AL EP 28: Sahid Nahim – First Focus On The Needs of Your Customers

Show Notes

Sahid Nahim, Founder and CEO of New Blooms Solutions, is dedicated to the floral industry by providing the most innovative solutions available for companies to bloom and thrive. From floral retailers to front-line farmers, New Bloom Solutions partners with clients at every segment of the floral industry supply chain to help transform their organizations, integrate innovation, and build businesses that flourish. With decades of floral industry experience and a background in customer relationship development, marketing, and sales, Sahid developed a deep understanding of how each aspect of the industry worked. He realized that our industry needed more communication, innovation, collaboration, and partnerships. With that vision, he founded New Blooms Solutions and created a live video show, The Bloom Show, on LinkedIn and YouTube. He hosts and interviews industry leaders, competitors, and partners for interviews, roundtables, and live industry events, resulting in empowerment through knowledge and connections.

Connect with Sahid Nahim, Above All Flowers & New Bloom Solutions here –
Web: https://newbloomsolutions.com/
The Bloom Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_Mn2QwIs6gvc_-jwtfyjpQ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newbloomsolutions/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahidnahim/
Book a call: https://calendly.com/newbloom/nbs-aaf-open-invite

Episode Transcript

00;00;04;02 – 00;00;32;14

Everybody is adjusting to your agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control, Greater of Leverage for Growth. And I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist, which scaled from 0 to $200000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of Leverage for Growth podcast Agency, Leverage and Episodes. We know that in order to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within the founders mindsets, skill sets and leadership styles.

00;00;32;23 – 00;01;00;19

We are on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy and money in order for you to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case, Study video to learn more about leverage for growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in control Icon slash Key Study at Niche in Control Icon slash Kingdom.

00;01;01;28 – 00;01;23;18

You’re now listening to Leverage for Growth. Hey everybody, This is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche and Control and creator of Leverage for Growth. Welcome to the Agency Leverage Edition. Today I am here with Saeed Naim, the founder of New Bloom Solutions, and above all, Flowers, a business services agency that is innovating the flower industry one step at a time.

00;01;23;29 – 00;01;43;25

Thanks for coming to our show today. Say thank you for having me. Truly appreciate just a title. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and background of your agency? So I’ve got to tell you a little bit of history myself. I’ve been in industry for 18 years. Flower industry, which is interesting. No, we are not florists.

00;01;43;27 – 00;02;16;28

Okay. So I’ll get that output out of the way. Now, there’s a lot of moving parts of the flower industry. So we focus on B2B. But being in the industry for 18 years as a sales rep and a trainer, etc., does this developer. I learned that the flower that he was an innovator in innovating quick enough, right? So I created new Bloom Solutions and Partner of the Wallflowers and our mission is really know three words just to innovate, connect And Blue Innovation is by representing different startups, by promoting and advocating for innovation and startups within the industry.

00;02;17;06 – 00;02;50;00

Connect is where we connect the entire industry in all sectors to them, to each other. Through the Bloom Show that we have on YouTube newsletters, email marketing list, the events that we host, going to conventions and really truly being present and giving everyone a voice in a place that they could come and gather at one place. And then Bloom is also offering different services like website design as CEO, even recruiting, consulting, product development, business development because we believe in a holistic approach to B2B business services.

00;02;50;15 – 00;03;10;24

Hmm. That’s awesome. And did your agency start off with all those different types of services, or has it kind of evolved over a period of time? Talk a little bit about evolution. Great question. So we picked up drop, drop, picked up, right. So you will start as a digital marketing agency. They game. You know, social media is a thing, social media thing.

00;03;10;24 – 00;03;33;20

But then we learned social media in the flower industry is very difficult because you do have florists, you do have wholesalers, you have growers. And content has to be true to what they’re growing or what they’re representing, presenting. It can’t just be a T-shirt or a static picture or a stock photo because they’re spending millions of dollars on creating one.

00;03;33;20 – 00;03;53;13

Rose, for example, new variety of roles. So we dropped digital marketing. That’s one of the things we dropped. And then another example as we picked up recruiting and established your recruiting agency called Portland Talent Live, because our customers that were consulting on business development were asking us for sales reps because that’s my background. So then we developed that.

00;03;53;13 – 00;04;16;28

So as we grow, we continue to pick up different services sometimes to third party services and sometimes during house services. We’re trying not to do too much in-house anymore. At this point we’re kind of chopped out, but we are partnering up with different agencies or partner up with a photography company or a 3D photography club. Any innovation that’s really cool that we could see that could kind of come into the flower industry.

00;04;17;04 – 00;04;38;05

We bring them in, we help grow the brand and they become our partner agency. So a lot of pivoting like most of us, right? Yeah. And if that choice of the niche, was that something that is because you were in the flower industry before and then it kind of morphed into your own baby. Yeah. So in the flower, you’ve seen a need for it.

00;04;38;05 – 00;04;54;26

It’s an industry that in the eighties and nineties that went gangbusters and then the industry didn’t want to change because why change something Your brain broke? Ray White fix something. So that was my passion. About four or five years ago. I’m going to be an advocate for that. That’s how I started the Bloom Show or the newsletter. Creating Awareness.

00;04;54;26 – 00;05;22;17

Other industries are changing. We should, should change. But staying within the flower industry, seeing that there was a need for innovation, for connecting, for networking, there’s I don’t think there’s much any companies like us there that we focus on these things and we share our network. So really it started one for being in the flower industry and then two, if you think about it, flowers affect people’s lives from a day they’re born to the day they pass away and after so there’s a true meaning to flowers.

00;05;23;06 – 00;05;42;02

So it’s really it’s a really good cause to be in the flower industry because we are changing people’s lives and and making people happy and giving them comfort. So all that combined worked very well, kept me there, kept me here. They say, I want you to come in the flower industry. You never leave. And I guess it’s true for me.

00;05;42;02 – 00;06;05;21

That’s awesome. And as you’re talking, I keep on thinking about roots. Because ultimately, as the evolution of your own agency, you’re kind of growing roots and developing different services based around the needs. Have you always been very customer centric because the only way of actually doing what you’re doing right now is based around figuring out customer needs and being able to figure out solutions.

00;06;06;21 – 00;06;26;04

So can you talk a little bit about customer centric in your agency? I come from a background of hospitality and of fashion, right? So being in a background of hospitality, waiting tables, bartending tables, etc., etc., you’re catering to the customer’s needs at all times. And if you don’t have the answer, I’ll be right back with the answer. So.

00;06;26;05 – 00;06;54;01

Right. So you’re always trying to find a solution and always trying to find how to make that customer happy because you’re going to get a better tip. So that mentality has always resonated with me. Even in our recruiting, we look for some hospitality, you know, we kind of dabble in that. But then going into the fashion industry, we’re presenting, listening to trends, listening to demand, listening to markets, understanding that you have a person watching, you diagnose you, what color do you like, Red.

00;06;54;01 – 00;07;17;05

What are you looking for today? Shoes. Are you looking for comfort? So understanding what they’re looking for, resenting it in front of them, making them make the decision based on three options, let’s say. But listening to them and not just feeding them what you feel they want to hear, but really asking the questions, getting down to their needs, what they need it for, and then finding the solutions on offer.

00;07;17;23 – 00;07;43;13

Mm hmm. That’s awesome. And for anybody that’s listening, if you were to give them advice on how to be more customer centric, that’s obviously your superpower, right? So, like, you know, if you were to give somebody some kind of advice on either something that they could do, either a strategy or a tactic to be more customer centric, what would you give them or what advice would you give?

00;07;43;13 – 00;08;01;07

It’s a simple saying Put yourself in their shoes. But that might not be easy, right? But there’s a book. It’s not around here. Gaps. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you have it. But it’s Ask them questions first. Forget about what you do right. Don’t sell yourself first. Ask them questions. And I’m just learning this. I’ll be honest.

00;08;01;07 – 00;08;23;15

I’m trying to implement that. You could read all you want, but if you don’t implement it, you never do it. But learn about your customer first. Understand your customer. Have vision for your customer, your customer. Sometimes I get up and they’re very tunnel vision. So try to more sight look past what they’re even telling you. Use your network in all your past experiences as well.

00;08;23;15 – 00;08;57;04

But I’ll go back to that book, you know, read, learn how to dive into the needs of your customers because your customers needs comes before what you could offer or your services, because you have to make sure that it’s a good fit. So, you know, read and educate yourself. And that’s been a book that I’ve really taken on lately this past year that absorb I think I’m on my second or third read of it, to really absorb and to understand and to be able to ask the right questions, to get to the right solution for that customer.

00;08;57;20 – 00;09;22;17

MM I love it. There are some books that you just study as opposed to just breezed through and it seems like that’s a good one. Yeah. Because any book you could breeze through it, you know. But I highlight, I fold pages and then I go back and create my own study guide. So that’s another tip, I guess is, you know, make sure to have a highlighter, make sure to have a pencil and Mark, Mark, Mark, because you’re going to lose 90% of that information.

00;09;23;11 – 00;09;41;24

Go back to it and then make your own study, guide your own team, and then start practicing it and develop good results for us. For the last three months that we’ve been using Go Awesome and for success in your agency, what do you what are you working on? What are you getting excited about? Maybe in the next 1 to 3 years?

00;09;42;26 – 00;10;05;11

I’m we’re, we’re implementing some influencer strategies to highlight some of our vendors. We’re also doing some cool partnerships, some really exciting partnerships as well. Just got signed on to another great product that we’re going to be representing. So very excited about that. This year we created an advertising model because we do have a newsletter, we do have the Bloom Show.

00;10;05;19 – 00;10;28;10

So we’ve been doing that just for three months and we’re basically booked. So excited about still making that revenue model, right? So my idea has always been is how many extreme of revenue can we have in? So if one’s not working so, you know, implementing, I think we’ve implemented 2 to 3 new revenue models starting March. So excited to see that evolve and see which one sticks.

00;10;28;10 – 00;10;45;09

Right. The one thing I always say is I don’t fear perfection. So if I try something that fails, perfectly fine with me as long as I tried it. Mm hmm. Awesome. And for anybody that’s listening, what would be the best way for people to get in touch with you? Or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of?

00;10;45;14 – 00;11;08;19

I would say it would be great to sign up to our newsletter. You could go to digital. We’ve got new Blue Solutions that you’ll get a quick pop up, sign up to the newsletter if you want to understand a new industry within all sectors. And then if you want to check out and understand the flower industry a little bit more because I truly encourage startups to enter our industry, It’s hard to come in as an advertising agency or marketing agency without knowing the industry.

00;11;08;28 – 00;11;39;15

It’s such a niche, it’s so unique. It’s not easy to understand from terminologies to people to actions to customer behavior. It’s so difficult even to write content. But going to the Bloom Show, for example, on YouTube and kind of get an understanding of seeing different startups, I hope to encourage new startups and new businesses to enter, and that’s something I encourage you if you have an idea and you’re interested, maybe partnering up with an agency because you’re looking to get into another industry, reach out.

00;11;39;16 – 00;11;59;24

You can always reach out to P as an all Amazon Micro, but just PM at New Bloom Solutions dot com or go to our website new Bloom solutions dot com and put contact there and reach out to us and I’m always I always have time for startups and different agencies to talk to. You never know where it may lead go Absolutely.

00;12;00;10 – 00;12;29;06

And for anybody that’s listening I will put the URLs in the show notes so you can get connected with Saeed. And I just want to thank you very much for being on the show. Appreciate you. Thank you for your time. Agency owners. If you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and switch to working on the business where you can regain control of your time, delegate effectively, get paid what you’re worth, and have your team run the day to day.

00;12;29;14 – 00;12;47;01

Go to niche in control dot com slash case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth, you can book a free strategy session with us to look at your systems, understand what needs to be done in order for you to scale and get a free strategic plan for the next year to live the life of entrepreneurship that you’ve always dreamed about.

00;12;47;16 – 00;13;08;07

Go to niche in control dot com slash case study that is niche in control dot com slash case of now.

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