Amway
View Brand PublisherDriven, tech-savvy and passionpreneurs: meet the millennials who found their calling in direct selling
As the world gets older, India being one of the youngest countries in the world has an ace up its sleeve that’s keeping it young and dynamic. Home to millions of young millennials, the country has a demographic advantage that has turned it into one of the world’s biggest talent hubs and a key growth driver for the economy.
From the dotcom boom of the 90s to the rise of the startup culture in the late 2010s, India’s under-35 population has been at the forefront of successive revolutions, forcing the world to stop in awe.
We are seeing more millennials are taking up entrepreneurship and what’s helping them is their drive and passion that is leading them to test new ideas and strategies to excel. At the same time, industries like direct selling have opened more avenues for individuals by making entrepreneurship more accessible and manageable.
What adds to the draw of direct selling is that it doesn’t require one to amass massive seed capital or have specific qualifications and gives you a platform to turn your passion into a career, without compromising your financial stability. The opportunity also serves as a supplemental income and is making more individuals self-reliant.
Avid traveler, lifestyle influencer, health and wellness consultant and an Direct Seller — Bhubaneswar resident Abisesh Mohapatra wears many hats. However, before becoming a direct seller, Abisesh was a dedicated mechanical engineer who often found himself burning the candle at both ends.
From closed cubicles and long office meetings, he graduated to interactive live sessions and creating engaging content around his passion for fitness. “Passion to me is the drive to put your best foot forward and your true power lies in mastering your passion. My passion is fitness which is why I built my business around it,” says the 28-year-old.
Managing a thriving online community of followers on social media, Abisesh is driving people to encourage people to lead healthier lives with Amway. A look at his thriving community of followers on Instagram shows how he is balancing all these roles with finesse.
Helping women take a step towards self-reliance
Another reason behind direct selling’s impressive success in India has been the way it has encouraged more women to take up entrepreneurship and build successful business ventures around their passion.
Rashmita Mohanty, a young and successful Amway Direct Seller, is passionate about inspiring young millennials and women to unleash their spirit of entrepreneurship. Today, she is building a successful business with teams that are spread across the country and inspires them to kickstart their entrepreneurial journey.
“I have always aspired to unlock the immense potential of the youth and women of our country, who want to follow their passion and tread the path of entrepreneurship. I am thankful to Amway for giving me an opportunity to do just that. Today, I feel extremely happy to see young, passionate & purposeful entrepreneurs taking on the world with their grit and passion”, says the New York University alumna.
As direct selling gives hundreds of young women like Rashmita a chance to be their own boss, it also enables them to strike a balance between their professional and personal lives.
According to Statista, in 2020, about three-quarters of the world's direct sellers were women. In Amway, over 60 percent of its 550,000 direct sellers in India are women. It’s not uncommon to see women having to let go of their careers due to personal commitments. With direct selling platforms like Amway, they could change the status quo and become self-reliant.
Highlighting the sector's potential to drive economic impact and social empowerment, a KPMG and FICCI report suggests that India's direct selling industry has the potential to reach a valuation of Rs 645 billion by 2025.
Empowering direct sellers with new skills
As these new-age direct sellers look forward to transforming the industry with their new skills and capabilities, platforms like Amway are making strides in helping them in these endeavours. Last year, Amway has witnessed a significant surge of interest in its business model from the under-35 years’ category. In fact, 61.5% of the new registrations in 2020 were under the U35 category.
With a culture of keeping up with the times, Amway has been investing in its direct sellers’ training and upskilling so that they could find their passion and build a business around it. Even when the pandemic hit, these training sessions didn’t stop, they just shifted online. It is continuously exploring new channels of online engagement to empower its direct sellers with newer ways to interact with their customers.
Amid layoffs and an uncertain economic landscape, direct selling can be a lucrative opportunity to be successful at your own terms, and if there’s anyone who’s leading by example, it’s these millennial direct sellers.
To know more about the impact Amway is driving with its entrepreneurship opportunities,