Who is Vandana?

 

Vandana Nanda, is the Founder and CEO of Winbrand Academy, an Online Academy for Personal Branding and Digital Marketing.

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She is on a missionto help 100,000 passionpreneurs build their Personal brand and create a life of Freedom doing what they love by sharing their special gift with the world.

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Vandana has worked for almost three decades in the Corporate World in IT and Education Companies.

She also caught the  “Entrepreneurial Bug” when her children were young and she wanted more flexible work hours. She started a Software Training Institute in India but moved to the United Kingdom with her family when her husband got posted there.

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After a few years when her husband passed away unexpectedly at the young age of forty three, she moved back to India with her two young sons. She took up a full time corporate job and focussed on her job and bringing up her kids.

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With the help of her job and some good and some risky investments in mutual funds and real estate she was able to send both her sons for their undergraduate studies to good Universities in the United States.

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She always longed to do something on her own where she did not have to report to anybody and could carry on the work from anywhere online. After becoming an empty nester, when both of her sons left for college, she had more time and started looking at online opportunities.

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She explored various options and in January 2020, decided to work and earn online and also help others do the same.Vandana’s purpose is to help people brand themselves as Leaders and Authorities in either their specific niche or in whatever their passion is while creating an income doing what they love.

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📖 My Story: The Journey Thus Far

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A Glimpse of the Beginning

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Before I was 22 years old,

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• I grew up with both parents, a younger sister and a younger brother.

• My growing up years were in Afghanistan and India. 

• After my Bachelors Degree in Physics Honours, I completed my MBA with specialization in Marketing and Finance in India

• I also completed a short course in computer programming

• At 22 years old, I was ready and eager to start working in the Corporate World.​

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The Beginning of my Corporate Career

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• My first job was as a Management Trainee in New Delhi in a company which manufactured Bulbs and Tubes.The salary was quite less and it was difficult to survive on it in a big town. The work was also not very exciting.

• After about a year I found a better job in Jaipur and moved back with my parents to work there.The job was exciting as it was a new company being set up for setting up an Industrial Park for setting up factories for Gen cutting and Polishing.I was one of the first few people to join there and therefore got a lot of experience in various roles.

• After about four years I got the opportunity to move to New Delhi again, this time with a Software company in India with their products marketing division.I worked for almost eight years in this company in various departments including Products Marketing, software consultancy and training

• This is also where I met my husband and we got married within 2 years of my joining the company.

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Married Life and Motherhood

 

• We had a good life together and I continued to work in the same company for the next six years.

• Motherhood followed and we were blessed with two children, both boys during this period.

• My husband, meanwhile changed jobs and he got posted to Den Haag , Netherlands.

• It was getting difficult for me to cope with a full time corporate job and managing two young kids and so I very gladly left my job and we all moved to the Netherlands.

•  I very happily spent the time in Netherlands just being a homemaker and a mum to my toddler and crawling baby and having a good time with the family.

• After about two years, my husband got a better job in India and so we moved back again to India.

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My First Experience with Entrepreneurship

 

• On our return to India, our elder son joined school and after a year our younger son started going to a playschool.I now had some time on my hands, but still did not want to go to a full time corporate job. My husband had to travel frequently within India and abroad and I wanted to be available for the kids when they got back from school.

• We took up a Franchise of a Software training Academy and I started managing this while my husband continued with his Corporate job which involved a lot of travel..

• It was tough in the beginning but very exciting to start this venture.We employed a manager, faculty and other stff to run the Institute and I supervised it daily. Soon, we started having small measures of success.

• The Software Training Institute became popular in the area and we also started getting requests for corporate training from multi national companies in the area.

• As business increased , so did my hours at the institute.

• I began to think that we were neglecting our children as my husband was still frequently travelling and I was working full time hours at the institute.

• So when my husband’s company decided to post him to the United Kingdom, we decided to see our institute and once again pack our bags and move to the U.K.

 

Life in the U.K.

 

• Once in the U.K.,I once again transitioned into the role of a full time mother and homemaker.

• I did not even consider taking up a job as my husband was still travelling frequently and both children were in school and required full attention. Also as I was on a dependent visa, I was not allowed to work for a salary in U.K.

• I started helping out at my son’s school on a voluntary basis a couple of times a week and enjoyed the peaceful life with my family.

• We were living in a small town called High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and liked the place so much that we bought the house we were renting and decided to live there as long as we could.

• But Life had other plans……

 

 

My First Defining Moment

 

• Sometimes some things happen in life over which you have no control and they totally change the direction of your life.

• After about four years of us moving to the UK. My husband suddenly passed away while on an official tour to India at the young age of 43.I was totally shattered and rushed back to India with my kids.

• It was a very traumatic time for my kids who were just 11 and 7 years old at that time. I went back to U.K. with my children , put them back in school so that they could finish their school year and started winding up our house and selling off our possessions there. We had to move back to India as we were on a dependent visa and I anyway had no job there.

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My Second Defining Moment

 

• Humans have a tendency to take things for granted and so did we. Our lives were going on smoothly so far and I had not anticipated anything like this ever. We were relatively well off and had just bought our huge four bedroom detached house with a huge mortgage, never even anticipating something like this would happen.We were fortunate enough to have good friends in the U.K. who really helped out in this tough time by helping us dispose of our cars and other assets and providing mental and practical support.

• My second defining moment came when my younger son asked me directly:” Mum, have we become poor now?” Not an illogical question for a 7 year old to ask since I was not working at that time and my husband was the only earning member in the family.

• I actually did not have an answer to this. Throughout our married life, I had happily sailed through not bothering about finances, leaving all financial decisions, investments ,bill payments etc. to my husband while I focussed happily only on looking after the home, cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids. I realized that I did not even know anything about internet banking or even our password. I did not even know how much we had in our banks in India and the UK or anything about any other investments.

• That night itself I decided to remedy this and find out the exact status of our finances and decide our next course of action. We had a heavy mortgage on the house and needed to sell it. I could not find any buyer in the two months we were allowed there but found a tenant who would pay us rent approximately amounting to the mortgage payment that I had to pay to the bank every month.

• So I put the house on rent and moved back to India with my kids.

 

 

Restart of My Corporate Career

 

• Once back in India, I quickly took up a corporate job in a Software  Education Company. I was careful in selecting a job with a non-travelling role so that I could give attention to my kids who were facing their own challenges. They had to adjust again to a new country, new school, new language , new curriculum and make new friends on their own as their mother was away working full time on a 9 to 6 job.

• Slowly things settled down and I continued to work at the same company for the next nine years while my children grew up.

• After my elder son went to College abroad, I changed my job and joined a start-up which was marketing programs from top US universities to working professionals in India. This lasted for a couple of years and then I changed my job again to a large US based multinational company. My job role however moved to the US after about a year and I switched my job again to another education company which was promoting programs from Universities in the US, UK, Switzerland , France and Singapore to senior working professionals.

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My Third Defining Moment

 

• A few years after we moved back to India, the tenant vacated our house in UK. The world was going through a global recession and it was not easy to find another tenant to take such a large house on a relatively high rent. I decided to sell it but could not find a buyer.

• I decided to go to the UK but did not get the Visa. I was in a dilemma now .

• My entire monthly salary would go towards the monthly mortgage payment for the house. For almost 6 months , I continued to pay the mortgage with my salary.

• Desperate, I started advertising online for selling the house in UK.

• And finally I realized the power of the Internet when I was able to sell off the house completely online without even having to travel to U.K. I could finally pay off the full mortgage and give a huge sigh of relief. This made me realize the importance of the internet for the first time and I realized that if I could sell such a large asset online, I could basically sell anything online.

• During this period, I also read the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and this influenced my thinking a lot. I started realizing that my upbringing was actually like that of Poor Dad and I had never given so much focus on money or on making it work for me. So I resolved that I would make whatever little money I had , to work for me.

• I invested the little money I had after selling our property in UK  into real estate in India. This turned out to be an extremely good decision at that time because the value grew and I was able to manage to send my sons abroad for higher studies with the profits.

• I also started getting interested in building an online business which could ultimately generate a passive income for me in my retirement years.

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My Final Defining Moment

 

• After my younger son left for college, I had more time after my work and I started looking at options to work online.

• But the long travel to and from work and the busy corporate work schedule still did not allow me to give too much time to doing much online.

• I took a big decision at the end of 2019 and decided to leave my corporate job and not look for another one.

• I started my online journey in full earnest starting January 2020.

• Today I am so glad and grateful that I took this decision. I have been able to build my digital assets online , I am building my skills and social media profiles online and I have also started to earn a monthly residual income from some of the programs that I joined earlier. I have also recently launched My very own online school for personal Branding and digital marketing- "Winbrand Academy".

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Where I Stand Today

 

Now that I have found my path, I am Obsessed with two things:

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• Financial Success and 

• Helping others realize their Dreams by following their passions and earning online.

 

Today, as I write this, it is the 3rd of June 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic is continuing to spread across the globe unabated. In India, like in most other countries , we are still in lockdown, people are losing their jobs and more and more people are looking at alternative sources of income.

 

I have been lucky enough to find a great mentor, coach and guide with whose training I have been able to set up this  Blog and am also learning Content creation, Organic Traffic Generation and the finer nuances of how to set up my online school, .I now want to help as many people as I can also do the same if they want to or help them with other opportunities of earning online.

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How can Vandana help you?

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The most common question that people have for me is (actually there are TWO):

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1- What exactly do you do and how can you help me?

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2- Why Online Marketing and Personal Branding (for Wealth) AND Wellness & Fitness (for Health), instead of just focusing on ONE thing?

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Let me address BOTH of these Questions right now...

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1- What exactly do you do and how can you help me?

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I personally help people Attract Online Business Leads for THEIR Home Businesses.

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Regardless of whether you have a "Nanny" service, a "Student Painting" company, or are even in the process of (or thinking about) starting your own Home Business, I'm here to make sure that Customers FIND, FOLLOW and CONTACT YOU online.

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I have Mastered the Art of Online Marketing and Personal Branding to the "tune" of 20 to 50 "Qualified" people (that are interested in what I have to offer) CONTACTING ME every single day.

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Now, I teach others to get the same results for THEIR Businesses.

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2- Why Online Marketing and Personal Branding (for Wealth) AND Wellness & Fitness (for Health), instead of just focusing on ONE thing?

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When Sir Richard Branson was asked what daily habit contributed the most to his financial success, he answered: "Working Out!"

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That's his number ONE... and it makes perfect sense.

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Without going into details here, when you pay attention to your health, not only will you live a Longer and more Pleasurable Life, but you will Function Better (physically and mentally).

 

I was always interested in sports like basketball, Table tennis and swimming but then my long hours at work got in the way. I also needed to focus on my young children as a single mother. I managed to keep myself fit by going to the Gym regularly. As a matter of fact, when I personally skip my morning workout, I don't "Tackle" my day in the same "Go-Getter" fashion as I do when I DO work out.

 

With Covid and the closing down of Gyms, I found a great program which I now daily pursue from home and I try to eat right. I will be sharing some of my knowledge on this along the way.