Following is an Interview between The Business Fame Magazine and SHEEBA SEENIRAJA, Entrepreneur in the multiple sector.
Q. Brief us about the CEO/Founder of the company.
SHEEBA SEENIRAJA-The founder & CEO of LIARA -is a Scientist, Educationalist, Philanthropist, Medical professional, Psychologist, Life Coach, Independent Entrepreneur, Artist, Musician, Interior designer and Holistic Beauty Therapist who was born at Pondicherry and had an extensive career path that traversed across many countries. She started her career as a finance manager and evolved into multiple avatars with unique skill sets that can’t be replicated by anyone else. From being born as a small-town girl to becoming a world-famous entrepreneur , Sheeba proved herself to be a strong woman who is persistent, passionate, loving, open-minded and tenacious right from early ages. She treats obstacles as steppingstones on her way to success, learns from setbacks, and never stops until she achieves her goal!
She always comes up with creative solutions, stays positive even during hard times and looks so impressive that little girls want to be like her when they grow up. She is self-motivated, self-driven, compassionate with others and an understanding boss but never lets anyone walk all over her. She knows what she wants and puts the amount of hard work into her projects in order to get the desired results. She doesn’t pretend to be weak to make others do her job for her, but she delegates tasks when necessary.
No wonder that this astute and benevolent woman had been awarded as “The pride of the nation”!
Q. Being a successful Business leader, what difficulties and challenges do you face? What keeps you motivated?
“Just as most women contend with a wide range of challenges in business, I too faced major challenges like
- Fighting to defy stereotype social expectations.
- Accessing funds
- Struggle to be taken seriously and accepted
- Owning our accomplishments
- Building a support network for my mission
- Balancing business and family
- Coping with business stress
- Sustaining the business through uncertainties
- Carving our niche in a toughest market
Being a survivor of various auto-immune diseases including hemophilia, multiple tumors and Barrette’s esophagus that threaten my life every now and then, I encourage myself to work through the moments of self-doubt that every business owner faces and not wait for anyone to help me overcome tough situations. I never explained my weakness to anyone as our society had never been female-friendly when it comes to business even in this modern times. Female entrepreneur’s visions are always viewed as mirages by others and the society is never ready to accept and acknowledge their view points.
The pandemic is the biggest backlash that I ever faced in my entrepreneurship journey. The fortress I built with several sleepless nights and hard work came to a stand-still all of a sudden due to the nationwide lockdown that prevailed for months together and is extended even now. As we were in the start-up stage and lacked proper financial support system, we couldn’t cope up with the recurring expenses and cost of sustaining the business when there was no support from anyone.
My business associates were cautious enough to safeguard themselves and their own share rather than work with us in unity and sustain our business through the difficulties.
Almost all self-centered and money-minded business associates detached from us during the pandemic, as they could not face the hard times, but I thank nature for making it happen!
Now I don’t have any incapable people onboard with us. Our team is now full of positive, skillful, sincere and genuine individuals who work together with great spirit and support our whole system. The difficulties and challenges are nothing but that which comes to prove the theory of “Survival of the fittest” and wash off unwanted dirt from our mission.
According to me failure should not be viewed as a negative or an excuse for relinquishing our goals. Every time I failed, I learnt new lessons and reshaped my mind to not let me undergo the same situation again. The road to success is paved with losses, mishaps and mistakes, but I believe that it can still take us where we want to go as long as we don’t lose sight of our ultimate destination.”- says Ms.Sheeba.
Q. Could you please share your noted milestones, accomplishments throughout your journey so far along with company highlights and achievements under your leadership.
Winning is a habit of Sheeba from her childhood and she marked her victory wherever she went to compete with others. She had won over 100 national and international awards in the field of arts, design, science, literature, medicine, philanthropy and her career in banking and finance.
Some of the significant milestones that the brand LIARA has achieved under her leadership are:
- “The fastest growing personal care brand 2019-2020” Chosen by consumers & industry research services-Asia One
- “The business tycoon of 2020” The Business APAC magazine”
- Centre of excellence’s –“Achievement” award 2021
Remarkable Awards and accomplishments of Sheeba as an individual:
- “Inspirational business woman 2021”- CIOLOOK
- “Top woman business leader in FMCG 2020”-CEO Insights
- “Inspiration” award 2020 -from Centre of excellence
- “Promising entrepreneur of India 2020”-The economic times
- “Fastest growing business leader & pride of the nation”2020-Asia One
- “She Unlimited -award 2019” Finalist- The times of India
- “Path Breaker” award 2011- Aditya Birla Group
Sheeba had won several other awards in recognition of her contribution towards the social welfare, arts, scientific researches and literature.
She is the most highly qualified among the female business onwers in beauty industry in India at present with over 10 unique specializations (degrees) and 100+ awards and titles.
She is a qualified
- Member of CMA-UK in 2019
- Member of International association of Holistic therapists-from 2019
- Member of International association of therapists-from 2019
- Naturopathic & Ayurvedic health consultant
- Life coach, NLP coach, Happiness coach, Rational Emotive behavioral therapist, Modern psychologist, Image consultant and personality development coach
- Quantum light energy-healer and Reiki grand master
- Beauty therapist
- Makeup artist
- Cosmetologist
- Yoga trainer
- Artist
- Singer
- Dancer
- Interior Designer
- Writer
- Social activist and Transgender support activist.
Q. Please tell us about the business model you follow and the services you provide that makes the brand unique in the mid of cut throat competition.
Liara runs on a unique “Power product-service” model similar to Itki’s Blue Run that has more emphasis on the power of the quality & result oriented products at affordable prices and the quality services we offer to gain the trust of consumers and increase market share.
Liara started off as a service oriented Brand that wanted to spread awareness among consumers worldwide about the harsh side effects of cosmetics made from synthetic chemical ingredients, by providing education to people in the field of natural beauty science and herbal cosmetology.
To implement our ideas and accomplish our future goals, we wanted to make people experience the goodness and results of natural cosmetics initially , before we started providing educational services. The brand retailed 100+ natural products made without synthetic chemical ingredients worldwide -for skin care, hair care and holistic health care from march 2018.
Thus we were able to increase our market share tremendously through retail sale of herbal cosmetics and carve our niche in the personal care industry. Liara became an inspiration to many young entrepreneurs in 2018 and then the herbal cosmetics market boomed in Asia with innumerable new start up brands who got their startup idea from us . Liara continued to be the pioneer in 100% natural, unisex and ayurvedic cosmetics division and became the most recognized and trusted brand too.
Our unique strategies to beat the competition are:
- Keeping the prices low always
- Offering more than what we are paid for Liara is the first brand that introduced personal beauty care consulting facility in India to offer customized skin care & hair care solutions to every customer who visits our showrooms for purchase. Our estheticians analyze the individual body constitution of every individual who walks into our showrooms and provide customized solutions based on their personal needs and body condition unlike other beauty brands that offer generalized products to all consumers commonly. This uniqueness made LIARA the most reliable beauty care brand.
After the pandemic hit India and the manufacturing units across the country were forced to shut down their operations, the brand Liara transformed into a new version of itself to offer affordable education in the field of Natural beauty science and cosmetology , so that the consumers who were regular customers of Liara do not miss the brand and its products even during the lockdown period.
We started teaching how to make herbal cosmetics at home and use them to get the best benefits from the nature. Thus we were able to help people save their hard earned money from being spent on buying expensive OTC products and shipping costs during the lockdown period when many people lost their jobs and had minimum earnings.
This became a huge success over time and today Liara Academy one of the leading Educational academies that provide beauty education at minimal fee.
Providing affordable education the field of Natural beauty science and cosmetology, made the Brand gain more trust from our customers as no company would reveal it’s product formulas to consumers.
With the unlimited creativity of our founder and the top management team that works relentlessly towards accomplishing the Brand’s mission despite huge uncertainties, Liara will continue to be the most challenging Brand ever.
Q. Please share the most memorable and remarkable moment of your life.
“The most memorable and remarkable moment in my life is the moment when I was reborn in 2019. As a victim of various auto-immune diseases, I developed serious health complications including tumors -due to work stress, sleeplessness and stressful relationships. The doctors who treated me declared that I’ll be dead in couple of days when they made the last attempt to treat the multiple bleeding disorders in me through surgeries. They asked my family members to be informed about my condition and said that they can’t guarantee that I’ll be alive anymore.
I decided to make one final attempt to save myself with alternate medical treatments and succeeded in my stint. It was then I understood that modern medical science helps to treat only the symptoms of diseases and not the cause of the diseases.
As I was pursuing education in Ayurveda and Naturopathy at that time, I sought the help of Ayurvedic and Naturopathic physicians to restore me from the bed of death -that was laid by the expensive allopathic treatment done by the most reputed hospitals in India. The ayurvedic treatment completely transformed my life and gave me an all new insight about holistic health care and energy healing.
That moment when I bounced back to normal life and was able to do all my regular activities again is the most remarkable moment in me life. Ayurveda gave me a second life and chance to relive.”- says Ms.Sheeba .
Q. Where do you see yourself and the company in future? Or, what is your goal to mark the uniqueness in future?
“I see Liara as the leading Brand that replaces all personal care products in the households worldwide ,to eradicate cancer and other similar life threatening diseases caused by the harmful ingredients that are hidden in cosmetics and personal care products used in our day-to-day life.
Liara will be the one stop destination for holistic health care needs of people in upcoming years.
Liara will preach the importance of Ayurvedic way of living and leading a stress-free life for ever lasting beauty and bliss-through its educational programs.
Liara will become the most liked and trusted brand in next 10 years!” -says the founder
Q. Advise for the budding women in tech who are trying to embark in the same field
- Listen to your instinct and inner soul; not to the opinion of others
- Don’t compare yourself with other people in the same track. Though the tracks may be alike, the destinations are different
- Take complete responsibility for both success and failure, without blaming others
- Never involve people who are not like minded in your business
- Whatever you do, do it with honesty, sincerity and dedication
- The one who is ready to take more risks is the one who can achieve unbelievable things
- Never choose a line of business out of societal trends or compulsion to earn ; Choose what you love to do and can’t stop doing even when your body asks for rest
- Success doesn’t come to those who are not willing to pay for it through physical and mental efforts. One needs to involve their blood, bones, heat and soul into their business to reach great success
Q. What is the one thing that is acting as your motivational tool? Or, who is your role model and how the person inspires and motivates you?
“My motivation comes from my own past experiences and the inner fire within me. I wake up daily morning with a goal that I should be one step ahead than yesterday in my professional and personal life. I’m self-motivated and need no external force to keep pushing me forward. Right from my childhood, I love doing things differently and stay ahead of others in everything and wherever I am. Today I live exactly where I wanted to be and dreamed of being in my early ages.
Thanks to the education and training I had as a Life coach, Psychologist and Personality development coach -that put me into a path towards attaining my real life purpose and changing the lives of others who seek my help to grow up in their lives.
Everyone need to have some faith in a superior power in order to progress in life. My faith in the universal life forces helps me progress everyday with positivity and consider every incident in my life as an opportunity to learn and develop myself into a better person.
I believe that leading a life that will be a real motivation to future generations is the ultimate success of a woman in business.
