By Steve Walsh
We recently celebrated our seventh birthday. Seven amazing years of changing people’s worlds – one strategic word, pixel and graphic at a time.
Over that time, we’ve learnt a lot. That’s for sure!
Read more: News – Jump turns seven
So, we’ve rounded up seven alternative learning from seven years of running Jump Media Group, since we started in 2015.
1. The customer is absolutely, in no way, shape or form, always right.
If they were, they wouldn’t need to hire you. Positively challenging and being a critical friend is one of the most important skillsets you can deliver for people you work with.
2. “An IT manager will never get sacked for picking Microsoft.” – this was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I was given, by Richard Beards.
When we started, we wanted to be seen as edgy and different. Ultimately, though, we had to find a way to do that while making us look like a safe bet.
3. It doesn’t matter how good you are at doing something, what matters in business is how good you are at selling something.
You can be the world’s best at something but if you can’t sell it to other people, you can’t build a business.
4. Most people sell what they’re good at – the best businesses sell what other people are bad at.
Finding people’s true pain points and problems, and being able to solve them, is how you really grow.
5. Journey > Destination.
I used to think you could wow people at the end of projects with the ultimate result. I was wrong. If stakeholders haven’t been on the journey with you and don’t understand the intricacies of the decisions that got you to the end, they won’t truly buy in to the solution (we learnt this one the hard way).
6. Processes > Outcomes.
Without a unique and own-able process that a business and team can replicate, you’re not truly a business – you’re a set of contractors. To scale a business, you need to have your own methodology that is the businesses way of operating, not the way an individual operates. TLDL; people leave, you have to be able to operate the same independently of who is working on what.
7. There is no growth without risk. Embrace it. Take more.
Just like life begins outside your comfort zone, the only way to grow as a business it to take a leap of faith every now and again. Carrie Rose of Rise at 7 swears by the 70/30 rule – if she see’s the risk as 30% or less, she makes the leap and goes all.
Steve Walsh is managing director of Jump and works with people on a daily basis on strategy and digital.
