We were lucky to catch up with Nazeera Dawood recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Nazeera thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
In the post COVID era, the mindset of leaders has to incorporate the current realities of flexibility, understanding of the personal situations of their employers and providing enough training opportunities to advance, flourish and grow in personal value.
In my case as Vendorship CEO, I made the decision to defer maintaining full-time office space and instead use the resources more efficiently on staffing and client needs. Our company has a total virtual presence since then and we have been doing pretty well. The team also appreciates the flexibility to work from home.
Leadership is a core set of principles that allows for a group or a company to set pathways and trends towards excellence. Leadership has various styles. The ultimate role of a leader is to make the world a better place. There are some basic traits that are helpful for successful leadership. Empathy and compassion are not usually correlated with the corporate – sector, but they are vital to achieving success.
Nazeera, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Nazeera, I was born in a remote village in India and we later moved to the city. I spent my childhood in the Mideast as my father moved there for his job. I came back to India to complete high school and later, medical school. As a child, I wanted to be a doctor, a police woman and an actress when I grew up. I became a doctor to serve the underserved. I completed my community police academy course in my city as well. The acting part is still out there.
As I reflect back on different roles I have played, the common thread has been to provide a platform that unites people and their capacities to contribute all in the best interest of harmony, peace, progress, love and purpose.
I would like to use a quote from my life lesson, “Tell your own story. Do not allow others to tell your story. They might not get it right.” We all are unique because we come with our own experiences, life lessons, choices we have made, the good, the bad and the ugly.
I ran for public office in 2015–2016. All the gaming of politics during that experience, launched complete false portrayals of me as a person. It forced me to realize that I needed to tell my own story because others obviously did not get it right. I also realized that as a minority, most people did not know me and hence there was the worst kind of mudslinging; awful things were being said about me. I realized that societies and constituencies were totally missing the truth in awareness about who people are, who our neighbors are, and all that we all have in common. So I initiated “Chai & Just Chat” right after the campaign in order to educate the broader community about the richness of our diversity and bring people together on a common platform.
Currently, I am the Founder and CEO of Vendorship Inc. At Vendorship Inc, we coach companies to successfully bid on government contracts, every time. We are a full-service government contracting partner for local and global SMEs. We operate as an extension of our clients’ team, with a variety of experts that deliver business development leads (i.e. RFPs based on our clients’ core business), and public-sector-specific proposal writing. We take care of any and all documentation, registrations and certifications.
A crucial aspect that sets us apart from other specialists in the field is our bid intel work: we find the bid information that is needed to make networking, positioning and solid project pricing decisions for better chances of winning the bid and increasing our clients’ ROI.
In other words, we collaborate with our clients on identifying bids and writing proposals; all the rest, the red tape, is taken care of by us. We make government contracting easy.
Vendorship was established out of the need for a liaison between innovative solutions providers (in IT, construction, commodities (such as PPE) and professional services) and government offices for better functioning, flourishing communities. Several team members at Vendorship have worked in public administrations and understand the RFP and procurement process. The RFP process is designed to be results oriented and impartial but the requirements tend to be complicated. Just like any business, government entities need outside solutions for better functionality. And all businesses need new projects to grow.
Vendorship takes down the barriers for small and medium sized companies to identify and successfully bid on government contracts.
We are client and community champions. We are excited about providing government entities with a greater number of options to choose from while opening another sector to SMBs – especially female and/or minority owned and run businesses – for diversification, growth and success.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
We have a 100% success record in getting our clients to bid on government proposals, regardless of the size of the client’s size or starting point. It was certainly not easy, moving and thriving through the stages of a startup. The winning factors have to align. A demand in the market, a committed and trustworthy team aligning around the passion for the mission and the willingness to work toward that common goal.
We started the business with $200, and there have been times when the account was about to show a negative balance. But we continued to work hard until we found another client. I will never forget the two-week period during which the account balance was $4 and 59 cents; and there were unpaid bills. It discouraged me to the core but also gave me the strength to tweak our approach and work smarter and harder. The secret was to not give up.
Lessons learned include that entrepreneurship is not about reaching the destination. Entrepreneurship is a journey filled with good and not so good moments. We have to recognize the gravity and potential of the moment sometimes and enjoy the journey taking in to consideration all who are dependent on the company’s success.
Occasionally, taking some time off, team retreats, team building and inspiring and motivating each other has helped along the way. Vendorship Inc. grew from $200 startup money into a company with a $2-million-plus revenue stream within four years. What we have built from nearly nothing is based on believing in the vision and having confidence in our expertise and hard work paying off in the long run. We want people to know that our story can be any person’s story.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
From the very beginning as a child, I have questioned the status quo. I questioned why things were done in a certain way or why norms existed that only provided opportunities to a few, privileged. As I questioned, I also found solutions while taking risk and changed the norms. I am the first professional graduate doctor among a community that did not promote women education beyond middle school. I took the risk to cross the obstacles to graduate.
I realize that I have taken risks in both personal and professional life. Just recently, a friend remarked that many consider me as the pioneer since I initiate routes that others choose not to take. Taking risks also helped me in applying and expanding my skill, for example in local government as the Chief of Staff at the Chairman of the Board of Commissioner’s office.
If I had not taken risks, I would not have gained the enriching experience from running for local office. Taking risk helped me to better understand the needs in the community while identifying my strengths and solidifying my focus on providing solutions to communities. Taking risk has helped me become an entrepreneur, founding Vendorship Inc, providing customized services to companies that seek to diversify into the public sector through government contracting.
From delivering documentation, identifying bidding opportunities and writing successful proposals for our clients, we have grown into a committed team that believes in the vision and the purpose of helping companies of all sizes to achieve their goals.
Taking risks has come full circle. Risks well worth taking as this company can now provide other companies with a path to revenue growth. Risks that now enable me to provide professional career opportunities and financial stability to exceptional women while supporting community programs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.
vendorship.net - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/vendorship/ - Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/company/ vendorshipinc - Twitter: https://twitter.com/_
nazeeradawood - Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/channel/ UCgnpSOM59LgsuN9a4VG1sTg - Other: www.chaiandjustchat.com
www.nazeera.net