Why Your Business Needs a Startup Mentality for Growth

Sanjay Sauldie is an established digital marketing consultant, director of the European Internet Marketing Institute, EIMIA, CEO of his self-titled consulting agency, Sauldie, and the proud winner of digital marketing's Oscar equivalent, the Golden Web Award. These — and various other honours from his homeland — are what makes Sanjay one of the most sought after digitalisation experts. 

When asked to describe himself, Sanjay says he's someone who tries to work with great heart despite the technical nature of his role. By removing ego, buzzwords and false promises from his work, Sanjay repeatedly delights his clients with his "surprise" success — sometimes even managing to double a company's share price using technology. 

So, what does Sanjay do differently? 

After consulting for nearly thirty years, Sanjay has developed a strong ethos along with new terms to describe how he thinks businesses should approach growth. Words like “digi-logue” perfectly capture Sanjay's belief that all CEOs need to know about digital technology and human relationships. 

Instead of aligning big businesses with similar players or even bigger rivals like most consultants would, Sanjay takes established companies back to basics, warning them to keep a watchful eye on startups. 

To do this, he takes existing team members out of their environment to create a false startup scenario. These individuals will then exchange information freely and without boundaries, in the same way an excited startup would. The whole point of this exercise is to build a startup mentality that gives businesses the ability to predict disruptions and remove the idea that an established company is in some way safer than a startup — or at the very least, immune to the change startups can bring. 

Sanjay encourages CEOs to go back to school and to familiarise themselves with new technological concepts. He also emphasises not to rely on the knowledge of others, to visit startup events, perform market research without any bias, let go of limiting beliefs — and never to forget to do their basic homework. 

All of this is what Sanjay calls developing a digital IQ. 

According to Sanjay, digital illiteracy is the biggest risk to companies and in some ways, his track record proves it. 

 0:56 — Tell us more about yourself. 

 2:26 — What's the importance of company values? 

 6:20 — What's the one marketing achievement you're most proud of? 

 9:55 — How do you build trust with the CEOs you work with? 

14:11— What one piece of advice would you give business owners? 

16:05 — How important is old-fashioned strategic marketing? 

19:47 — What makes companies successful? 

23:35 — What resources should people use to upskill? 

For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode158/