Perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Indeed, the journey of Sarla Sharma is of grit and determination inspite of all odds.
With a Bachelors degree in Economics, Sarla is today a managing director of Pioneer Management Consultant Pvt Ltd. in Navi Mumbai and has carved a niche in the recruitment industry. However, her journey was not smooth and she faced obstacles at every step in her life.
Initial years
Although born in a community where imparting education to girls was not considered important, Sarla was good in academics and wanted to become self reliant and economically independent right from childhood. “The importance of education was ingrained in my mind and heart by my mother who made me realise the importance of education for women’s economic empowerment and independence, to promote self-respect, raise one’s status and self-esteem,” says Sarla.
When she was hardly 14 years old and was studying in 8th standard, she decided to become an entrepreneur and be financially independent. “I remember my first venture- it was tuition to students from Nursery till 7th standard. I was able to earn between Rs. 80 to Rs.150 per student, and that took care of my education expenses,” she says.
After giving her XIIth Board exam, she got married. As was the custom, Sarla’s father wanted her to quit studies and pay attention to family life, but Sarla rebelled and decided to pursue her education. She completed her Graduation in 1991 and decided to pursue one year Higher Diploma course in Software Engineering. However, the fees was around Rs. 20,000 which had to be paid in 2 installments. Around Rs.5000 was supported by her mother & for the rest amount, Sarla took took up various part-time jobs as computer teacher, data entry operator & typist.
In 1994, she joined a courier company as computer operator and even while doing job, she continued to provide evening tuitions to get additional money. In 1995 with small savings & a small loan from her employer, she purchased a 386 configuration computer system at home to build up extra earning support system for both herself & her husband who was working as an accountant in a steel rolling mill and trained her husband to operate computer & work on Tally Accounting package.
Recalling those days, Sarla says, “While back home from office, I used to visit nearby shops, to ask if they had any computer typing jobs or accounting jobs for us.” Efforts yielded fruits and Sarla got few accounting job orders for her husband. “I used to make all the accounting entries for him, so that when he is back from work, he could review the entries made by me & take it forward for preparing financial statements for his customer before dead line,” she reminisces.
Turning point with 3 new business setups
1996 proved to be a turning point for her life &career. “I quit my computer operator job & took up marketing executive job in an advertising & recruitment agency”, she informs. The motivating factor to take up this job was the incentive plan offered by the company. However, after a month, the company failed to pay the sales incentive as committed, due to internal politics and misleading of a senior. “I was determined to get my right. I met the Senior Management & the MD and pursued the matter. In this entire discussion a fresh proposal by MD was put forth to me,” says Sarla. She had to prove herself again by achieving the next sales target, which she gladly accepted as the committed minimum incentive was of Rs. 25000.
“I knew it was tough but not impossible,” says Sarla. She succeeded in exceeding the sales target in big way and was rewarded as promised by her seniors.
With the money she purchased Videocon TV for Rs. 15,000 for her 2 year old son. With the balance amount of Rs. 10,000, she started her entrepreneurship journey under the banner of Pioneer Management Consultant – a manpower recruitment consultant in partnership initially in 1996.
Parallel to her own entrepreneurship, she also started setting up a start-up business for her husband. She left no stone unturned to popularise her husband work. Within no time, the business started expanding and her husband resigned from his job & continued with Tax Consultancy practice.
However, the journey was not easy. Sarla worked for 20 hours in a day- during daytime, she concentrated on business development that involved fieldwork and during late evening, she used to evaluate the resumes, conduct candidates’ interview & line them up.
“During those days, mobiles were not much in trend. The only access was PCO, office & resident’s land line. So during field visit I used to carry the interview details diary, search for PCO to co-ordinate with client & candidates on pre & post recruitment process. As the business grow I hired employees in my organisation,” she adds.
In 1998, she along with her husband purchased their first office. Since then it has just been a progressive journey.
After the success of her first initiative she started her second venture in the year 1999- Accounts & Taxation class with her husband- which got tremendous response from students. This course was designed in such a way that students got practical knowledge & training about the Accounting Practise & Taxation field.
And in 2005 Pioneer Management Consultant got incorporated into Pvt Ltd establishment. She made strong investments in various automated operational software for recruitment process, sales CRM & Payroll, keeping minimum manual interface dependency, making it complete automated, effective & efficient recruitment process within organisation & for customers.
Darker Side of Life – 6 years of nightmare
Everything seemed to be going fine, until in 2009 when her son was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. The news left tremors in her life. “I was speechless and was filled with guilt and regret. I felt responsible for his illness & could not forgive myself. This guilt and pain was very much choking & killing me internally. I felt that somewhere my child was neglected or I failed to attend him, though I always tried my best – as children & family had always been my top priority without any compromise. Still I felt it was my biggest failure. As any mother would do I just focused on my sons’ health,” she says.
However, the ordinal was not over during the year 2012, Sarla too was diagnosed with critical extra pulmonary tuberculosis, which affected her health badly. From independent woman, she now became dependent on others for daily routine. Work was ruled out.
“I could neither attend office nor could do any work. It took 2 years for me to physically recover from the illness. The 12 months of tuberculosis treatment was not easy going, the side effects of the treatment broke me down, adding on to worsen the health conditions. The feeling of helplessness was very traumatic. However, the will power was very strong in me. I treated this as momentary & always used to look forward for starting a normal life,” she says.
However, life had something different stored in for her. While she was still at the stage of recovery, the family got another setback- her husband too was diagnosed with extra pulmonary tuberculosis of lymph node.
The years were full of pain, trauma, insecurity and nightmare. It indeed affected her confidence. “Honestly, many times I would break-down crying alone, praying to God, asking for strength & support, would pray for family’s life & health. While, I would tell my husband to be mentally strong but I myself was loosing strength,” recalls Sarla.
Finally, in 2015 the family completely recovered from illness physically & mentally. In all these years business had to be downsized, closing down Outsourcing, Contract Placements, Pharma, FMCG any many other Business Verticles.
“After my struggle with illness, coming back to business was like fresh start-up from scratch but yes, experience & confidence counts. I realised that due to my illness, it wasn’t just the complete collapse of my health but also of my business. I now decided to focus on bringing everything back from scratch with new team,” says Sarla.
Future plans
Once with single hand, today Sarla has a team of 12 people. As future plan, she desires to support women who re-join the main workforce after their sabbatical leave /career break. “There are women who have taken sabbatical leave /career break for some of the personal reasons. While they want to come back to industry to continue with their job, they face many challenges. I would like to support these women to rejoin the workforce after a break,” she says. Sarla aims to open up branch offices by end of year 2018 and set up a new Recruitment Vertical for SME & Start up Sector.
“Entrepreneurial journey never ends, it’s we, who lose the strength to walk through the obstacles & we tend to give up failing to realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” says Sarla with a smile.
