Strategic Consulting

Chahat Aggarwal started her consulting agency Impact Study to help businesses grow their brand, launch products and grow their revenue. While she initially started her business to help level the playing field for companies that couldn't compete with big organizations - that hasn't stopped her from working with some big players. She counts one of her biggest successes helping grow a local hospitality brand from a $250 million valuation to $10 billion. Now that's some serious growth. Aggarwal's story, as told to The Story Exchange 1,000+ Stories Project: I noticed that startups and SMEs are unable to compete with big organizations, thus creating a monopoly in business and limited options for the consumer. While startups spend a lot of money on their tech and product creation, their go-to-market strategy or growth strategy is not quite sorted. It is understandable as it cost big bucks to hire a strategic consultant to define your brand, marketing, and business goals to achieve your targets. But, if no-one knows about their innovative product and services, how will people access it? I am a big believer in fair-play and opportunities, this is why I started Impact Study, to provide strategic consulting within a budget for Start-ups and SMEs. We work with companies to help achieve their business, marketing, and growth objectives; that provides people access to multiple products and benefits, as a result of creating a free market. Success to me means building and maintaining balance in my life. It’s about living an authentic life full of passion and curiosity. It’s important to work hard and accomplish your goals, but it’s critical to remember to take care of yourself and your loved ones. It’s not about limiting yourself to just one task; instead, it is about doing something purposeful. It is about living your best life and in return leaving the world a little bit better. Success is having NO regrets but lots of learnings, it’s about aligning your integrity and values, despite what the world expects from you. When you are true to yourself, constantly working towards improvement, without dwelling over loss - that is success. My biggest success in business has been to take a local brand from the valuation of $250 million to $10 billion and turning it into a global brand. It was a hospitality brand that was identified with customer complaints, instead of brand awareness. With my instinct to see potential in things and passion for solving complex problems, I knew we were a perfect fit! My responsibility was to set the right brand expectations, increase brand awareness, and visibility. Once those tasks were accomplished I worked towards the brand growth and expansion strategy. This included building new products, exploring various markets, and launching these products in over 80 countries. There were multiple challenges I faced during the process, but the fact that I could help the brand reach its full potential was special to me. It isn't easy when people judge your work abilities because you are a young woman. Even though I have proved multiple times the brilliant strategy skills I possess across multiple industries, the most common inquiry is ordinarily about my age and the fact that I am a woman. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it is hard to grow your business when people are too focused on your looks and age instead of wanting to know about your experience, capabilities and how can you help them scale their business. I continue to work towards my goal with perseverance and optimism persuading people to focus on ideas or proposals instead of where it is coming from. By implementing my talent for something bigger than myself, I believe I can break the norms and stand for what is significant. My Mother and my father are my role models. The life lessons I have learned from them is the reason why I am a positive person with a will to make this world a better place. I learned from my mother the art of a balanced life, she taught me that I don't need to obsess over one thing instead, succeed in both (professional and personal life) with kindness, without the fear of making any mistakes. My father encouraged me to dream bigger, he says that no-one is too weak to create an impact in the world. He taught me never to see gender, race, color, age because these things should not define our actions or limit us from making this world a better place. Share your story! Check out our Advice + Tips for entrepreneurs starting-up Watch our latest videos Subscribe to our podcast

Strategic Consulting

She’s Using Her Business Instincts to Help Brands Expand and Grow

The Story Exchange

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