Deepa Thomas moved from her operations position in a Telecom corporate ‘giant’ to running a coaching and education business Mustard Seed with her husband in India in 2008. 10 years later, Mustard Seed is leading the entrepreneur community in Mumbai. Her journey on the GeniusU Partner Accelerator course propelled her into running successful entrepreneur socials in Mumbai, and now Deepa is more connected than ever. 

How can becoming a part of an entrepreneur community and following a proven process accelerate your business growth?

It all started when Deepa took the GeniusU test online and then she began to follow Roger James Hamiltons videos from all over the world with entrepreneurial lessons which resonated with her. 

Deepa had a non-sales, non-promotion backgrounds from when she was an operations person in a corporate 

She was fearful about sales and promotion, and wasn’t investing in herself as an entrepreneur because of her background in operations - she didn’t believe it was possible. 

In 2014 Mustard Seed started the entrepreneur education division of their company. 

They started having breakthroughs, and doing programs with top business owners. With good traction, they needed new content. Many business owners wanted to work with them long term - Deepa wanted to become an Entrepreneur mentor, which would give her content to engage with her clients over a long period of time. 

"The concept of building community used to be non-existent in our business. Really building a community has so much power. We used to just engage on an individual level, and now we’re really prioritizing building a community of like-minded entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneur Social was such a great tool for this - and it’s something I learnt from partnering with the Entrepreneurs Institute, which is that they don’t just bring us into programs, they actually invite us into a global community of entrepreneurs. Wealth Dynamics has been a great tool too, and the Wealth Lighthouse - so that we have a common language to speak that articulates so many entrepreneurial lessons within just one concept. 

Deepa knew that Entrepreneurs Institute had strategies to get thousands of entrepreneurs enrolled in programs, and saw the GeniusU Partner Accelerator as an opportunity for learning these strategies and implementing them. 

Being from a non-sales background, Deepa knew that she had to work out how to lead a promotion strategy. Saying that she couldn’t sell just wasn’t good enough anymore. 

She decided the GeniusU Partner Accelerator was a compelling offer, as it didn’t require her to travel but still meant she would be coached and held accountable to hit her business targets. 

Deepa took the leap in 2017 and joined the programme, with Michelle Clarke as her mentor and the rest is history. 

"The thing I liked about the GeniusU Partner Accelerator the most is that it met all my expectations. As soon as I joined I knew I had to create a program that would happen within the 12 weeks - and I would sell seats to this program. Each week, Michelle coached me. And I was nervous! There was a lot to get done in 12 weeks and I didn’t have a sales team. So I had to really do it myself - and that was scary. I knew that I had to have the GeniusU Partner Accelerator be a practice. I announced the program we would run, and then Michelle became my online mentor. 

Michelle said ; 'if you don’t want to make at least a 5 times Return on investment by the end of this program, you’re wasting your time here'. 

She started from the paradigm that selling isn’t about getting a person to buy a product, it's about getting them to see the value you have to give them. Having them buy from you instead of you sell to them. This was a paradigm shift for me - I’m helping someone, giving them a solution to their problem when I’m booking them into one of our programmes 

I hit all my numbers for the promotion plan. In fact, I had hit them by week 3 of the programme, with my 1st promotion, so I asked Michelle if I could start a 2nd promotion to learn as much as I could over the 12 weeks. 

My favourite phrase of Michelle's was ‘You’re either earning, or you're learning’. I’m adverse to taking risks sometimes, but this made it easier for me. Michelle walked through putting the whole event together with me - from the promotion to all of the strategies and systems I would need. She checked our progress each week, and we had to come back and promise the numbers for the following week. It put the pressure on me to really get my numbers right too. As entrepreneurs often we don’t have a ‘boss’ to be accountable to - having Michelle hold me accountable meant I got my whole team involved. 

We were at capacity for our first event, our capacity was 60 and we filled up with 63 people. I went straight ahead and ran another event after that. I looked into developing a team where I could then source them for the things that aren’t my strengths. 

Michelle then suggested I become the City Leader for the Mumbai Entrepreneur Social, based on my success and to allow me to reach a wider entrepreneurial audience - my immediate response was no, but after 5 weeks she offered again, and I took up the opportunity and now we’ve had 3 successful Entrepreneur socials, with our 4th on the 23rd. 

The fear of running events has left me - I’m doing 1 event every month since the Partner Accelerator, and it’s a lot easier to do. 

We will be running the Entrepreneur Fast Track event at the end of the year in India. Four months ago I never would have imagined myself capable. Today I think, ‘why not?’ we should give it a try. 

Now I know I don’t have to do it alone. I’m ready to look for partners to join the movement. After searching, a co-working space gave me a free space to host the entrepreneur social. When we first started, no spaces would host us because they didn’t know about us! Now after 3 successful events, there’s a co-working space asking us to come and run events there!”

Since joining the Partner Accelerator, Deepa’s business has built tremendous momentum, and her position as a City Leader means Deepa is more connected to the Entrepreneur Movement in India than ever. 

"Running entrepreneur socials have taken us to another level. It has taken us outside of just our bubble - and we’re saying ‘We’re here to help you, and contribute, and give you space to come and interact with other entrepreneurs’. 

Now our company is not just inward focusing, but we’re wanting to make a difference to something outside of us, something bigger. I’ve been connecting to amazing people because I’m seeking out speakers for our social - finding people with a story worth telling. I’ve been attending more events, and our company has become more visible and credible because we’re doing a lot of good work and becoming an influential company.

There’s tremendous momentum in my business since joining Partner Accelerator - we put things in place before my meetings with Michelle, and are on schedule. We’re now a well-oiled machine. “

Would having a mentor and a group of high-level entrepreneurs to hold you accountable propel your business momentum?