[Nile TV] Key questions before year ends (Strategy & Innovation)
[Music] welcome back new viewers and in this segment of our program we are going to have an interesting interview with mr abdul makhdi he is an executive business coach who uh will tell us more about the key questions that their business owners should ask themselves as eddie and 2020 morning good morning and thanks for having me good morning mr abdul always a pleasure to have you with us to start with what is the first question that a business owner should ask himself as he is assessing the year 2019 as it is wrapping up and what should be his question for what he should be doing in 2020. yeah i think that would be are you playing to play or playing to win because in business like some businesses do exist for a while and have been around for a while and they are not thinking about how they are approaching the problem how they approaching the products how they are selling the products how they are delivering the products and accordingly they would have a lot of other opportunities that you’re not looking at so the big question by the end of the year which actually comes naturally because that’s the time of the year in which people are like closing their accounting records and looking at the business performance so it naturally comes in that there’s a lot of questions and a lot of activities goes around assisting the previous year in terms of how well we performed and looking at what should we doing next year from our perspective what we think about once we really look at it from a strategic standpoint is you might actually be performing very well but in in the wrong market or this product might be like an old product there are new products in the same industry or you might actually be better be competing in a different industry so these are all big questions that people need to start asking themselves one of the big challenges that owners usually do not have like the time and also sometimes not like the setup and the intellectual capacity and the knowledge of pursuing such activities so i think like organizing events and activities for them in which they can get together and like produce something in a short period of time that’s one of the most important things for them to do during times like this by the end of the year so mr abdul what are the strategies that business owners need to change in the coming year yeah i think like when it comes to strategy because the strategy seems like a fancy word and like there’s a lot of like thinking a lot of like guessing that goes around a strategy is like simply answering a number of questions so if you define like which industry and which products are you offering in the market to which customer and how exactly are you offering it what is your competitive advantage what is your pricing and how your organization is serving that and how are you building sustainable profitable advantage out of that probably if you build that you arrived at what a strategy is yes i think it’s um it comes into analyzing each of these questions and looking at how do i answer this as a business owner so if i’m able to look at let’s get started with the industry and the products that we offer if we look at let’s say that we’re in the tourism industry so the tourism industry have been around for a very long time like it’s egypt so it had been around like um but we can actually look as a tourism company where we’re selling tourism products expecting people to arrive at our gates in downtown cairo and this might be a very kind of old way of approaching like direct traffic but now we have the internet so a lot of people actually come to egypt and they have booked already everything so they are not looking for anything to be booked while they are there so does this mean that we need to have our offering in our marketing being done online that’s a very simple question an example for how changing the way that we work could actually lead to better outcomes yes and that goes to every other aspect that we talked about mr abdul allow me to to ask here as a live co as a business coach what advice do you give here the business owner as how he should be reassessing what he is doing he is uh is having to reassess the product that he is producing um at the time he should be doing some renovation here to cope with the the the new developments the new technologies how years you should be handling the product that is providing yeah i think the first thing is taking a step back because like during the year and mostly owners they are also owners who are operating the business so once they are involved in the business they are working in the business so they are like in touch with the operation and how different employees interact and how our customers interact so like you need to take a step back to be able to look at the business from a distance and that’s something that’s needed you have reassessment for them exactly exactly to do reassessments so yeah it’s even one of the things that we do is we take them to like out of the country out of the whole city so sometimes we go to the countryside we go to other like retreats around like coastal cities so this is very necessary for them to disconnect with the business and to be in a new environment so one of the biggest challenges is actually disconnecting that’s the first step is that you have to disconnect with what’s happening and look at it from an assessment standpoint with very simple points and ideas other than going through a lot of materials to to study so having this time and space in order for you to afford to do that that’s one point and also to be able to produce something out of it that that’s quite challenging so the first advice is to disconnect indeed so mr abdul how does the business operator know that he’s targeting the right customers and how can we define the segments and position the product and the business is uh in the market yeah i think like products it starts with the industry but if we like um like industry is going to be like too much for us to be able to analyze to look at how the industry is performing to look at like how the industry dynamics for that the biggest winning companies within this industry like to cluster that and understand the offering in the market share and then we get into the products because like understanding what kind of product at what phase is a product that we’re offering is very very important so we understand it as emerging products like if you look at all that like for example technology in egypt you can look this as like emerging offering like people trying to get you to do everything through the internet so you can say that there is a level of growth that goes into that but it takes its time like it went well with transportation so it’s kind of emerging so you see these emerging offering and there are like growth phases like products in the growth phase you can say that in transportation for example like technologies in the growth phase so that offering is in a growth phase so we look at the products that’s it’s not people not a lot of people are utilizing it and then the product that there’s a lot of people going to be utilizing that within the next months and years and then there are other old products that have been around for a very long time there is a high competition in these products and accordingly there is a low profit margin so you have to understand where your offering lie exactly in terms of like this circle is this something that said that’s old and there’s like little profit margin but it’s it’s uh it’s sustainable and you expect how much money you’re gonna make or this is something at the gross growth phase like the best area to operate is in the growth phase if you understand that this is a product there’s a lot of growth going there you need to be there because that’s where the money is and that’s where the growth is so if you’re able to operate out of this growth phase that’s going to be vital and the next question that you need to to ask yourself is how do i actually sell this product because you understand that there are like there are different products that that can sell for like two pounds and the other for 20 pounds so it’s my product should sell for two or twenty and based on based on what because also that’s a different messaging and different customer and different channels to to decide so understanding like how do i position my product in the market is also very vital and also takes a lot of understanding and analysis to what’s being offered and that competitiveness within a product i might figure out that i actually would better go for a niche like a differentiated like a high cost product and that and accordingly i need to invest in the development according accordingly so there is there is some and usually the working strategy they say that there is part rigor part is a lot of intellectual work and analysis and part is about creativity so it’s about coming up with new ideas and innovations so like balancing both of knowing the data and knowing what are the possibilities so mr reabdo how do innovation and flexibility a play at all in all of this and is strategy something you can change in the future or event while executing yeah that’s an excellent question and i think it’s actually a big question like why we’re looking at strategy by the end of the year and why we could actually have been looking at a strategy along the way but it’s always it’s always about milestones so if we say that we’re going to be looking at our strategy at each quarter that’s going to be effective for us to judge that i think some of the big stories is that there is uh there is a company that was selling like an accounting software for individuals and they were like they were getting a lot of inquiries from their customers which actually meant that they were not using this accounting software for individuals but rather they are using it for companies when they looked at it they saw that majority of their users actually are small business owners so they built another tool that specifically made for small small business owners and he made six amounts the business they were making out of their tool and that happened through their openness and flexibility to discover what the client wants what the customers want and being able to adjust the offering based on that so there’s like strategy is never guaranteed so this is also strategy is an experiment so you come up with ideas and basically you experiment with that you have a strong understanding that this is more likely to work so it’s always called the optimal strategy it’s like the strategy that’s most likely to work but you execute that and you learn from the response in the market and you adjust your strategy so working your strategy is something you have you have to be doing on a ongoing basis and flexibility plays a major role in that yes to what extent innovation and flexibility is play are playing an important role in all of that in uh choosing the the right uh business and in continuing to do so and to develop and to have innovative ideas not to to die in the in the business or not to have innovative ideas so you fade out yeah exactly i think i think the first step as we said is it’s about the process because we’re talking about someone who had been in the business for a long period of time so when they think about their businesses thinking about like gigging getting like 7 30 a.m in the morning and then just going to work and then like interacting in a very specific way so for them to get out of that and to get into a creative process or semi-creative process it’s quite a challenge so that’s why in order for them to be able to get this stage you need to disconnect them by saying that we are taking it going for a retreat so we’re getting out of town so we’re getting into a countryside we’re getting to a coastal city so for them this trip actually has like a psychological effect in terms of brainstorming exactly i’m gonna be i’m gonna be away from my office and then i’m gonna be like thinking of new ideas and also having this as a guided session in terms of you have someone who really tell you now we’re gonna be doing that and you need to think about that so it’s it’s like evolving in like a conversation like because usually when we talk about like um like a strategy initiative with consultants we expect to produce like 30 pages documents that really saying different aspects analyzing different aspects but if you have a single piece of paper and then you’re playing with variables and you’re building different scenarios yourself and you’re able to judge accordingly that’s like like that’s an environment in which you can come up with a lot of innovative ideas and you can have a lot of flexibility in choosing with them while we work with entrepreneurs we usually advise them to produce three different scenarios so you assess your this year’s strategy and then you produce three different strategies and then you choose it’s your job then to choose which strategy would you like to pursue exactly so can you tell us a simple step-by-step formula our audience they can go through uh to develop a possible strategy for their business definitely i think like there’s a canvas that’s already designed that actually should be used in designing these strategies it’s actually created by like two two of the biggest names in a strategy a.g lafley who was like the ceo of png for 10 years and who transformed the company and the dean of one of the businesses schools in canada so it’s uh it’s um like it’s a very very kind of known i think you can find it in google and work through it it starts by defining what’s our winning aspiration how do we define that we have won and also there’s a lot of tricks that’s that’s there in terms of defining ones that are winning aspirations so one of the biggest pitfalls is that people say that i would like to double my sales next year and this he’s saying like doubling our sales is going to be something like positive and there’s an element of looking at your goal based on the industry so understanding that like if i’m selling like 6 000 units and the market is worse is like 50 000 so by then and i have three competitors that mean that i actually have two percent market share so looking at your winning expiration based on the mark in the total market share is very effective for us to make sure that we’re actually making the best use of our assets and our our time also while running the business so what is our winning aspiration where do we play so where exactly are going to be selling that where the geography which kind of product categories how do we win what is our competitive advantage like how do we kind of offer the products and then what are the internal capabilities that we have so what kind of employees do we need to have what kind of professionals do we have within the company and then what are the management system what are the the system of reward and management that we need to put in place in order for us to be able to manage all this process so it’s just a single piece of paper if you go through it answer it like why also understanding like that the defining factors of each kind of question but then you can actually communicate this strategy in three minutes so it’s always an effective approach for you to develop that even as a business owner or someone who works very closely with the business owner who can actually have that and sit with the owner for 30 minutes and have a conversation about it so sir to what extent does the wellness of the business depend on its employees experience within the company years in business yeah definitely if you look at it from a strategic perspective we say that if business is going through a lot of shifts and a lot of pivots and a lot of changes that mean that employees need to change and shift with what’s happening in the business and actually not all employees do have the capabilities to shift and change like and also there are a lot of like psychological aspects like positivity positive attitude etc that plays a major role in doing all these kind of shifts and change management so when we look at it in terms of defining the the hard side in terms of the technical skills and also the personality the personal skills of these employees is very very vital for us to be able to kind of develop this strategy because if we take the owner away from the business and we work with them on developing a strategy and they go back to their employees it’s gonna be impossible for them to operate that because like employees do have a different kind of mindset so by then that is like the next step once you come up with a strategy like a good approach is that you involve as many of your staff as possible for them to understand that’s what we we’re going through so engaging employees whether at the first session or the second session the challenge for them to understand what’s happening but actually get them to be more supportive of the initiative because they understand what’s going on they are not threatened by the changes taking place and also it becomes that if someone is not it’s not okay for them to be part of that change but then it’s might be a good choice for both the owner and the employees to kind of to break that partnership so finally i’d like to thank you mr abdul maghdi executive and business coach thank you for being with us today thanks for having me thank you very much thank you and by the viewers we come to the end of today’s edition of breakfast show i’m shining either and i was joined today by my colleague thank you and they see you tomorrow with a new
[Nile TV] Public Speaking and Presentation Skills for Business Executives
viewers as we promised earlier at the beginning of the show that we are going to talk about the uh public speaking and how to develop our skills for public speaking for presentation that would be our topic for discussion now with our dear guest in the studio mr abdul madhi his public speaking coach good morning sir good morning good morning mr maggie first uh why are public speaking skills important for business executives no i think like every one of us would think that public speaking is a key skill for business executives and lots of other types of professions i think for lectures for entrepreneurs and especially for business executives what do you want to do in business is that you would like to leave a very positive impact they would like to gain people’s confidence in what you’re promising and what you’re like inspiring them to do so all that makes public speaking a very very important key skill for business leaders executives entrepreneurs and lots of other professionals how do you teach the entrepreneurs or the business people the employees these skills what are the steps needed in order to learn the basics for a good presentation for a good communication and uh public skills yeah thank you for asking that because that’s that’s the most frequent question that we get at carry toastmasters club which is a club for public speaking yep and most of the people who come for the first time they want to have like a cheat sheet for public speaking what do i have to do and the answer to that is that public speaking is a learned skill is that you have to like experience it so the best way to learn public speaking is to actually deliver speeches and there’s a lot of experiences that’s available in clubs like toastmasters for example where you can prepare speeches delivered get feedback and that’s how you learn public speaking of course there has to be outlines in things like preparing your speech your body language different other areas that you need to understand but by that it becomes about experiencing the delivery and getting feedback and accordingly getting better in your public speaking skills so a short answer probably you cannot teach public speaking you’re not going to learn public speaking by reading a book but you have to be out there speaking to the people and inspiring them getting feedback and learning from that how mr abdul how can we do that as it as a coach what are the most important tips that you give to your students or the people who are getting the course in order to do that you know because somehow um it’s um in certain people it’s been born in it’s in the character for others it’s not so how can we reach that yeah i think that usually goes on a case-by-case basis so it depends on the individual himself or herself but the key guidelines is and the key areas that people need to be ready with is self-confidence is that you have to people have to develop their own self-confidence through putting themselves out there to kind of be able to develop their skills so first is having the readiness to actually deliver the speech and sit in front of people and deliver the speech i think this is something that we’re often people who are need coaching is to be pushed slightly to start giving more speeches so one of the key areas is pushing people to to deliver more speeches and to also reach bigger audiences this is this is a key area and afterwards it comes into things like their body language you know like there’s a study that was uh being made um analyzing what affects people what are you speaking so if you’re watching me talking right now and you’re conceiving me um what is affecting the way that you’re conceiving the speaker and it turned out that 55 percent is about the way the uh the move their body their body language how they express themselves their facial expressions their hand movements and all that to 55 of the way people conceive you is about the way that you um move your body while talking and 38 is about the total voice to what extent you’re able to control your voice you kind of you can get on a high pitch or a lower pitch you can get fast or slow you can pause so all these affects the way people perceive you and only seven percent for the words so usually people worry a lot about what they are going to say but rather the impact is often created by the way they move their body the way they change their voice so accurately some of the key areas for people to learn is the way they move their body how do i move my body while speaking my fascial expressions my hand gestures and all that and also using the voice how do i alter my voice between a high pitch a lower pitch and all that so readiness pushing them practicing the body language getting more experience through delivering speeches and then working on their voice so what are the things that people should avoid while delivering a speech yeah i think there is a lot of common pitfall that people fall under once you do that the first is actually losing the audience at the first few seconds yes if you’re speaking the audience it’s very important to sit the frame is that if you kind of convey confidence and kind of articulate your your entry right i think that’s actually sets the frame for you for the rest yes of the speech to continue influencing them and keep them engaged and connected so one of the the biggest pitfalls is that people do not prepare an attractive entry or introduction to their speech and accordingly they lose audience for the through the rest of the speech um another area is structuring the speech itself giving thought to the structure of the speech of having an introduction a middle and conclusion an ending or a conclusion so um like thinking before you speak about the introduction the content of your speech and the conclusion is very important and also to be prepared another area is rehearsal is that if you’re giving an important speech for politicians for example they have to do lots of rehearsal before they’re important like talks and for example if you look at the presidential campaigns we have coaches traveling with them while delivering their speeches all over uh mr mcd we have to ask here because uh certain people do have a charismatic skills by nature when they start to talk you’re attracted to to what they are saying you are impressed other they are not they might be shy they might lose their audience for example because somehow they are redundant somehow the the way of talking is not attractive so how can i gain my audience that is what i’m saying but with uh how i’m saying uh the content yeah i think that’s very right i think charisma seems like something that people are born with but i would disagree slightly with this i think charisma is something that can be developed with practice so um the answer how do you practice that because to attract our audience it’s not somehow very easy a target here yeah i think when we analyze charisma and what charisma is about big part about charisma is about the way that i perceive myself which is about self-confidence understanding myself and understanding my limitations on my key areas of his strength so when people are pretty happy with themselves they become more charismatic because you can see through them through their energy how they are expressing themselves of interaction as well exactly so one way of looking at charisma is self-development and understanding yourself in order to become more charismatic once you understand yourself you have to look at what people are looking for so there is a key skill of cold reading is reading the audience understanding what the audience are expecting uh what inspires this kind of audience what this audience are looking for and accordingly i address them with the language with the uh thinking level that they would be um more ready to understand and and and commit with so what are the basic principles of communication and public speaking yeah if i would sit like basic principles it would be understand your audience you have to understand the audience you have to understand the environment in which that you’re delivering the speech you have to do preparations yes you have to research and especially if the topic is uh has some dense content you have to research you mean that anyone can deliver a speech in a good way and attract audience or uh only some people have uh this talent well some people do have more talent so they are talented by nature and some people can work in developing that so we would say that everyone can start developing their public speaking skills through finding the right environment to develop their speaking skills
Mobipreneur – Entrepreneurship Keynote
Microsoft Geeks Day, Entrepreneurship Session
So, I was invited by some awesome Microsoft Student Partners to speak about entrepreneurship during an event they organized called Microsoft Geeks Day. Being a Microsoft Geeks Day, I thought Bill Gates would be the best figure to discuss. The whole session was just a punch of videos with comments and discussions around them, that I believed conveyed the image better than a thousand words can.
Some of the videos I presented during my session are below, I guess you can figure out the whole content from the videos, Enjoy!
[Article] Entrepreneurship Ecosystem – Article on Business Today
I’ve recently wrote an opinion piece at Business Today Egypt, magazine which dedicated its June issue to entrepreneurship, you can read my article below and order the issue digitally online from http://businesstodayegypt.com
TEDxTanta Presentation: Modern Knights
Tales of Corruption from USAID-funded Bamyan Media, with #ElMashrou3 Part I
After the striking wave of criticism the launch of ElMashrou3 was received with from entrepreneurs and despite all possible PR and Advertising tricks the money can buy; the opinion of professionals and obvious impact assessment have shown a great failure to a potentially massive project to Unleash Entrepreneurship in Egypt, for which the United Sates Development Agency seeded Bamyan Media with a $4.1 Million Cheque.
My blogs in this regard started as an observation to the feedback shared by entrepreneurs and knowing only little of behind the scenes from what I experienced with Bamyan Media, this topic evolved into an actual investigation as each communication I received led to another and ended up with mega stories of what is really going on there. The scope of corruption and deceit with which Bamyan Media dealt with their surrounding is extremely unbelievable.
Not to repeat myself, please refer to my other post Who is really behind El Mashrou3, to tack down the evidence of the entity controlling the project and its background.
There goes a lot of in-depth look of the work of Bamyan Media and it’s first ever project, El Mashrou3 in Egypt:
- Strategy
- Track record
- The Funding
- Production Industry
- Media Agency
- Entrepreneurship / Egypreneur
- Contestants
- Waste of energy and resources
Strategy
The business strategy of Bamyan Media is quite clearly stated in the LinkedIn profile of David Elliot, the one actually running Bamyan Media, I understand it might be quite sensitive to state that as David Elliot is obviously doing everything possible to make his daughter, Anna Elliot, feel like in charge, but her lack of any basic CEO skills make this extremely obvious.
Bamyans Approach is to access resources directed towards social entrepreneurs around the world and supposedly channel these resources, through some kind of “media platform” into social entrepreneurs. If we search for definition of Corruption and Mismanagement well find that most cases of corruption in development around the world is about entities that access large pools of resources and misdirect, mismanage or use these resources for private gains.
If we briefly survey entrepreneurs in Egypt whether they have sensed the $4.1 Million USD or whether it directly or indirectly contributed to Unleashing Entrepreneurship in Egypt, the response will be very obvious, if we add to it the fact that the non profit corporation Bamyan Media and its founders own a Limited Liability Company in Egypt that was created based on the assets of their project in Egypt, we will know who is really profiting from this.
Corruption is positioning yourself as a receiver of “donor” funding that you are not only unable to manage, but you abuse the whole surrounding in the process of trying to make use of it, the business strategy of Bamyan Media as stated by David Elliot is a perfect example of positioning for corruption.
Track record
Bamyan Media was awarded a $4.1 Million USD grant to “Unleash Entrepreneurship in Egypt”, Bamyan Media established in 2010 as per their website, had absolutely no track record in performing any of these activities, though, the only argument is that Anna Elliot, the daughter of Mr. David Elliot and presumably CEO of Bamyan Media was the “executive producer” of a similar TV Show in Afghanistan executed by USAID.
This part is covered in my post: Who is really behind El Mashrou3, makes it obvious that the show in Afghanistan was executed by USAID itself with funds from ASMED project which was managed by David Elliot, furthermore, by this time Anna Elliot was a student at Hampshire university and part time bar-tender she didnt qualify even as a junior producer to be credited as a the executive producer of a TV Show.
Meaning that the only supporting reason behind bringing Bamyan Media to Egypt was the fact that David Elliot managed a $54 Million USD funds for USAID in Afghanistan, part of which was used in funding a pilot season TV Show there, then with his daughter they set up Bamyan Media to continue running the same model at different environments where there are any “grant” money directed towards entrepreneurship according to the strategy above.
This is very striking in USAID’s approach in contracting entities for impact, which obviously known to be former consultants with no experience or linkage to the economy who can cover up all their shortcomings through clever PR machines and creating a network of beneficiaries who would be interested in covering up on these cases of corruption and mismanagement for pieces of the pie.
The Funding
In this official document from USAID Egypt Entrepreneurship Fact Sheet, its confirmed that Bamyan Media, with no track record was able to secure $4.1 Million USD for their operation in Egypt. It is not an easy job for anyone around the world, but it sounded like a piece of cake for the Elliot’s. When I first met David Elliot on a one-on-one basis which resolving a strategic conflict he did everything possible to claim that he just joined his daughter after she started Bamyan Media which recently while looking at the background of the organization proved to be completely false. Why so keen on hiding this background?
U.S. State Department try to reflect pride in big numbers for supporting youth and entrepreneurs in Egypt and region, while USAID comes along as a PR initiative that doesnt mind, intentionally or unintentionally wasting potential for the sake of a few good mouths and a few articles in western news sites that doesnt take the effort to investigate real impact on the ground.
The funding which was granted for a non-profit was then used in setting up a Limited Liability Company, EL Mashrou3 LLC, registration number #63834 that its founders and cashing out from right now, even more, as they had no understanding of what they should be doing with the funds, Bamyan Media abused an unbelievable number of professionals, local entrepreneurs and even one of the largest media agencies in the world on their way to graduating El Msahrou3.
Below are some of these cases:
Production Industry
I interviewed exactly 7 producers who repeated the same story of the manipulative, amateurish, unethical approach of Bamyan Media. Beside David Elliot and Anna Elliot, Bamyan Media was joined by Asim Haneef, he was credited as the Executive Producer for the show, but practically speaking he was as far from production as it can be, following the same pattern of crediting Anna Elliot as Executive Producer of the TV Show in Afghanistan, Asim Haneef is obviously trying to use his journalistic background in building the image of Bamyan Media and expand their business in different countries.
My first accidental interview was with Mohammad A., the producer of the popular Khawater TV Series, he mentioned to me that when they arrived to Egypt, they tried to reflect their preference to work with him, while they shied away from presenting the TV Show produced in Afghanistan, as of being amateurish, Mohamed worked on formatting the concept for production, while is almost equivalent to starting from the scratch, meaning, they came with nothing, he also managed to introduce them to a TV Network which accepted the project.
As the reformatting was done and introduction to the channel made, Bamyan Media turned their back on Mohammad A. and proceeded with their project then when they wanted to access the TV Network, they were turned down by the network which didnt knew them rather they approved the project for him, they were forced to get back to him and as he states it as a result of their manipulative, unethical approach he unreasonably increased the production budget to turn them away and he preferred to keep a cool personal relationship away from work.
What happened with the producer of Khawater was repeated dozens of times with the rest of the production industry in Egypt to the extent that Mr. Hisham Mahmoud former Vice President of ONTV mentioned that Egypt always had a mature, decent media industry, such abusive, unethical behavior was never witnessed in his years of experience.
Hisham Mahmoud former Vice President of ONTV also had more serious experience, he was brought aboard as a Senior Producer with the mission to aid the work on raising corporate funding for the production of the TV Show, Bamyan Media intended to use the $4.1 Million granted from USAID for its own operation and rather as its easier once you have the setup raise the production cost from corporate sponsors, initially a budget of 10-12 Million EGP was estimated, then reduced into $1 Million dollar.
Mr. Hisham states that they had colorful promises that attracted a lot of people as the media industry is challenged since Jan 2011, yet, they used some bureaucratic limitations imposed from USAID not to commit beyond three months with their sub-contractors, which as per his saying, was only a trick to get the juice and skip the payment.
The experience of Mr. Hisham Mahmoud included using him to initiate communication with potential sponsors and skipping his commission once deals are secured against the agreement made, using the three months limitation period as a legal cover. He also goes further to mention a weird situation when he arranged a meeting with a Senior Director at a leading Egyptian Bank that was interested in sponsorship, yet, David Elliot heard about a study conducted by the bank and got unreasonably clingy in accessing information, he says, the bank turned down the offer because of Elliots suspicious behavior relating to accessing the important economic study.
I always wanted to do something about this but never had the time and focus to, Mr. Hisham Mahmoud mentioned to me by the end of our meeting, this should really be known, it should be known that we have a decent and mature media industry in Egypt, I have never in my past professional experience ran by such manipulative, unethical example, who repeated the story with plenty of others.
Tamer E., Director of the popular Ray7een 3ala Feen Reality TV Show is also one of the Directors/Producers who was brought aboard, Tamer sensed the amateurish approach early on, after being squeezed for basic information and as he described it feeling violated like never before. Tamer excused himself from further involved with an SMS communication stating that The Dynamics are Awkward.
Another production house in Maadi witnessed a repeated story, after Bamyan Media approached them to lead the production for the show and they got the word, Asim Haneef requested a one-on-one meeting with one of three partners of the firm and offered her to join on her own individual capacity, which obviously is betraying the interest and trust of her partners, Haneef didnt find any issues with repeating the same pattern with several organizations, the situation fired back as she responded in an aggressive email communication CCing her partners that this was very stupid and unethical to propose.
It seems that Asim Haneef has repeated the same approach with several other organizations, the attitude of snitching, stealing and manipulating is not an attitude of someone who want to stay, we are a small industry and everyone knows everyone, no one would work with Bamyan Media anymore after being known for deceit and manipulation, main partner of the Production House stated, while requested Asim Haneef to be brought into the office, youll find half the production industry so keen on kicking his butt as he described it.
I was given plenty of other names and contacts for producers and production houses who were brought aboard, but this was enough for me to understand how they approached the production industry.
Furthermore, I was told another awkward story from the production house they finally worked with, I never had the chance to verify it and prefer not to publish it until its verified from its source.
Media Agency
Bamyan Media strike a strategic partnership with a leading Media Agency in the states before coming to Egypt where they started working with their local office on their branding and media strategy, I followed up with a lead that founder of Bamyan Media claimed before being over charged by the agency, as I went through a print out of Bamyan Medias account with the agency in a meeting with their CEO, It was clear who is lying, plus, the fact that, probably for emotional reasons, Bamyan Media didnt pay 70% of its pending installments to the agency and they might go for a legal action from their US office.
Moreover, the Media Agency CEO mentioned that Bamyan Media repeated the same pattern of behavior with professionals and production houses with the media agency, the agency brought an expensive format editor to write the format for the show, the agency endured the cost which was supposed to be covered from sponsors, upon securing the sponsorship deals Bamyan Media cut their relationship with the agency and denied payment, the CEO said that they used a void in the contract to avoid that, given that it was their fault they didnt request payment except for direct services.
At some point Bamyan Media announced being sponsored by a Major telecom, it seems like David Elliots attitude was repeated in a meeting with the CMO of the same teleco that resulted on turning down their offer, he was crazy, shouting at the CMO of a major teleco while securing a sponsorship deal? commented the CEO of the media agency.
To be continued
The First Arabic Web Presenter in MENA
On the frontline of innovation, a bit late accordingly to my plans, but the first Arabic Web Presenter done by myself had been launching with Egypreneur Crew Portal, Arabic Web Presenters is going to be one of the services of Al-Adham Web Solutions after relaunching soon.
I’m excited about being the first in MENA to utilize this technology and looking forward to plenty of applications for some of our clients beside my own projects, around here a web presenter is going to join you soon!
Al-Adham Web Solutions, New Model and Approach
I’m currently working on launching Al-Adham Web Solutions with its new model, it’s always great to get one step back and look at the industry, business model and better position your business..
Stay tuned for more details about Al-Adham Web Solutions new model, structure and approach soon..