6 Things I’ve Learnt Over 6 Years In Business – By Consume Comms Founder & MD Hannah-Natalie Hosanee

Consume Comms is 6! 🎉

Entering year 6 of trading during the 3rd year of a global pandemic, and what I’ve learnt (and accepted!) in that time. 

Purpose is important – Whatever the business, project or organisation having a purpose that presents a solution or addresses a need for the audience is important. It also helps as a point to draw people to the cause and shows the value of being a part of the business or subscribing to the service. Essentially purpose = value, what are we doing this for, and why does it matter!

Setting goals and milestones and then setting achievable activities to meet them. In the early days of running a business; things tend to be very reactive for those of us who are being honest. As time goes on and you learn about working smarter not harder, setting goals and noting milestones to aim for makes it easier to move forward and to help direct a team. That being said; achievable goals are the key part –  break that activity down and delegate.

Community is more important than popularity – a loyal base of supporters is of more value than many followers, building a diverse and high-quality network is the most important thing you can do for your business (and for yourself).

Authenticity is your strongest asset. Probably the hardest thing for any business is to find its authentic self and to be confident in promoting this. When you first start out in business and generally in the world of work, you look to fit in, and achieve the same milestones as your peers in what looks like success. Some years in I’ve accepted that the bits about the business which make it unique and a bit different are actually what gives it its legacy, and sparks interest in the right people we want to work with.

Consistency for real long-lasting change. I’m sure it’s been said many times before, but if you make something a habit and stick to it then you see real change. A challenging part of leadership for me is picking the right things to ingrain in the business and ensuring they’re followed through. But also the best thing we’ve done as a business is to take time to create systems and processes that will allow us to scale; building templates and systems that mean onboarding new members of the team and clients are now made easier, and also don’t need to be my sole responsibility.

Synergy – Work and productivity become better when you can find synergies across projects, leverage ideas, mindset, and working processes. Over the years the business has naturally fallen into some specific spaces and the more we play to the niche – the easier we find working practices become, as we can connect our network and draw on experiences to offer a more enriched outcome instead of being thinly spread working across multiple industries and projects. Find people, projects, and tools that complement each other.