The Secret Sauce in Winning Deals Even Before Meeting Your Clients featuring Shama Hyder of Zen Media

Dec 8, 2021

Shama Hyder is the award-winning CEO of Zen Media – a global marketing and digital PR firm which helps both B2B and B2C brands to make meaningful connections with the modern-day customer via influencer marketing, experiential and digital storytelling — and then turning those into bottom-line results. Notable clients include Chase Business, The US Navy, DFW Airport, MaryKay, and Tupperware.

She is the bestselling author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, now in its 4th edition and Momentum: How to Propel Your Marketing and Transform Your Brand in the Digital Age, and an acclaimed keynote speaker delivering keynotes in over 20 countries.

In this episode, Shama walks us through how she started her own marketing firm at the age of 22, why Twitter is the best thought leadership platform for agency owners right now, what she considers her high-impact activities (one of which has nothing to do with being an entrepreneur), and where Zen Media is headed in the future.

This Cast Covers:

  • What Zen Media has been doing and crushing it in the past 15 years and why they chose to work specifically in the B2B space  (03:44) 
  • The shift of focus surrounding PR from just talking about the company to thought leadership and the CEOs or founders of the companies (06:44)
  • Why companies who have thought leadership are doing really well in today’s climate (07:17)
  • Why you should get on Twitter if you’re an agency founder or owner right now (08:18)
  • The main thing that led to Zen Media’s success in the past 15 years (11:16)
  • How to shift from the agency being about me and all growth to how do I systematize and take myself out of that position  (15:18)
  • Where Shama sees Zen Media going next (16:14)
  • Why marketing and sales should always align perfectly and how can agency owners begin to figure out where to spend their marketing budget  (22:04)
  • Hiring a business coach and investing in yourself are two of the best decisions you can make as a CEO or founder (26:33)
  • How Shama thinks about choosing your high-impact activities (30:25)
  • Why it’s okay to feel great about being a supermom one day and a badass agency owner another day (31:28)
  • The one thing Shama is working on everyday (36:12)

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