What I Wish I’d Known When Scaling My Business
It’s been ten years since I started Zen Media, and I often find myself wishing I knew then what I know now! Since I don’t have a time machine, however, I do take comfort in being able to share with each of you the valuable lessons I’ve learned!
The first lesson is straight out of the SAT playbook. It’s about how to grow your business and avoid burnout by leveraging your strengths rather than focusing on your weaknesses. Now, just because you don’t focus on your weaknesses doesn’t mean you’re oblivious to them, so we’ll talk about the art of attracting the talent you need to close the gaps in your own skillset to create a well-rounded team that can help you grow into a better leader.
The second learning I share is about why I was practically throwing free services at my audience for a very long time, why and how “freemiums” can help you grow your business, and while you’ll never outgrow the need to generate value-adding content for your audience. I also talk about what it means to play the long game when it comes to building your customer base, the strategic sacrifices this requires, and what you can learn from my professor’s retort, “Ms. Hyder, even God has competition!”
The third learning outlines some of the most formidable challenges to scaling your business, including the conundrum of how to deliver personalized service at scale. The contemporary customer journey has become dizzyingly complex with a proliferating number of touchpoints, with each needing to be seamless, consistent, and customer-centric. I explore the challenges the digital age is presenting to modern brands (both in terms of their customers and internal teams), and the key role of technology in overcoming them.
Find the full article at Microsoft 365’s The Growth Center.
This post was sponsored by Microsoft; all thoughts and opinions are my own.
