Speaker’s Corner: Featuring Marisha Lakhiani, Chief Marketing Officer, Mindvalley
Reviews are always important, don’t get me wrong. I think what’s most important is the level of content. Event organizers need to work with speakers to bring out their best content. I’ve attended a lot of events where the content was too generic or rather basic, and the speakers didn’t deliver their best, says Marisha Lakhiani, Chief Marketing Officer, Mindvalley, while in conversation with Ranjana Konatt, Managing Editor, Eventible.
How would you describe Mindvalley and its contribution to online learning?
Mindvalley is empowering people to be their best self, with education that really matters. We enable them to unlock their greatest potential and live a more fulfilling life. We all go to university and get a degree in the hopes that it will allow us to have a better quality of life. But the truth is most of us land up in jobs that leave us unfulfilled and yearning for more. When you sign up with Mindvalley you learn how to get the most out of your life. You’re learning not only how to be a better human but how to leave a massive footprint behind in the world. You’re learning how to be a great leader, have meaningful relationships, communicate effectively, be a better parent, get fit and healthy, and so on. You don’t learn any of these things in school or college.
Tell us more about the concept – ‘Unified School.’ Elaborate on the need for an integrated approach to the learning experience.
Our students are from all walks of life, different countries, they speak different languages, and they have different religions. What really unifies us is our personal values – to be better every day and to make a positive impact in the world. It’s a unified school because we welcome everyone, and we connect our students globally. We have 15 million students across 192 countries and we have built learning communities so they all learn together, grow together and transform their culture-scape.
Owing to COVID-19 and the increasing demand for businesses and solutions to be taken online, what is market response Mindvalley has been receiving? What solutions are you actively solving?
Mindvalley gave people an avenue to escape the trials and tribulations of the world by keeping them connected and elevated during the pandemic. While everyone in the world was just focusing on the pandemic and talking just about doom and gloom, Mindvalley was focused on what happens next – how can we make people emerge stronger than before, and how can we keep an isolated community more connected than ever before.
We’ve been receiving tonnes of love from our community. We have a page called stories.mindvalley.com where students submit their feedback and we found that during the last 12 months, more and more people have been doing our programs and focusing on self-development.
To give back to our community we did two things. We produced more online programs and organized more live Zoom training sessions that allowed people to escape reality and learn new skills. We asked our community members what they wanted to learn and who they were from, and we made it happen. We brought inspirational leaders to invoke a paradigm shift and bring the topic back to personal growth, positive mindset and future thinking so they can get inspired and inspire others to be the change.
We even created our own social network to connect our 15 million members so they don’t feel separate or isolated during the pandemic. On this app they get to meet people, learn from them, share their own learnings, and find the support they need.
The ultimate goal is to deliver value to our community and help them elevate and we have seen some remarkable results from people starting their own businesses, rebuilding their relationships, overcoming depression to clearing their debt.
What is your biggest objective as a speaker?
I want people to be outliers. I don’t want people to be like everyone else, I want to be that catalyst that makes them see that they are really capable of and achieve greatness beyond belief. I want to be able to incept their beliefs and invoke action so they can be bolder in their vision and set ridiculous goals. It makes me so happy when someone writes to me and says they got so inspired, they took action.
Could you share with us the points of discussion (the input that you provided) during the panel(s) at the Ad World Conference?
At Ad World I spoke about how all the big companies like Netflix, Amazon and Mindvalley are focusing on experiential marketing, because it allows us to constantly improve our marketing efforts and conversions rates to get better results without having to invest more marketing dollars. So many businesses don’t do enough of this, but the ones that do are seeing amazing results. A lot of the big ideas you see in Mindvalley have started from an experiment, and have been validated with data. In the talk, I told the audience how I’m using experimentation to growth-hack Mindvalley and I urged them to try the same.
As a leader, what are the factors both professional and personal that drive you? What keeps you going?
There are four things that drive me as a leader:
- Building future leaders: I really care about my team and their growth. I organize rapid feedback sessions, training, development programs and give them different opportunities to shine. It really motivates me when they get recognized for their work and get promoted.
- Solving problems: I love dealing with things that are unfamiliar because it forces me to think beyond what I know and this serves as a great way for me to learn and grow myself.
- Leave a legacy: There is already enough evidence in the world to show the positive impact of women’s leadership. Women have successfully built and run countries and cities, economies and formidable institutions. I want to be able to empower and nurture future women leaders so they can conquer the world.
- Building humanity+ businesses: Building and scaling businesses that have a net positive impact on the world. I get a sense of fulfillment in helping businesses that are creating a positive impact on the environment and on society.
In your opinion, do digital events give you a similar level of feedback/result vis-à-vis the live versions? What would you say were the biggest pros and cons of both formats? Which do you prefer?
I do prefer the virtual formats. It is time saving and cost saving. If we as event organizers can reduce the cost of hosting the event, we can afford to make it more accessible to everyone. That’s a massive pro.
The only con is that people are always multitasking, so they are never really a 100% present. This means they are not really getting the full benefit as they would from the physical event.
Eventible.com is a review platform specially catering to B2B events. Given how review-driven our lives have become today, do you think reviews will bring in a level of transparency to the events industry? Would you rely on event reviews from other speakers if you had to make a speaking decision?
Personally, not really, I choose events to speak at depending on how niche the event is and who the other speakers are. Reviews are always important, don’t get me wrong. I think what’s most important is the level of content. Event organizers need to work with speakers to bring out their best content. I’ve attended a lot of events where the content was too generic or rather basic, and the speakers didn’t deliver their best.
Finally, do you have a favorite mocktail or drink? We’d be delighted to know.
My favorite drink is an elderflower and grapefruit gin and tonic.
About Marisha: Marisha is a marketing innovator with a proven track record in driving the strategic vision and tactical execution of that vision. Her forte is in combining the art, science, and technology of marketing to deliver cutting edge solutions that put growth and scale on autopilot. At Mindvalley, she is responsible for $150Million in revenue and for managing all the key marketing functions including product launches, product marketing, membership, B2B, localization, performance marketing, creatives team, marketing tech, and all brand channels. She is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, advisor, and investor, that’s extremely passionate about scaling businesses and driving innovation and growth.
To review the Ad World Conference 2021, click here.
