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Marketing to a new generation with Rayze Consulting
155 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, we meet with Rayyan and Sahil to learn about Rayze Consulting. They created a company that helps brands think of new ideas, craft marketing campaigns, and learn more about Generation Z. Learn more about the consulting business from finding clients to tips for being taken seriously by more established companies.
Rayze Consulting social media: https://lnkfi.re/rayzeconsulting
Follow ChangemakerZ at https://go.changemakerz.org/follow
Episode's link: https://podcast.changemakerz.org/rayzeconsulting
Produced by Vasilis Skarleas
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Transcript
Introduction to Changemakers
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm Saloni. And I'm Vassilis. We run Changemakers team, a student-run initiative that aims to empower, educate, and connect gen players interested in entrepreneurship. We interview teenagers with impactful projects and create resources to help you change the world. If they can't do it, so can you.
00:00:23
Speaker
On this podcast, we discuss logistics of creating different types of projects with Gen Zers who have already done it. We will leave our social media and website information in the description.
Meet Rayon Ahmed and Sahil Vuna
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to the last episode of Gen Zers to Ride podcast for season one. Here with us today, we have two special guests, the CEOs of Ray's Consulting, Rayon Ahmed and Sahil Vuna. It's our honor to have you on this amazing episode. Ray's Consulting is a Gen Z consulting company that helps brands to think of new ideas, craft marketing campaigns, and learn more to connect with Generation Z. Their motto, spread with Gen Z. Welcome guys. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us on.
00:01:10
Speaker
All right, so tell us about yourself. Yeah, sure. So me and Sal are about 16 years old. We live in northern New Jersey, really close to New York, actually. It's like a 20, 30 minute drive without traffic. We both go to the same school. That's kind of like how we met. And we started this company, like this current company back in August. And it's been really, really cool having been able to work with all these brands and kind of like meeting all these new people. So yeah, this is awesome.
00:01:39
Speaker
What inspired you to create Rise Consulting?
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I think really like being able to like help businesses, right? So Rand and I, you know, in school, we both met because we have a similar interest in business. And really, like, we've seen a lot of these businesses struggle. You know, we focus, you know, we we've seen like a lot of small businesses struggle through the pandemic. And we wanted to figure out how can we as 16 year olds be able to help businesses right through our knowledge. And we thought, you know, we're part of this unique
00:02:11
Speaker
generation called Gen Z, right? And many of these other businesses, they have many like older adults that aren't really equipped with, you know, Gen Z or like they don't really know about Gen Z that well. So you're like, okay, well, as we were part of Gen Z, why don't we help businesses with our knowledge? So it's kind of like our inspiration, I guess, is kind of just seeing some of the difficulties that businesses are facing and like kind of like taking up or being able to like help them through our knowledge. Awesome.
Why Focus on Gen Z?
00:02:39
Speaker
Growing up, did you always have a business oriented mindset? I kind of, I think I kind of did like the, and the basic things that like a lot of kids do kind of like a lemonade stand and selling shoes, t-shirts and stuff like that. And I guess in a way it was, I didn't always know that I wanted to go into business, but I did like these, like these small side businesses just to get into it. So I think, yeah, in a way.
00:03:05
Speaker
I mean, uh, for me, I guess like in India, a lot of my relatives like, uh, have like businesses there. So like, you know, I've seen like how those work and stuff like that. I didn't really have like, okay, I want to be like, you know, a CEO of a company, you know, when I was like five or six year old, but you know, like ran, I've been doing like small, small things. Like for example, I'm a boy scout, right? So do a lot of fundraisers for that, et cetera. But really like, I didn't have anything in mind, like, you know, being like a CEO of like a business, you know, like a young age.
00:03:34
Speaker
I think it's so funny all these little companies that we start like when I was like 10 or something, I would like force my family like give them like foot baths and stuff in this little spa that I had. It was cringy and like, but I feel like we all can relate to these like little businesses that we started we were younger. But um, yeah, like why do you think it's important for businesses to market to Gen Z?
00:03:57
Speaker
So, I mean, this is a really good question, I think. The biggest thing is, I mean, Gen Z is the next generation, right? Like, why? Like, there's so many Gen Zers, it was like...
00:04:07
Speaker
I don't know the exact number, but I know there's a large amount of Gen Zers all over the world. And if you decide, hey, I've got to ignore them, you're missing out on a huge segment. And if your competitors or other people that are in your industry, they start to market to them and they start to connect, you're missing out and you're going to fall behind. You're basically missing a large segment.
00:04:33
Speaker
We've already seen this happen with millennials. Companies have forgotten like, hey, maybe let's ignore millennials or let's maybe just keep marketing baby boomers. It didn't work out. A lot of companies you've seen over the last 10 years have just shut down just because they haven't been able to adapt. That's going to continue to happen if people don't adapt to marketing to Gen Z.
00:04:55
Speaker
I mean, we've seen, you know, big, big companies like Nike, Adidas, all these companies, like, you know, following with these celebrities, like, you know, basketball stars, athletes, I mean, celebrities, you know, everyone, like, you know, the main reason they do these is so that they can, you know, attract Gen Z and all these demographics. And, you know, it's like other competitors of like, you know, these big companies with Nike, etc. If they want to catch up to par or not even just like the sports industry, right, in any industry, if you want to like catch up or like you have to create
00:05:23
Speaker
or you have to like tap into like a huge like of that target market, right? So in order to do that, like Gen Z is like a very big portion of like that total
Consulting Services and Pricing Model
00:05:31
Speaker
market. So definitely we think you know Gen Z marketing is something like very important for any business. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, like how do you find clients?
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, when we first started, and I think even now, to some extent, we do a lot of cold emailing, cold contacting, right? Like, either on LinkedIn, or just emailing people. Like, got their contact from somewhere, and we'll say like, hey, we'll do like a short pitch in the email, say like, hey, this is who we are, this is who we work with, this is what we do, and this is where we think we can help. So most of it is just kind of an emailing.
00:06:09
Speaker
Since then we've kind of had like some connections like some referrals like people said like hey because agree and so it's and for now it's been a mix of like referrals and cold contacting. I see your business type is different than the usuals since your product is combination between proposals and advices. So how do you set your prices?
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that really depends, because sometimes when we help companies, they're very established, but they might have some small problem that we come in. Or we have a startup that needs a lot of help. So it really depends. For example, if we have a company that needs a very small marketing strategy, maybe one or two months, that may cost less than another company that wants to do a lot more different, unique marketing strategies that could be up to six to even nine months or even more.
00:07:02
Speaker
It really depends. It also depends on what stage they are as a company. So if they're a startup, we try to help them because we were saying before how our inspiration was to help businesses and stuff. But if it's some very established company and we see that it takes a lot more work and time, then
00:07:20
Speaker
be would usually charge more, but it really depends. But yeah, again, like it depends on like how difficult or how complex you know that the marking strategies are and like how hard it could be to implement them.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're still learning, right? We've experimented in the start, like, hey, would this price work? Would that price work? What is the optimal pricing? And if we find out, hey, maybe we should charge higher, maybe we should charge lower, we're still open to change. We're learning on the way for the pricing. Because as you said, there's not a lot of Gen Z agencies out there. So the pricing point, you can't really take it from someone else, I guess. So yeah, we've been experimenting a lot.
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I love that you say that. I love the way that you kind of set your prizes and stuff, like just kind of based on experiments and like experience, because I feel like we can tend to undervalue ourselves. And that's like, especially when you're working with these more established companies. So yeah.
Balancing Consulting with School
00:08:22
Speaker
And speaking of, like, how do you, how are you balancing this with schoolwork and extracurriculars? Is this the only thing you do? Like, do you have any tips on that?
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it is tough, right? Definitely as like sophomores in high school, it is tough, like, you know, balancing work with this with all the other things that we're doing, right? At least for me, like, I'm, you know, part of robotics. I'm, I'm a Boy Scout, obviously, which takes a lot of effort and time.
00:08:48
Speaker
Um, you know, I do a lot of volunteering, all these things. And I think like one of the biggest things for me that's like helped me is just really just managing my time. Right. So I try to like finish my schoolwork, right. And stuff like that. And make sure that I spend at least one to two hours per day for like raise or even more, depending on how it is.
00:09:06
Speaker
But really, what I try to do best is time management, making sure I have a schedule or a list of things that I need to do for today and try to get them done as soon as possible. But really, you do bring up a good point of how if high school students want to start something up, it's a really big time commitment. So definitely, I think just time management is the key here.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, so you're a small business and like the company like yours, most of your clients will inevitably be much older than you. I mean, has it been challenging to be taken seriously with these more established companies? Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think it really depends on like the client's attitude when they come in. Some people are really serious, right? They really want to learn about us and
00:09:52
Speaker
whatever kind of we say they'll take it into serious consideration. Others we've seen that like it is kind of like like if you own the product they're like hey should we go with them should we not and it's kind of like it's again tough sometimes because at that point like you kind of have to like prove yourself to them and it's not always great to do that but I mean most of the time I think we have been taken seriously and I think to those that we like people that haven't really thought like we're serious we kind of
00:10:19
Speaker
proved ourselves to them, so I think now they do think we are. I think that's going to be a difficult task sometimes.
Consulting Challenges and Learning Opportunities
00:10:28
Speaker
What's the most rewarding part about race consulting?
00:10:32
Speaker
I think for me, like the two main things like rewarding for me is one is having like a big like family, right? Like race consulting, we have like around 40 plus like people in our organization. So it's really just like a big family of like Gen Z members. And then one of the other things is just like being able to like talk to these businesses and like the owners or like the CEOs or someone in the business and like seeing their struggles
00:10:56
Speaker
like things that they need help in. I think like that's really rewarding because like you can see from like as a high schooler right like you can see like okay these businesses are struggling here and you can just learn a lot from it and you know like just being able to like learn from those businesses seeing what their tasks like what's wrong right and like being able to help them I think that's just the rewarding part like being satisfied with like helping like businesses that their struggles.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, like being able to go to completely different companies, right? Like seeing like kind of resetting every time and seeing like, hey, maybe this company is way different from the last company we work with. So you got to like kind of go into many different industries. You get to see like, hey, maybe like after college or maybe whenever I'm interested in this field, right? Or am I interested in that field? You get like real life experience working with these professionals in these fields.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean like kind of like Sal said it's like a family at our organization like we got to like we've gotten to meet like some people that we would have never met otherwise and It's honestly gonna been a really good experience That is so amazing and I kind of wanted to ask like more about the actual company said there's like 40 people in there Is it mostly online or you guys together? It's mostly I think a mix of
00:12:12
Speaker
Me and Saha, we do have a couple of people that we know in person. We do meet up sometimes, but I think most of our people are fully virtual, fully online for now. We started during COVID-19, so it didn't really make sense to have an office space where all of us can meet. And that's helped us in a way. We've gotten to have people from all over the world. We have gotten people from Europe, Asia, and then most of our people from America. But yeah, right now, we're fully virtual.
Virtual Business Management
00:12:42
Speaker
Right. And like, so how are you managing that? And how do you conduct research about Gen Z? I can start with the first question, I guess. How do we conduct research? So we have a couple of ways. I think like most common for like focus groups, we from time to time, we'll do focus groups with different people. We do actually have like something in the works, like of like a place we can like send surveys. And I think Saul can tell you more about that.
00:13:07
Speaker
Um, but like for now, it's, it's mostly been like focus groups or just researching online. There's so much stuff online with like different database sources that we kind of like, um, we'll kind of like compile all those sources together and come up with like one report, two reports or whatever, uh, on like, what is the consumer trends.
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, and with the community that Rhianna was mentioning, we're actually building up a community with a couple hundred plus Gen Z members, where we can send them surveys, conduct focus groups more in depth, et cetera. So really, we'd use traditional research ideas, but focus them more on Gen Z through our connections, our friends, et cetera. And to answer the second question, the way we manage people has been
00:13:53
Speaker
We do it through multiple platforms. Our communication has mostly been through Discord. Because we've seen it's like a popular platform among engineers. It's easy to use, easy to learn if you haven't used it before. So we've used that a lot. For organization, we use Google Drive or Notion. We have a Notion page where all of our docs are there, so everyone can navigate really easily. Otherwise, I think that's mostly it. I mean, we've used external software from time to time, depending on
00:14:19
Speaker
what the project ask is what we really need to do. But I mean, Discord, Google Drive and Notion are probably our three main things that we use.
Engaging Gen Z on Social Media
00:14:28
Speaker
All right. And I kind of wanted to talk about you have an Instagram like just for Gen Z. Well, yeah, like you have like job listings and internships. So like, along with like Gen Z facts and like Netflix hacks, like, why do you think it's important to post about social issues, like social justice issues as well? And like,
00:14:49
Speaker
Why do you guys include these topics along with that? We wanted to post about stuff that was kind of important to Gen Z. So we kind of split it into different sections. And if you saw our reels, you're kind of more focused on enjoyment or something interesting to talk about, social issues or something like that. Our posts are more like current events. What is going on right now? Not everyone's always
00:15:13
Speaker
Not everyone always looks at the news and they don't always turn on CNN or whatever. A lot of people get their news from like Instagram or they get like information on certain topics from Instagram. So I guess like the other side is we kind of really want to provide information so people kind of like understand and get to know more info like so they're not kind of like uneducated about a certain topic.
00:15:36
Speaker
I think that this is for today's episode, we will learn the bounds of great information about consulting businesses and especially about Gen Z oriented companies. We would like to thank one more time Ryan and Sajil for being with us today. Yeah, once again, thank you so much for having us on.
00:15:54
Speaker
The Season 2 of Generous the Rise podcast is coming out in July 2021, so stay tuned. For now, go and listen to our previous episode with YouTuber Max Raisinger and YouTube artist Gox. Until next time, keep changing the world guys.
00:16:15
Speaker
We hope you guys enjoyed our conversation. We had such a great time. Make sure you leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at changemaker.c to keep up with all of our new content. We also have a Facebook page called changemakerc, but you'll need to look that way because I honestly don't even know how Facebook works.