Day In The Life Of: Rakhee Ghelani

Rakhee Ghelani wears many hats – co-founder of Potluck Me, CEO of a home textile business, consultant and writer. What is her work week like?

I don’t really consider myself an entrepreneur, just someone who is focused on doing what I do well. Some days I am so focused on doing one thing that I don’t notice the rest of the world, other days I am looking outwards and planning how to take over the world. But my professional life wasn’t always like this.  In Australia, I spent almost twenty years working in large corporates, managing projects and teams that looked at different areas of strategy, business improvement and customer experience. Fast forward a few years – I am CEO of a home textile business that is on the verge of launching, co-founder of a niche gourmet food business, consultant to many inspiring and interesting businesses and also get paid to write about travel and food.

Absolutely no day in my life is the same, so rather than take you through a day in my life I thought perhaps I would describe what this week has been like for me.

As I want to spend more time on the launch in the new year, I spent the rest of the week tying up some consulting and writing projects I have been working on. One day I worked from a client’s office (I have been a consulting editor there), helping get all the content ready for a health and fitness site that is launching soon. Aside from managing the content calendar, coordinating writers and editing, I also spent time coaching a junior staff member to take on my role moving forward.

Other consulting jobs included helping a small business work through some process issues they were having with their payment systems. I talked to technology freelancers, tried to understand and identify the cause of the problem and then made recommendations to my client. For another client, I spent some time on Google Analytics, wading through data and putting together some insights for them so that they could make an informed decision about their business. While I also spend a lot of time checking in on Facebook and Twitter, I am not slacking off (much) there either. I manage the social media accounts for one client, so I have to make sure that my content has gone up as scheduled, liaise with people on their behalf and respond to comments and mentions. I also participate in some Twitter chats on their behalf, which can be a lot of fun.

A deadline loomed for an Australian publisher, so my mornings were spent calling Australia and speaking to businesses to obtain comments and photographs to accompany the articles I was writing. I wrote the articles in the evenings, after my daily tasks for other assignments were completed. I also managed to sneak in a chat with my business partner from Potluck Me, and we talked about some things we would like to do to take the business forward in the coming year.

As a travel writer, I sometimes am invited to special events, and this week I had two such events (which is not a normal occurrence). One was a quiet dinner with the PR representative of a 5 star hotel. I was shown around the spectacular property and we talked about their services in detail. Several story ideas were discussed, and we agreed to look at progressing these in the coming months. The second event was a press launch for a new luxury resort opening in Madhya Pradesh. This was a bigger event with about 50 people, where I was given the opportunity to speak to the owner of the hotel over a glass of champagne.

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Finally, I was contacted by someone I met by chance a few months ago. They were visiting Mumbai and I offered to show them some of my favourite food haunts. They loved it so much they have put me in touch with a tour company who asked me to put together a proposal for them, so I started work on that this week as well.

It has been a super busy week, but it’s all such interesting and diverse work, I really am lucky. My only real issue is that there are just no enough hours in the day to do what I want to do. In the coming year, I plan on devoting a lot more time to the launch and running of my textile business, which will no doubt bring more exciting challenges for the future.

Rakhee Ghelani will offer a 10% discount on her consulting services for Women’s Web readers until 28 February 2014. You can find out more about her on her website on Twitter @rakheeghelani or email her at [email protected].

Are you a woman running a business in India? Would you like your story to appear in our Day In The Life Of An Entrepreneur series? Email us at admin AT womensweb DOT in with an interesting account of a day running your business, and we may publish it! (For example, what was the one interesting thing you did that day? Did you meet someone new/had a conversation with a customer? What thrills you at work? What are some business challenges you’re currently grappling with?) Also send us a few pictures of you at work – with your team, at your desk, at the factory, meeting a customer….

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