We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zarar Ameen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zarar below.

Zarar, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

Both my companies, CANZ Marketing and CANZ Studios, achieve top-class results for our clients, whether they are looking for an SEO fix, a game-changing Facebook ad strategy, or an unmatched app or game developed to their exact liking.

We’re increasingly becoming a top choice for companies looking for a 4x-9x return on their ad spend (ROAS). But it wasn’t always like that. Just a few years ago,I started with zero. No skills, connections or money. What I did have was the passion to learn and the determination to NEVER give up.

I started doing what I was passionate about – using digital media to help e-commerce store owners add more zeros to their bottom line. I established CANZ Marketing as a result of that passion. Not long after, motivated by the immense success of CANZ Marketing, I set up CANZ Studios.

I’m a very strong believer in reading, doing, and finally, analyzing. Anything I don’t have adequate knowledge about, I research, implement, and do it wrong a few times before I get it right. And when I do discover the secret formula, I scale it and help other businesses get to the numbers they’re looking for!

And most importantly, I NEVER give up.

Zarar, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Zarar Ameen, Founder and CEO of a multi-million-dollar digital marketing firm – CANZ Marketing – and a mobile-first app and game development company – CANZ Studios.

I also started the Build My Agency (BMA) program where I help new digital marketing agencies scale to 6 figures as fast as possible. So far we’ve been successful with over 200 of them.

At CANZ Marketing, my team works with international eCommerce brands and service-based businesses, regularly producing 4x-9x ROAS for them. But that’s not all – we provide them with holistic digital marketing solutions that build and maintain their presence online. The rapidly growing firm has been seen on Buzzfeed, Medium.com, SD Voyager, and many other platforms.

CANZ Studios, my second venture set up just a few months ago, is where we create and develop mobile apps and games for a multitude of genres. This consists of simulation, racing, action, entertainment, hyper-casual, and light mobile app categories among others. We’ve managed to build a team of 95+ Unity and Flutter developers who exhibit technical mastery paired with a burst of creativity. I come from humble beginnings.

Just a few years ago, I owned nothing but $1.16. But I had the passion to learn and the determination to NEVER give up.I started using digital media to help e-commerce store owners add more zeros to their bottom line. That led to the creation of CANZ Marketing, not long after which I set up CANZ Studios.

I’m a very strong believer in trying new things. Anything I don’t have adequate knowledge about, I research, implement, and learn from. And when I discover the secret formula, I scale it, and help other businesses get their desired numbers!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Success rarely ever does come easy. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have to overcome any hurdles and it was smooth sailing all along. But in my case, my determination to remain persistent in the face of adversity made all the difference.

As I mentioned previously, I started from literally nothing – not a penny to my name and no professional degree. All I had was a passion for digital marketing and a battered old chair and desk. Everything I learned, I learned by putting my limited knowledge into practice.

I failed more times than I succeeded but I refused to give up and, well, here I am today. But that’s not to say that all my troubles have vanished. There was a time when I saw our bank balance drop from $98k to a mere few thousand dollars. It took everything I had to not give up and build it back up.

Even recently, during COVID-19 times, we hit a snag. Our firm grew 4x as businesses moved online almost overnight but we didn’t have the resources to cater to the increased demand. Nor were we having success finding competent resources who would help us scale the business.

A few months on, however, that is another challenge we have overcome and left far behind.

Any advice for managing a team?

In life, I’ve come across a lot of people with an astonishing amount of knowledge and expertise in their niche. However, when it comes to management they cannot manage more than 5 people effectively. Most high achievers are micro managers. They want things done exactly the way they want. Unfortunately in the world we live in that type of thinking is unrealistic. What I’ve done is hire based off of alignment on core principles, from there it’s up to that person how they want to run things. I give them the vision and the KPI they have to achieve and base all my management around that.

Numbers are everything to me and as the saying goes humans lie, numbers don’t. If you want to establish and scale a real business you must manage through numbers as that’s the language of business.

Contact Info:

• Website: canzmarketing.com
• Instagram: zararameen
• Facebook: Zarar Ameen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zarar-ameen
• Twitter: Zarar Ameen