Mission Rise Connect: How the Activation team took the offline Mission Rise to new digital heights during the lockdown
Meesho resellers have always been the backbone of Meesho, and lockdown or not, our true north has not wavered from Making Resellers Successful.
Through 2018 and 2019 we celebrated our resellers by hosting Mission Rise Women Entrepreneur Summits across the country. It is more or less a red carpet event for our resellers who, during these day-long celebrations — get rewarded for their good and hard work, get to engage in games and other activities, interact with the reseller community, and get to share their stories with the world.
As Srinivasan Shanmugam, Event Manager at Meesho, puts it, “Mission Rise events are Meesho’s way of encouraging, rewarding, and acknowledging our resellers and their growth. We have hosted over 25+ Mission Rise events in the last couple of years and they have proved to be an extremely effective way of telling our resellers that we are rooting for them.”
From offline to online
But the scenario changed completely when the lockdown came into effect in March 2020. The Activation and Community team, that had been travelling around the country conducting Mission Rise events in cities big and small, suddenly found their scope becoming limited in reaching out to Meesho entrepreneurs. There was no way but to pivot and go digital. If an offline event could not happen anymore, then Meeshoites were determined to take it online. And so, the idea for Mission Rise Connect was born.
Within less than two weeks of our initial discussion about it, on March 29, 2020, we launched Season 1 Episode 1 of Mission Rise Connect. The team truly exhibited Speed Over Perfection in this scenario, despite our various limitations. Our major hurdle was to work in synergy with each other while working from our homes in different parts of the country, with limited resources.
entrepreneurs. This drove us to succeed.
“This new digital platform had to do more than just keep the resellers’ morale up during the lockdown, but also help them in a tangible way. “Moving online from offline was a huge jump, especially because it has never been done before,” relates Creative Producer and Strategist Sonakshi Tiwari. She adds, “But, we were adamant in building Mission Rise Connect as a bridge between Team Meesho and Meesho Resellers. We did not just want to say that we are here for you, but we wanted to listen to their problems, understand how the lockdown has affected their lives and their families, and offer them solutions.”
And so, the team conducted myriads of surveys and realised that the resellers had many questions regarding the dos and don’ts during the lockdown. Moreover, the current situation which not only demanded that they stay home, but also that their school going children stay home was taking a toll on their mental health. Mission Rise Connect addressed all this by incorporating interactions with physiologists and psychologists as sessions.
Overcoming challenges
Connectivity issues and communication issues only made for the tip of the iceberg, but we were all clear on the fact that — it had to be done, no matter what! After all, Mission Rise was our team’s brand that we built ground up, and more importantly these events have earned goodwill from so many Meesho
Right by resellers’ side
Sonakshi elaborates, “The resellers also had many queries to ask regarding business as well, and so we had many members of the leadership team, starting with our CEO and Co Founder Vidit Aatrey stepping in to respond to them in a segment called Ask Vidit. We eventually incorporated beauty segments, games and so one, because we want our resellers to know that we are right beside them in their time of need.”
The thoughtfulness and the sensitivity has certainly paid off, because we have had nearly one lakh resellers tuning in for Mission Rise Connect, which is not a crowd we could have accommodated during an offline Mission Rise event. “We started off Season 1 in one language, and by Season 2, which was launched on June 14, 2020, we were doing it in seven different languages. As we continue to explore newer content formats, our current focus is to ensure that we widen this reach and get more and more viewers onboard.”
Mission Rise has always been a collaborative event supported by multiple orgs and this rings true today too after it has evolved into Mission Rise Connect. We have done 2 seasons of Mission Rise Connect so far, and every single collaborator exhibited the core value of Company>Team>Individual to make both of these a success.
Sleepless nights and working weekends
Sonakshi, who was Meesho’s resident host during Season 1 of Mission Rise Connect reveals how her team has been working 24*7. “I am not just hosting the events, but also getting on calls with resellers, alerting them about the new essential categories such as Mandi and Kirana that are available to resell, and interacting with them about business in general as well. And because Mission Rise Connects are held on Sundays, I haven’t had a weekend in a while either. But, when a reseller thanks me for helping them out, or shares their story and how Mission Rise is the first place where they felt recognised I feel like all the hard work is worth it.”
This is not to say that the team does not miss interacting with our entrepreneurs face to face — I’m sure the team would also agree on this. There are so many things to learn from our entrepreneurs and I am not just talking about business — life lessons too. Everyone has an inspiring story to share and honestly I’m quite eager to get back on the road and hear those stories once again.
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