Build Your Brand & Grow Your Business By Becoming An Authority In Your Industry
Our dynamic duo Mayooran Senthilmani and his wife Labosshy Mayooran are partners both personally and professionally. Mayooran is a Group Finance Director for a London firm where he manages £70 Million turnover businesses with over 1000 employees, while Labosshy is a Research Analyst by profession with experience in clinical research. Together, the couple founded the highly acclaimed DVG STAR Ltd. Here we find out what has driven these inspiring individuals towards success and how they expertly balance business and their family life.
Mayooran, you have a solid background in finance and Labosshy, yours in biomedical sciences. How did your childhood or previous experiences help you become involved in this industry?
Mayooran — I started my career at KPMG in 2006 where I had the opportunity to get the exposure in several industries. Currently I oversee ten different businesses. By working very closely with the CEO from an early stage, I was given the chance to involve myself in all business functions and participate in the decision making process. I have always been willing to learn and develop myself; I have actively involved myself in building the company to reach seven and eight figure turnovers by facing and overcoming various challenges.
There have been times when tough decisions had to be made and I had to take the correct action. Having been through so many situations where I had to push myself to my limits, I feel that I have built myself to be more adaptable to change, able to cope in tough situations and able to come up with solutions. All these opportunities have allowed me to learn valuable skills that I could apply in any industry.
Labosshy — Having a solid foundation in terms of education [MRes at Imperial College London and BSc at Queen Mary’s University of London] has definitely helped. Throughout my childhood my parents always got me involved in various extra-curricular activities such as Bharatanatiyam [South-Indian classical dancing], Veena [South-Indian instrument] and even sports such as netball. In my school days I always kept myself busy with activities such as the Duke of Edinburgh Expedition and by joining the Combined Cadet Force, all of which taught me the organisational and practical skills I enforce in my everyday life today. During my sixth form years I became involved in the Young Enterprise scheme in which we as a group started up our own business from scratch. We sold handmade crafts in malls and fairs, and were taught the ins and outs of starting a business and the finance involved. I took on the role of Operations Director and I’m sure all the skills I gained from the project definitely helped me to build my skills as an entrepreneur.
Your list of achievements is impressive and surely inspirational, but what is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
Labosshy — To keep on succeeding we all face failures in life. As an entrepreneur, one of the lessons I have learnt is that not everyone will relate to you. Rather than taking it as a failure to understand the human brain I have learnt to adapt to situations and to relate more with the wants and needs of our clients. Sometimes the things we provide may not necessarily be for them so we need to customise our packages for each individual.
Mayooran — As an entrepreneur, I don’t see anything as a failure. I take it as a challenge and an opportunity to come up with better solutions. That’s how we started — to help other people to publish their book first as a hobby, then as a business, then online courses, then business events and seminars and so on. We also got the great privilege of helping more than 10 kids to publish their own books through our DVG STAR foundation. We are currently working on several more business ideas.
What inspired you to found DVG STAR Ltd and DVG STAR Publishing Company?
Mayooran — The realisation that anything is possible, came to me when I attended a conference in 2012 where Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker. The inspiration from that day drove me to reconnect with New York Times Best-Selling author Raymond Aaron, with whom I published my first book ‘Live Your Life’. Since then I have gone onto publish four other books of my own, of which several have reached Amazon Bestseller status in a short period of time.
During my journey I came across several authors who were struggling to get their books published and to become an authority in their field. That’s when Labosshy and I decided to form DVG STAR Ltd as a company to help others achieve their dreams of becoming a published author. The main concept of DVG STAR is that if you have a dream, anything is possible by creating a vision and setting a goal. Most of our clients have come to us through word of mouth, and every one of our clients has been thoroughly satisfied with our services and has gone on to tell a lot more people about us. The reason why clients choose us is for our quality of service and the speed in responses, as well as our unique angle of giving our authors’ 100% control and ownership of their book. After becoming published authors, a few of them became stuck as to what to do next, so we came up with a solution to convert their book into an online course. We are both instructors on Udemy an online learning platform, where we have published several courses together. Our courses currently have over 14,000 students. We then went on to give them a platform to launch their books at our events, as well as helping them to grow their business through networking and joint ventures. We also offer speaking opportunities at our events to brand themselves.
What is one key strategy that has helped all of your businesses to flourish?
Both — One key strategy is to identify a problem that people face and to bring the solution to help them overcome the situation by working with them to reach their goals. Each individual is different and we customise our services according to their needs.
Labosshy, your award winning book ‘Mumpreneurs — How to Juggle the Struggle’ was written after you became a parent and wanted to have more time for your children while running your business. Do you see more mums than ever taking this path?
Labosshy — I definitely see a lot more women taking the path of running their own businesses, as it provides more flexibility in terms of working hours as well as getting to spend those precious times with their children — you can’t get time back when it’s gone! I have found that ‘Mumpreneurs’ are more on the rise now as women are becoming a lot more independent, and with social media and technology at our fingertips we are open to many opportunities. You can work from wherever you are and that’s the beauty of what we do. The connections you make are worldwide and it is so much easier to connect and talk with people than ever before. By utilising the technology we have we can be capable of achieving anything we want.
Mayooran, your book ‘Live Your Life’ was very successful and you received a letter from her Majesty The Queen. How was this experience and what prompted you to write a book?
Mayooran — It was such a great honour to receive a letter from Her Majesty The Queen. By networking and learning from a number of very successful people, I realised that I needed to write a book as a starting point to brand myself and reach higher in life. I did not know where I would go by writing the book; I only knew I would get more personal branding and visibility. But after becoming an author, transformational changes happened in my life; I have developed lots of skills such as positive thinking, learning how to use goal-setting techniques to achieve success and learning to connect with the universe to achieve what I want. I am very grateful for my success in education (BSc, MSc, ACMA and Doctorate student), my professional career and my family life. My mission is to inspire millions of people to achieve success in their career and personal life.
What is one habit that makes you both more productive as entrepreneurs and as parents?
Both — Mindfulness. Live in the present moment; enjoy whatever we do with 100% commitment and always be positive. Help others and not to expect anything in return. Spend quality time with family and kids. Set goals, give back to society and help others. Be the positive role model to be successful in business and family life.
What are your plans for the future, either professionally or personally?
Mayooran — In my professional life my plan is to develop myself to CFO position and then CEO role in my business career, and to grow DVG STAR LTD to the next level.
Labosshy — With DVG STAR, my plan is to create multiple businesses to expand globally. In terms of family we both want to be ideal role models as parents for our children to guide them in the right direction and to show them that anything can be possible if you set your mind to it. We want to help them to identify their own talents and to excel in their career and life.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to young and aspiring entrepreneurs?
Come up with your own digital product that has the ability to help thousands of people to solve a specific problem.
To find out more please visit www.dvgstar.com or email us at info@dvgstar.com
