of working hard, starting from being the area sales manager at cadbury to brooke bond tea, from being a brand manager of energiser battery to a marketing and sales controller at dabur india ltd., from a general manager marketing at pepsico india to a vp marketing at spencer’s retail ltd. to being the CMO of united breweries ltd. and finally having his own start-up of independent business consultant. He founded his own business transformation company and also a marketing services company. He is running his new business now and after so many years he is able to run the marketing business marathon once again to compete in this complexed environment. 

What’s a CMO’s day?

Let’s have a sneak peak on how a CMO’s day looks! As per Samar Singh, a CMO holds a lot of pressure on his head and he not just is a chief marketing officer but also a chief growth officer because now the time has evolved and strategies change so a CMO is equally responsible for the growth of the company. This job role makes a CMO a part of every team whether it’s sales, finance, hr, supply chain or governance. According to him, marketing is the only outward looking function that is the interface between the brand, it’s product or services and the outside world. Some of the responsibilities of being a CMO: 

1. Being the voice of the customers, where you would always know what your customers want and what/how you should deliver. 
2. Delivering growth to the brand whether in terms of brand health indicator, revenue, market share or new consumers. Making right use of the money earned by the sales team and allocating them rightly.
3. Change your mind with time, where you move ahead with the growth of time to bring the change that the world needs and so does your brand. As no growth is good without a change. 

Can you have a start-up business with less money? 

According to Samar Singh, one can definitely own a start-up business with less money initially but later in the time when the growth prevails it’s better to invest some more. Also, considering the fact and keeping in mind that FOCUS ON VALUE, VALUATION WILL COME. Create a brand that has the best quality product and smooth services so as to have the best value of the same. 

Samar Singh discusses his 5 rules of BRANDING: 

As per our speaker, he follows his 5 rules when it comes to branding any business. These rules define your brand and answer some questions that add value to your product. Branding is a vast topic but once followed with these rules, a brand can be defined. 

1. Clarity: A brand needs to have clarity about them and it’s product/services. Answering some of the questions like who are you,what is the purpose of the brand’s existence, who you are not, etc. Provide a clarification on your business model, by answering: 

WHO AM I? 

WHAT DO I DO? 

HOW DO I CHANGE YOUR LIFE? 

2. Relevance: A brand should define its relevance to the customer where they inform them about how important their product is to them. 

3. Differentiation: Proving a brand’s uniqueness by showing what you got that no one else has or proving that why are you irreplaceable. All of it can define your brand’s uniqueness. 

4. Presence: Explain and define a brand’s presence that shows how available your product is in the market, because what you see is what you buy!

5. Engagement: How engaging your brand or your product is with the customers or for the customers. 

Towards the end, as per Samar Singh Sheikhawat whoever wants to be an entrepreneur and feels the burden of marketing then there is always room for improvement and it being the most important, compound and most growing function of any brand one should take their chances at the right time but never step back from taking advice or assistance from your surroundings. Because what you get taught by the experience is concrete and everlasting. 

For the complete interview, you can watch it on our Youtube channel, and don’t forget to like and subscribe to the video for more updates from Jungle Works!