Manish Balani :- From a Chartered Accountant to the face of Linkedin in India

Hello, My Name is Manish Balani and I am a Chartered Accountant and presently work as Vice President and Business Head – GST at VAYANA NETWORK

I was recently featured by Linkedin in their #InitTogether Campaign.

Last Year,  My photo splashed across billboards, metro wraps, and bus stops at prime locations in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi?

You might have seen walls painted with my photos on all prominent Airports of India.

LinkedIn’s #InItTogether brand campaign that went live on TV, during IPL 2019 had me featured on the 15-second TV spots during Ad breaks

I was promoted across the LinkedIn platform’s official online channels on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Now, what’s interesting to note here is In spite of being a CA, I don’t do anything related to Accounts, Finance, Audit, and Taxation. Instead, I do Corporate Sales and Business & Product Strategy.

My Story might inspire many people and help them to understand how I faced various challenges after the death of my father at a very early age and how I am following my passion instead of doing “What I should have done as per Society Norms”. 

I decided to do CA because that would not require much investment/money as may be required in other professional courses or for doing an MBA from a reputed institute. Since I belong to a business background, I chose to do what other traditional CAs shy away from doing i.e., Sales.

Sales, Business, Strategy, and Product Management were probably in my blood as I understand #Dhandha and its intricacies.

Today, I have carved a niche for myself and I am probably one of the very few Chartered Accountants in India who is doing sales, business strategy, and product management as a part of his job profile.

My Advice to all: 

Always carve out a Niche for yourself, being Different from Others is the Key.

Do not be afraid of being Ambitious. Ambition is something that will take you to places you have never imagined.

You Must Know Sales (say this 3 times), To me, Sales is holy. Sales is noble. Sales is the fabric of life no matter where you work and What you do!

Similarly, my advice to CAs would be:-Don’t shy away from Business roles, Sales, Strategy, etc. Until and unless you can sell something, you cannot excel in your career. Remember, all successful people in the world are great salesmen.

To advance in your career, you have to become the Profit Center and not be a Cost center.

Me and LinkedIn :

I always had that knack of writing (probably from my school days itself), and I started writing on LinkedIn, a few years ago. Just like every child goes through these 3 stages, I believe I also underwent these three steps during my LinkedIn journey:- 1) Crawling 2) Walking 3) Running

Once, I understood the power of LinkedIn and how it can help you, I became all the more active on LinkedIn and used my thought leadership to create a personal brand for myself as well as for Scouting B2B leads for Strategic Alliances. Seeing my LinkedIn profile and activities on LinkedIn, people have offered me the following opportunities: –

1) Delivered a Keynote Presentation in a Startup event

2) Became a Panel Expert with one of Rajasthan’s biggest incubator.

3) My Story was featured by various agencies.

4) Last but not the least, got an opportunity to get featured as the face of the brand “LinkedIn” in India through their #inittogether campaign

I would suggest that people should not only consider LinkedIn for landing a job, they should also use it as a medium to create a personal brand for themselves.

LinkedIn helps you to create your network and as the saying goes “Your Network is your Net Worth”. 

Personal Branding :-

I believe Personal Branding is the most important thing in today’s world. People don’t buy products or avail services from those whom they don’t know. If you want to be known, you need to work on your personal branding.

Building a brand is telling the world you’re a ROCK STAR.

Making yourself visible, available, accessible and owning your space is showing the world you are the ONE.

My personal branding revolves around :- GST, Product Strategy, Sales Strategy and LinkedIn.

Here are the links to the same:-

LinkedIn’s Official Page on LinkedIn:- https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6453848568422760448

LinkedIn’s official  channel (Garnered >4 Million Views): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg18-Rb8e4k

Thanks !

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