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Indira Popadic, owner of Core International – I stopped saying “difficult” 25 years ago
Source: eKapija
Wednesday, 18.10.2017.
15:49
Wednesday, 18.10.2017.
15:49
Comments
(Indira Popadic) When she opened a children's clothing wholesale and retail store in the 1990s, our interviewee, as she says, found herself constantly having to plan, manage and train new clients to fill out bills and statements, to talk to customers in case of complaints...
It is therefore not surprising that her interactive manual for entrepreneurs and those who want to become entrepreneurs “Take Your Life in Your Hands – 7 Steps from Idea to Realization” has had success in the market.
– The readers of my Manual often contact me to say with pride that they have started their own business or to tell me how I have encouraged them go legal with their previously black-market activities – Indira Popadic, business consultant and owner of Core International Novi Sad, says in her interview for the eKapija portal.
Indira Popadic is one of the 24 female entrepreneurs in running for this year's Success Flower award, handed out by the Association of Business Women in Serbia.
She has never faced any obstacles due to the fact that she is a female business consultant, as she says, and when asked how difficult it is being a businesswoman today, she says that she stopped saying “difficult” twenty-five years ago.
– I can say something's not easy, but if a good plan is made and if big goals are divided into smaller ones and if we work on achieving them step by step every day, the results are guaranteed – she explains.
– If you're asking me about challenges, I can only say that each challenge makes me richer by a big experience, which can be painful or expensive at times, but the lesson is learned. One of the pieces of advice in my manual for entrepreneurs is: “In business, you can never lose. Either you have made
a profit or learned a good lesson!” – Popadic says.
Furthermore, she adds, the state has recognized the importance of small and medium enterprises and is making maximum efforts to help in opening new companies through its support programs.
Talking about the beginning of her career, she remembers how she came to Novi Sad in 1992 as a refugee from Croatia. With her mind occupied with care for her children, she points out, she had no time to think about anything else except providing a decent life for her family.
– Since I had failed to find an adequate job, I opened a company of my own, Intex NS, and then Intex Kids as well, several years later. The company dealt in wholesale and retail of children's clothes. I ran it for a full twenty years. I fought in the market to turn my company into a brand. I took care of my employees, customers and suppliers – she adds.
At one point, however, due to changes in the market and health reasons, she decided to end the business with unsteady income and huge debts.
Now, 25 years later, everything is much easier and, as she says, she works because it makes her happy and because she has “a great need to help new generations to overcome everyday obstacles in business more easily”.
Regarding her current career, she says that the job of a business consultant entails helping business people to achieve better results or solve concrete business issues.
– Just as the best athletes cannot reach the top without a good coach and a quality team, in business, consultants act as mentors taking you through the process of achieving the goals you have set for your company and yourself – she explains.
There are two pieces of advice Indira Popadic wants to give to future entrepreneurs – never to stop educating themselves and to understand that success doesn't happen overnight.
– In my case, “overnight” means thirty years, as I wrote the Manual based on my personal experience, acquired through constant work, good and bad moments, mistakes and good things present in life and business alike. Success cannot be achieved in a day. Instead, it arrives day by day, but you don't have to fear journalists' or clients' questions afterwards – she emphasizes.
If she were to choose her professional path again, she says, “I would be a manager in the next three lives”, but there's still a lot that she would change. Among other things, she would trust people less.
– Today, I teach my clients that planning is one side of the coin, and that control is the other one – she says and adds that businesses fail when entrepreneurs enter the business without previously studying all the elements of doing business in a constantly shifting market.
Still, this doesn't mean that one shouldn't try.
– From this point of view, my advice is never to give up on your dreams, to fight for your life and your career by taking small steps. If you are currently employed in a position that doesn't bring you joy, slowly start looking for something else. When you do something you love, nothing is difficult. Still, even if this is not the case at the moment, I suggest doing your job as professionally as possible. I teach my children and my clients never to leave a closed door behind them.
When it comes to business successes, she highlights the fact that her contacts, experience and knowledge enabled her to provide EUR 700,000 to the Mileva Maric Einstein Technical School in Novi Sad, and when asked whether she has any unfulfilled business goals, she answers with a question.
– What kind of a business consultant would I be if I didn't know how to achieve each business goal I set for myself? I have personally come up with a “Magic Formula” I present in my workshops, where each business and private goal can be achieved.
As her children have grown up and become independent, she spends her free time with, as she says, “my love” – management, writing a new book, studying and preparing new workshops. She also hopes to fulfill her desire to visit San Diego, California, with her husband. In short, “I am enjoying the fruits of our work”.
She is the most proud of her ability to learn from her mistakes and to rise after every fall stronger than she was before.
– Honestly, I admire all brave and hard-working people who have been struggling for their job, their family and their children for years, those who are decent and well-mannered, who know how to enjoy small things and who know that life is a joy and a blessing.
It's no wonder, then, that her life motto is this quote by Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic: “Educated are those who are honorable, and rich are those who have God in themselves”. (TN: The quote contains untranslatable wordplay. “Educated” translates as “obrazovan”, whereas “honor” translates as “obraz”. Similarly, “God” translates as “Bog”, whereas “rich” translates as “bogat”.)
Milos Vlahovic
It is therefore not surprising that her interactive manual for entrepreneurs and those who want to become entrepreneurs “Take Your Life in Your Hands – 7 Steps from Idea to Realization” has had success in the market.
– The readers of my Manual often contact me to say with pride that they have started their own business or to tell me how I have encouraged them go legal with their previously black-market activities – Indira Popadic, business consultant and owner of Core International Novi Sad, says in her interview for the eKapija portal.
Indira Popadic is one of the 24 female entrepreneurs in running for this year's Success Flower award, handed out by the Association of Business Women in Serbia.
She has never faced any obstacles due to the fact that she is a female business consultant, as she says, and when asked how difficult it is being a businesswoman today, she says that she stopped saying “difficult” twenty-five years ago.
– I can say something's not easy, but if a good plan is made and if big goals are divided into smaller ones and if we work on achieving them step by step every day, the results are guaranteed – she explains.
– If you're asking me about challenges, I can only say that each challenge makes me richer by a big experience, which can be painful or expensive at times, but the lesson is learned. One of the pieces of advice in my manual for entrepreneurs is: “In business, you can never lose. Either you have made
a profit or learned a good lesson!” – Popadic says.
Furthermore, she adds, the state has recognized the importance of small and medium enterprises and is making maximum efforts to help in opening new companies through its support programs.
(Photo: Gunnar Pippel/shutterstock.com)
– Since I had failed to find an adequate job, I opened a company of my own, Intex NS, and then Intex Kids as well, several years later. The company dealt in wholesale and retail of children's clothes. I ran it for a full twenty years. I fought in the market to turn my company into a brand. I took care of my employees, customers and suppliers – she adds.
At one point, however, due to changes in the market and health reasons, she decided to end the business with unsteady income and huge debts.
Now, 25 years later, everything is much easier and, as she says, she works because it makes her happy and because she has “a great need to help new generations to overcome everyday obstacles in business more easily”.
Regarding her current career, she says that the job of a business consultant entails helping business people to achieve better results or solve concrete business issues.
– Just as the best athletes cannot reach the top without a good coach and a quality team, in business, consultants act as mentors taking you through the process of achieving the goals you have set for your company and yourself – she explains.
There are two pieces of advice Indira Popadic wants to give to future entrepreneurs – never to stop educating themselves and to understand that success doesn't happen overnight.
– In my case, “overnight” means thirty years, as I wrote the Manual based on my personal experience, acquired through constant work, good and bad moments, mistakes and good things present in life and business alike. Success cannot be achieved in a day. Instead, it arrives day by day, but you don't have to fear journalists' or clients' questions afterwards – she emphasizes.
If she were to choose her professional path again, she says, “I would be a manager in the next three lives”, but there's still a lot that she would change. Among other things, she would trust people less.
(Photo: PORTRAIT IMAGES ASIA BY NONWARIT/shutterstock.com)
Still, this doesn't mean that one shouldn't try.
– From this point of view, my advice is never to give up on your dreams, to fight for your life and your career by taking small steps. If you are currently employed in a position that doesn't bring you joy, slowly start looking for something else. When you do something you love, nothing is difficult. Still, even if this is not the case at the moment, I suggest doing your job as professionally as possible. I teach my children and my clients never to leave a closed door behind them.
When it comes to business successes, she highlights the fact that her contacts, experience and knowledge enabled her to provide EUR 700,000 to the Mileva Maric Einstein Technical School in Novi Sad, and when asked whether she has any unfulfilled business goals, she answers with a question.
– What kind of a business consultant would I be if I didn't know how to achieve each business goal I set for myself? I have personally come up with a “Magic Formula” I present in my workshops, where each business and private goal can be achieved.
As her children have grown up and become independent, she spends her free time with, as she says, “my love” – management, writing a new book, studying and preparing new workshops. She also hopes to fulfill her desire to visit San Diego, California, with her husband. In short, “I am enjoying the fruits of our work”.
She is the most proud of her ability to learn from her mistakes and to rise after every fall stronger than she was before.
– Honestly, I admire all brave and hard-working people who have been struggling for their job, their family and their children for years, those who are decent and well-mannered, who know how to enjoy small things and who know that life is a joy and a blessing.
It's no wonder, then, that her life motto is this quote by Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic: “Educated are those who are honorable, and rich are those who have God in themselves”. (TN: The quote contains untranslatable wordplay. “Educated” translates as “obrazovan”, whereas “honor” translates as “obraz”. Similarly, “God” translates as “Bog”, whereas “rich” translates as “bogat”.)
Milos Vlahovic
Tags:
Indira Popadic
Indira Popadic biography
Association of Business Women of Serbia
Success Flower award
Success Flower
female entrepreneur
female entrepreneurs
entrepreneurship
sale of clothes for children
manual for entrepreneurs Take Your Life in Your Hands 7 Steps from Idea to Realization
business consultants
business consulting
Intex NS
Intex Kids
mentor
mentoring
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