For Prasanth Naidu, chief marketing officer of moneyview, if one puts their head down, works hard and is dedicated to their work, the underlying assumption is that they are well-equipped to handle the role.
But that should not be the starting point of a job. According to Naidu, the starting point should be whether the job excites you and how deep you want to go into that role. For a job hack, people should try and gain some sort of expertise in the field they are working in.
Edited excerpts
The creator economy has taken the world by storm. Which influences and trends are you following?
I’m interested in tech, so I follow influencers like Marques Brownlee (American YouTuber). I follow certain core fintech influencers like Rachana Ranade and Ankur Warikoo, who’s an alumnus of my college, followed by Sharan Hegde.
Another big area of interest for me is in the automotive sector. I follow a lot of these automotive reviewers.
What marketing-related content do you consume in your free time?
I like consuming content on social media. Mad Over Marketing is another channel that I follow. I think they give good insights into the latest innovations and things that are happening from a marketing front.
We also have the subscription of W.A.R.C. (World Advertising Research Center). From time to time, I check what are the kinds of new innovations, new campaigns or marketing campaigns that are really catching the eye of people.
I’ve been on the jury for the Effies (final round juror) this year. So yes, that was another good exposure to the kind of campaigns that people are doing.
What steps have you taken to avoid the adverse impact of the always-on work culture on yourself and your colleagues? What advice would you give your peers, colleagues and next-gen marketers?
There are two parts to this. It’s very critical for every professional to manage their time very well. At moneyview, we’ve been working remotely for the past three to four years now. Although we are restarting our office in hybrid mode from April, some of the key things are to sort of take short five-minute breaks to unwind and gather your thoughts when you have long meetings or long days.
Secondly, what happens is if we have a three- to four-day timeline, we keep it for the last minute. Hence, it has to do a bit with effective time management. One should have very clear targets in terms of how to use the time to manage the work one has so that everything doesn’t become urgent and critical.
Is there any sport or fitness routine you practise during the week to steal a few minutes of me time and keep the momentum going?
Two to three days a week, I play badminton early in the morning. I represented my state when I was in school or early days of college. That has been my passion and I’ve continued to play it through the years.
Swimming is another good sort of unwinding sport. That is something that I’ve taken part in professionally as well.
It’s not just about taking out some pent-up stress. It is also about interacting with people who are not from your direct circle. You get to meet very interesting people who do not have any commonality with you other than the fact that they are playing badminton with you. So you get to learn and meet people from different walks of life.
What does your weekend look like?
There is always some small percentage of work that creeps into the weekends. On weekends, I spend time with my pet dog and with my wife. We try to hang out with friends, check out new eateries in and around Bengaluru where I currently reside. On Sundays, I binge watch some new shows.
Share one work hack and one life hack you swear by.
I think one should give themselves time to really get immersed in the work that they’re doing and really understand and get into the depths of the job role that they are doing.
One should give themselves enough time to not focus too much on how quickly they are growing or how quickly their salary is increasing. Of course, those are important.
But what I’ve learned over the years is that if you put your head down and work hard and you’re dedicated to your work, the underlying assumption obviously is that you are well-equipped to handle the role. Eventually, you will get your due and you will grow. But that should not be the starting point with which you enter a job. The starting point should be whether it excites you and how much depth you want to go into that particular role.
For a job hack, I would say that people should try and gain some sort of expertise in the job that they are working in. It’s important to have a differentiator for yourself as you build your career because that’s something that no one can take away from you. People have become generalists all across but even a generalist will have one particular field that they are very adept at.
Hence, taking the time and getting into the details of the work that one is doing is critical.
From a life hack point of view: keep things simple and don’t overthink. If you are lucky to find a job role that is very dear to your heart, you don’t really have to focus so much on work-life balance because it’s all fun.
Otherwise, I would say a life hack would be to be very clear about your priorities and not take yourself too seriously. I think people tend to take themselves too seriously and in the process try to overdo things. I think keeping things simple and making sure your basics are covered is something that I would say is critical.
What are you reading? Any recommendations?
I am intrigued by this book called ‘The Psychology of Money’ which beautifully explains the irrational part of decision making when it comes to managing money and finances.
It is very critical for any marketing manager or anybody who’s in marketing or in the fintech industry to read this book in order to understand a very holistic view of how people make decisions related to money and investments.
‘Atomic Habits’ is another one that I also swear by. These are two very underrated bestsellers that people should definitely read.
A piece of wisdom you would like to share…
It is very important to break things down into the simplest form and start addressing them one after the other. Else, what happens is that it can feel overwhelming. In the current day and age, when there are founders who are between 25 and 35, it can get overwhelming.
My biggest advice would be to just take a step back to evaluate and simplify the things that actually matter. Identify the things that actually matter where you need to succeed. If there are 10 to 20 tasks that you have, you know you may not be able to succeed in all of them.
But identify which ones can actually create a lot of impact and make sure that you’re giving your time and effort to them. Break down bigger problems into smaller and simpler solvable problems.
With the state of affairs surrounding Paytm, and what are moneyview’s learnings?
moneyview as an organisation has always been very compliant with all the guidelines that have been set up by the Reserve Bank of India.
We definitely have always been pro-consumer and we have always strived to make sure the consumer is never at risk. We adhere to all the guidelines that have been laid out by the RBI or any other regulatory body. That is something that is there in the DNA of the company and that is not going to change.
How important is moment marketing as a tool for moneyview?
With reduced attention spans, moment marketing has become a big thing. That has been the big paradigm shift from where FMCG companies used to do a single marketing campaign for an entire year.
But now, there are avenues for consumption and generation of content on a daily and an hourly basis. So we only do moment marketing where it is relevant for us and where we feel that it can actually benefit the consumer. We typically do not believe as a philosophy that we should ride a wave or a fad.
We have been consistent in the way we reach out to consumers. On social media, it definitely helps to leverage some of the events or occurrences that happen during the year.
But moment marketing drives temporary eyeballs. What actually gives the brand a lot of gravitas is the value proposition they give to the consumer and how genuine they are with respect to the content they create and their dissemination to the consumer.
Moment marketing can get a brand attention. I think that the backbone of building trust with the consumer is by actually addressing pain points in their marketing communication when they reach out.