Interview an Entrepreneur Trevor Banerjee of ‘Positrev Living’
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report aims to show an Entrepreneur in action, one thing not mentioned above is ‘Passion’; and this is displayed by the person I interviewed. The individual I interviewed was Trevor Banerjee, a person who was working in the corporate banking world and found his passion of helping others.
Mr. Banerjee is the owner and creative man behind, PosiTrev Living; he describes ‘PosiTrev Living as a life coaching and personal development consultancy who works with Young Male Professionals to make them the best version of themselves.” I spoke to Mr. Banerjee about various aspects of his business and how he started and what the future aspirations are of PosiTrev Living; he also offered some tips to young aspiring entrepreneurs.
I believe Mr. Banerjee is an entrepreneur and not a small business owner because he noticed an opportunity and converted that into a workable/marketable idea; he has over time and has continued to add value, effort, money and skills. Mr. Banerjee was in a position where he needed personal development coaching but could not find it locally. I have broken the report down to 5 sections, which include a description of Mr. Banerjee and the business, an analysis of Mr. Banerjee characteristics and the correlation of that with academic material, how the business is structured, the strategy of PosiTrev Living and its future aspirations and finally some very insightful tips on any aspiring entrepreneurs out there.
INTRODUCTION
The entrepreneur I interviewed was Trevor Banerjee who is the owner of PosiTrev Living. Before I found out about Mr. Banerjee, I wanted to know what the business that he specializes in, so I started off by asking him ‘What is PosiTrev Living? What does it do?’ (Appendix 1a); Mr. Banerjee responded that PosiTrev Living is a life coaching and personal development consultancy service, which works with individuals to make them the best version of themselves to achieve contentment and fulfillment. It also works on areas of their life that needs work, such as relationships and work/life balance. When asking Mr. Banerjee this question I could sense a passion and enthusiasm for what he does, it gave me a sense that he pursued something he loved, and never gave up.
The history of PosiTrev dates to about 2 years back; as Mr. Banerjee describes it “he was a corporate slave at ANZ”, he felt a extreme sense of dissatisfaction in the work he was doing; Mr. Banerjee than did some self exploration and found “if you only have one opportunity at life which is now and if the secret of life is spreading happiness and well-being what can I do to do that with my own capabilities, it came down to that I enjoy training and development of staff whilst I was at ANZ and thought how can I apply this to create something new and interesting and came up with the concept of personal development coaching.” Mr. Banerjee displayed characteristics similar to an opportunity entrepreneur – a person who saw an opportunity and seized on it. In a lecture we discussed how a person sees that there is an opportunity and use it to enter the market as a solution (Featherstone 2013).
PosiTrev Living has been providing it consultancy services for about 1.5 years and is slowly growing.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ENTREPRENEUR
An entrepreneur is “An innovator or developer who recognizes and seizes opportunities; converts these opportunities into workable /marketable ideas; adds value through time, effort, money or skills; assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement these ideas; and realizes the rewards from these efforts” Kuratko (2009).After reading certain aspects of Kuratko (2009), I strongly believe the characteristics of an entrepreneur shapes how the entrepreneur’s venture does. Speaking to Mr. Banerjee I noticed that he had not enjoyed his previous career and took some time away from everything to find out what he wanted to do with his life. A question that I asked Mr. Banerjee that gave me an insight of his characteristics was, “What inspired you to start PosiTrev Living?” (Appendix 1h) Mr. Banerjee answer was “While doing self-exploration I found that there was no one who could help me and this is where the niche of Young Male Professionals came about as I was one of them. I strongly believe that the more you can relate to your target market the better, this way you can see yourself as the client and see where you would like them to be.” Mr. Banerjee was very committed and determined when he started PosiTrev Living.
When he informed me of his previous industries it also gave me an insight of his characteristics, Mr. Banerjee’s immediate industry was banking and finance, where he was a business banker and did various other roles such as training and development of staff. Before working in a bank, Mr. Banerjee did a post graduate in Public Relations and worked for a PR Company for 2 years, prior to this he tried out Journalism at University he believes that all of these things led to him finding his passion of Personal Development. The common characteristics of an entrepreneur as mentioned in Kuratko (2009) Taking initiative and personal responsibility, opportunity and goal orientation, drive to achieve and grow – to mention a few; I believe Mr. Banerjee has the common characteristics found in an entrepreneur.
ANALYSIS OF ENTREPRENEUR’S BUSINESS
PosiTrev Living works with individuals to make the best version of themselves to reach contentment and fulfillment. I believe Mr. Banerjee’s PosiTrev Living is a typical entrepreneurial venture as he tapped into a very specific demographic of individuals he targets for clients. Mr. Banerjee is more of a necessity entrepreneur and PosiTrev Living is his passion, he has taken his passion and made it his lifestyle – and that is a very important ingredient in becoming a successful entrepreneur. I asked Mr. Banerjee ‘how are you different from your competition? What do you offer that they don’t? (Appendix 1f) his responded with “I can teach someone to do 1, 2, 3 and that’ll get you motivated every day, but if I can help you tap into something inside of you that you already feel passionate about than everything else becomes negligible because you want to pursue that every day.” Relating back to what I have learnt I noticed that Mr. Banerjee made a lean approach and launched PosiTrev Living with less research, he saw that there were people out there who were in his position and dissatisfied with work, etc. and targeted that demographic.
ENTREPRENEUR’S BUSINESS STRATEGY
As Mr. Banerjee is the sole owner and worker of PosiTrev Living, like most sole traders he has a very high number of responsibilities. He believes that almost all sole traders face a critical problem which is that they sway from the main reason they get into their respective business. Many sole traders move away from why they got into the trade and start doing other administrative duties. When I asked Mr. Banerjee ‘What is the future plan of PosiTrev Living’ (Appendix 1l) he broke it into two sections, and said “My short-term plans would be to get to a stage that my business is not 100% reliant on me, I want to be in a space where I can focus on the main aspect of the business which is the actual helping of people. I want all my other duties to be outsourced or delegated to someone else. Long –term I eventually want to be in a space where I can take PosiTrev Living to Kuwait (Middle-East) where I was born and to India where I was brought up, I believe that there is a market for it over there”. Mr. Banerjee clearer knows where and how he wants the business to grow in the future, which is very good as he knows the vision of his venture. PosiTrev Living is only 1.5 years old; and whilst listening to Mr. Banerjee speak I noticed the things that work well for his business is that how he connects so well with his clients. The individuals Mr. Banerjee works with are people at a stage in their life where he once was; Mr. Banerjee connects with his clients on a personal level.
TIPS FOR ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS
Mr. Banerjee had some really great tips for entrepreneurs out there who need that first step. When I asked the question to Mr. Banerjee, ‘If you had a piece of advice for someone starting their own entrepreneurship venture, what would it be? (Appendix 1o)’ his answer was “The first thing I am going to say, and it’s the most cliché thing in the book, do what you enjoy; get into something that you are absolutely and truly passionate about, that keeps you awake at night, something that makes you want to wake up at 5am. Often if entrepreneurs open a business just aimed at making money the consumers will see through it.” Mr. Banerjee went on to say “Basically do something that you are passionate about and START with a strong, iron, concrete plan, have your business plan and vision down packed; as crystal clear as possible, the clearer the plan is, the more likely you want to go ahead.” He himself had a strong plan, and was very passionate about helping others and this worked really well for him.
CONCLUSION
Interviewing Mr. Banerjee was very useful and I learnt a lot of things from him, one is his positive vibe; his happy and vibrant personality transposes into his business. He mentioned something that was off topic but will always stick to me, he said that “Your personality reflects your business” that is something that is very valuable to young entrepreneurs, if you have a positive, happy vibe it reflects in your business.
Mr. Banerjee has a very strong connection to his clients as he was in the position at one stage of his life and therefore understands his customers very well, and this gives him the passion to pursue his business every day.
Mr. Banerjee left me with a final piece of advice which was related to what he said before about a clear business plan, he said “when you have a map whilst driving a car, the clearer the map, the more likely you are to get there and more likely to get there quicker”.
References
- Featherstone, T, 2013, ‘Lecture 2 – Part 1, HBN110N, Introduction to Entrepreneurship, Learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne University of Technology, 14 March, viewed 9 May 2013
- Kuratko, D.F 2009, Entrepreneurship, Theory, Process, Practice, 8th edition, South Western Cengage Learning, United States of America
Appendix
1a) What is PosiTrev Living? What does it do?
1b) How did the idea for PosiTrev Living emerge?
1c) How many years has PosiTrev Living been operating?
1d) How does PosiTrev Living advertise its business in the market?
1e) How has the advances of technology helped PosiTrev Living?
1f) How are you different from your competition? What do you offer that they don’t? Uniqueness?
1g) From what industry is your back ground from?
1h) What inspired you to start PosiTrev Living?
1i) Is PosiTrev Living happy at where it is now?
1j) Why did you choose this specific industry?
1k) As the owner, what are some of your responsibilities?
1l) What are the future plans of PosiTrev Living?
1m) What are some of the risks the PosiTrev Living faces?
1n) Who are some of the clients of PosiTrev Living? Who does it target?
1o) If you had a piece of advice for someone starting their own entrepreneurship venture, what would it be?
