90% of Modicare’s business is online: Samir Modi

In 1996, Samir Modi launched Modicare Ltd with the vision of giving ‘Azadi’ to every Indian and making their dreams come true. Modicare is one of India’s leading direct selling companies that pioneered the direct selling revolution in India. Today, the company has over 50 lakh direct sellers and 300,000+ new direct sellers joining each month. Modicare offers over 275 products, 600+ SKUs across 12 categories – Personal Care, Wellness, Skin Care, Color Cosmetics, Food & Beverage, Homecare, Auto Care, Laundry Care, Technology, Jewellery, Watches, and Agriculture. It has a national presence through its 9,000+ distribution points and over 50 Modicare centres. 

The company has been constantly expanding their portfolio and in just the last 3-4 months have launched more than 60 products. With health and safety assuming huge importance in everyone’s life today, Modicare’s aim is to provide products that enable the customers to lead fuller and more secure lives during the pandemic and beyond. The company launched 10 new Wellness products in December alone, and numerous other products are slated for launch in 2021. 

In conversation with Adgully, Samir Modi, Founder and MD, Modicare Limited, speaks at length about the various strategies adopted by the company to meet the challenges of COVID-19 disruptions, as well as the future trends and how Modicare is very positive and excited to launch various new products in the year ahead. 

Your ‘Khushiyaan Unlimited’ campaign is narrating real-life success stories. What was the objective of the campaign? How did you arrive at the creative thought for that campaign? How effective has the campaign been and how has it worked for brand Modicare?

Providing freedom to every Indian, or as we say Azadi, has been the guiding principle of brand Modicare since its very inception. With 10,000-plus new consultants joining every day, our focus has been to create a platform that enables every Indian to fulfil their dreams. It is with this vision that we have been able to grow by 10x times in the last 4 years.

Being a consultant with Modicare provides you the unencumbered freedom to pursue and realise not only your own dreams, but also the dreams and aspirations of your family. After almost 25 successful years in the business, we have countless such Azadi stories, which are extraordinary tales of ordinary people who have achieved phenomenal success and completely transformed their lives by partnering with us. These are the stories of what a person can achieve with sheer grit and strength, and they need to be taken to the world to inspire many others in their pursuit of Azadi. This is what led us to the #KhushiyaanUnlimited campaign. The three films portray Azadi stories of three very different individuals who come from different walks of life – a homemaker, a millennial, and a middle-aged man who left his regular 9 to 5 job to become a Modicare champion. We wanted to showcase that anyone, regardless of their gender, age, profession, or educational background, can be successful if only they dare to dream big. 

Who are you targeting with your campaign? What is the process and criteria you follow for selecting your right business partners? Besides the awareness campaign do you adopt any other promotional tools to woo new business partners? What are the compelling reasons that will excite someone to be a business partner?

As a company, our vision is to enable every Indian to fulfil their dreams, even the ones that they never thought could come true. As long as you have a dream, as long as you have that fire in your belly and that longing for freedom from not just financial restraints, but all other limitations in life, we are here to guide you into realising your true potential. And through these Azadi stories, we wanted to showcase that dreams do come true with Modicare. Those who have dreams should follow them and not settle for anything less than they deserve. It could be a homemaker looking to start her own business, or a middle aged man unhappy with his monotonous day job, or a teacher looking to earn some extra money to provide better opportunities for her children, or even a retired person looking for a fresh start in life.

Modicare business opportunity is for everyone over the age of 18 years. There is no qualification requirement, and it is a business that does not even need any seed capital. There is no joining fee, and is an easy business to start. We hand hold our consultants right from the time they join us and through their journey with us. We organise regular business and product trainings, opportunity meetings, recognition events, and keep them motivated by sharing success stories. Today, our compensation plan, the Samir Modi Azadi Plan Unlimited, is one of the highest paying plans in the country. Not only do the consultants earn with Modicare, but through the plan bonuses they can buy cars, houses and also go on foreign trips. We empower our consultants, help them to realise their full potential and make their dreams come true. 

In direct selling and multi-level marketing you need to continuously build your reach through your partners. What is the kind of reach you have today and how deep have you penetrated in the various markets in India?

Direct selling is all about building and sustaining relationships. We, at Modicare, are one big family, and we have worked over the years towards building our family and ensuring every member is taken care of. Today, after almost 25 years in the business, we are one of India’s leading direct selling companies with a network of over 50 lakh consultants and 9,000+ distribution points spread across the country. We have 3 lakh-plus consultants who join us each month. We would not have achieved these milestones in such a short span of time had it not been for the relentless support, hard work and exemplary achievements of our consultants and the Modicare team. 

You are currently present in 12 categories with over 275 products. Do you plan to expand your categories? Which are the categories that are generating sizeable revenues?

We currently have presence spanning across 12 categories, including Personal Care, Wellness, Skin Care, Food & Beverage, and Homecare, to name a few. We are constantly expanding our portfolio and in just the last 3-4 months have launched more than 60 products. We want to give products that our consultants and consumers can use every day not just from dawn to dusk but dawn to dawn.

COVID-19 has completely disrupted the world as we knew it. People’s priorities have changed, and so have their needs. Health and safety have assumed huge importance in everyone’s lives, and rightfully so. Consumers are taking every precautionary measure to ensure the safety of their loved ones. Keeping these shifts in mind, we have been focusing on Health and Wellness, Personal Care and F&B categories. Our aim is to provide products that enable them to lead fuller and more secure lives during the pandemic and beyond. Every day, we are working towards expanding our product offerings and rolling out new products. In fact, we launched 10 new Wellness products in the month of December alone, and numerous other products are slated for launch in 2021. 

Your business partners are your biggest asset to promote your brand. How did you engage with them during the pandemic and what was the modus operandi deployed to reach your products to your end customers?

Onset of the pandemic threw the entire world into a state of complete chaos. We were all going through an unprecedented crisis, and honestly, nobody knew how to even react initially. For us, our immediate concern was to ensure the well-being of consultants and employees. More than anything else, it was paramount that we stayed connected with them, and put all their restlessness and insecurities about the situation at ease.

For us, the in-person meetings, recruiting and training have always been instrumental in building a great relationship with our consultants. With the Lockdown in place, in-person meetings were certainly impacted, however, we displayed agility and ingenuity, and swiftly adopted the social and digital media platforms to connect with our consultants and keep the momentum going. We, along with our consultants, conducted over 2,000 online meetings a day. We also enabled digital tools like Chatbot Roshini, Instant Messaging Catalogue, and Modicare Online Training Academy to ensure constant communication with our consultants. Even during the Lockdown, our team made sure that we adhered to the Government regulations and delivered essential products from our portfolio. Our Distributor Point owners have been the silent warriors through it all, who ensured timely delivery of orders to our consultants, even during the Lockdown.

The pandemic has severely impacted the job market and livelihood of many. People are now looking for opportunities and more secure avenues of income. With our meticulous systems aligned with the new normal, we are more prepared than ever before to take on bigger challenges and scale newer heights. 

How have you been leveraging digital and the social media? Influencer marketing has been playing an important role to promote brands online. Are you using this social media vehicle to intensely engage with your audience?

Digital and social media are incredibly important today for every business, regardless of the category in which they operate. In fact, the pandemic has actually propelled the entire digital revolution. Today, even the elderly have become tech savvy and are adept at shopping online for all their requirements. 90% of our business is online.

We have a presence across all social media platforms, and the brand has high engagement. Recently, we undertook two influencer campaigns for our new product launches – #KachiGhaniPakkaPromise and #TooGoodToBeMatte for Soul Flavours Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil and Urban Color London Too Good To Be Matte Lipstick, respectively. Both the campaigns were well received by our target audience.

We have several plans and initiatives in the pipeline to keep both our consultants and customers engaged through the digital medium. 

What’s going to be your strategy to grow in these times? Overall, how will the market shape up in the new normal and what kind of growth drivers are looking to fuel your growth? Any special goals set for the silver Jubilee anniversary?

This has been a challenging year for all of us as we navigated through the pandemic.  However, it is my guiding philosophy of “Soch Badlo, Khudko Badlo, Duniya Badlo” that stood me in good stead. Despite the challenges we have been able to grow consistently this year, as we adapted with agility to the ever-changing business environment. Digital played a key role in this growth, and even in 2021 digital transformation will continue to be our top priority.

Our focus is to give the digital capabilities in the hands of our consultants, enhance their user experience and simplify their business. With our enhanced digital capabilities aligned with the new normal, we are confident to take on even bigger challenges going forward.

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