Zach Benson is the founder and CEO of Assistagram, an Instagram marketing agency focused on forging relationships with real people to grow an authentic and engaged Instagram audience. Assistagram does this by getting real follows in the client’s niche, creating viral content that excites those followers, and having influencers follow their profile to lend social credibility.
What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
I loved the freedom to build the life I wanted. Whether that was the freedom to travel or the freedom to choose my work, I wanted the opportunity to shape my own life.
What advice do you have for others who want to do what you’ve done?
Focus on the relationship first. Early on in my career, I thought I needed to make every sale the biggest sale possible. So I pushed my clients into contracts they weren’t ready for and a lot of them went elsewhere. I didn’t try to build trust first — I just went for the sale. So now I focus on building a long-term relationship over closing a short-term sale. If a client wants to start small, I start small, knowing that if I do well they might sign on for more work later. Not everyone’s ready to go all-in from day 1, and that’s okay.
What’s the future of your industry?
Marketing is moving online. People are on their phones for a good part of the day, from the minute they wake up until they go to sleep. They’re always on social media — that’s where they go to decide what they want to buy and from where. Social media is the present and future of marketing. It’s just a matter of how willing you are to keep up with it.
Be sure to follow Zach on Instagram!