At just age 18 – Anish Parmar has worked with the BBC, ITV and National Express – during this time he has also built his personal brand and portfolio from the ground up.
Anish has always had the knack for creativity and the development of spotting trends and building on his clients unique selling points. Striving upon his entrepreneurship journey at the extremely young age of 14, he started by modifying games on his PlayStation 3. Anish discovered that there was a presence, demand and a market for people who wanted to modify their levels in games like “Call of Duty” to have an advantage over other players. Anish saw this as a business opportunity and capitalised on this. From this little spark of interest and the potential of making money online from his PlayStation 3, Anish’s entrepreneurial spirit was born. Fast forward 4 years later he has now created and developed his own unique personal brand based on his viral marketing and influencer campaigns and now wants to help other young entrepreneurs to do the same.
We also sat down with Anish recently and hoped we could interview him; he accepted and answered our questions. Here’s how it went:
Why Marketing? There are many avenues in entrepreneurship – why did you choose Marketing?
Ah, such a great question to ask. Why marketing? I’ll be real with you – Marketing is what I’ve grown up with. Marketing is what I know. I started growing my own Instagram accounts while taking my GCSE’s in secondary school in the UK at the age of 16 and then I saw my own account go from 0 followers to 17,400 in just under 6 months. With this rapid growth I started to gain sponsorships, brand deals and I was getting paid to post because of my following count & engagement rating. It was pretty surreal. This was when I realised that I could turn what I was doing into a full-time job. However, to refer to your original question, I do marketing because it’s purely all I’ve ever known. There was no secret formula to it either. I strived for the success that I’ve always chased – and it’s finally starting to pay off.
Do you have any advice to give to young entrepreneurs who want to start their own business?
Well, here’s three things that I wish someone could have told me earlier. Plan, Execute & Position yourself as an expert in your chosen field and industry. Doing these three things will allow you to succeed in your career – and not just in marketing. You should also learn to be able to cut off negative energy and pay close attention to the people in your circle. – As you should know that “Your network is your net worth.” Sometimes though, your own friends may limit your success and goals – so you might have to be distant or cut them off because of the negative energy they portray. Furthermore, no dream is too big or too small – chase your dreams. Do not let anyone tell you that you cannot chase your dreams. I come from a little estate in Birmingham and started my marketing business with zero connections in the business industry. Now look at me.
I’ve heard your also working on your own private course and mastermind group “AnstaSocial” – How is that going?
AnstaSocial is actually going great, thank you for asking. I’m actually currently writing my plan out for the AnstaSocial course. The course will include all relevant social medias (Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat & LinkedIn and maybe even Facebook!) My course will also include methods on how to monetize and grow engagement on all of the social media platforms listed above. Some of the tools used in AnstaSocial will also allow you to automate your growth and engagement, you will also get access to a private Facebook & Discord group used exclusively for “AnstaSocial” students – but yeah, that’s about it! It should be expected to release in Summer 2020.
Finally, what is your next step in your entrepreneurial journey? Where do you see yourself in the next couple of years?
My next steps? My next steps for me will be to release my AnstaSocial course and build more sales funnels but also scale up my business. I’m a firm and big believer of reinvesting into your own business, not investing into your lifestyle. That’s my short-term plan though, for long-term I see myself holding events across the UK and around the world with my team and teaching brick and mortar businesses the “ins and outs” of social media marketing and monetization and transitioning their business from offline to online.