Hani Masgidi: An Engineer Building Leaders

In Conversation with Hani Masgidi

The second feature of the Entrepreneurial Playbook editorial series is an interview with international business coach Hani Masgidi. He is not only the second business coach interviewed by Biz in the Emirates but also the second chemical engineer turned business coach to share their insights with us.

Usually, job seekers approach the job market by finding a job that aligns with their specialization, but that is not what coach Masgidi did. Actually, quite the opposite. Masgidi started his career as a supervisor of customer service at Etisalat back in the year 2000. This was before the UAE telecommunication market became a duopoly. Masgidi seized the opportunity and worked for the service provider for five years.?

This is where Masgidi drew on the extracurricular skills he developed during university, where he actively participated in activities and clubs focused on internet marketing. He even founded his own Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

He firmly believes in the importance of maintaining strong customer relationships, emphasizing that the concept of CRM traces back to the days of neighborhood grocers who built personal, one-on-one connections with their clientele.

Consequently, his current mentorship involves training mentees on the importance of customer relations and marketing as a means to communicate with the customer base.?

Importance of Customer Care

Seeing that some industries require more investment in customer support than others, does it always have to turn into a costly venture for the business? Coach Masgidi sees customer concerns as the responsibility of the whole organization rather than just the customer service department.

In fact, the coach reveals this cost-effective measure to completely eliminate the need for a separate department for customer support, as embedding a foundational customer-centric work culture can be revolutionary for every business department.?

Another measure emphasized by Coach Masgidi was customer retention, he believes loyal customers drive repeat purchases, brand advocacy, long-term growth, and stability.?

He stated the key to building strong relations is demonstrating genuine care by acknowledging and addressing the customers’ pain points. A customer may not always be right but a hurt customer needs to be healed. They need to feel heard which will eventually help build a powerful emotional connection.?

Noting that attaining new customers can be 6 to 7 times more costly, especially when marketing technologies keep evolving which has intensified market competition, needing costlier marketing strategies to attract new customers. Thus, Coach Masgidi encourages leveraging emerging tools quickly and effectively.?

He highlighted how these tools can personalize customer experiences further allowing for the accurate targeting of the customer base. Moreover, enabling quantifying the effectiveness of each marketing strategy by calculating the Return on Investment (ROI).

Furthermore, the coach deemed marketing to be the lifeline of any business as it fosters customer awareness and two-way communication allowing feedback and reviews, hence, an effective marketing strategy can be the difference between a business's competitiveness and failure.

Programs for Mentees

Subsequently, his empowerment program educates mentees about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications as a business tool. The focus of the program is to demystify this technological development and make mentees adapt to this innovation which can enhance their customer support, marketing, and overall workflow and decision-making.

When asked about the other crucial factors for growing a business, Coach Masgidi sums up the crucial factors in the acronym PRIME which stands for Profit maximization smartly, Revenue streams, Implementation of effective strategies, Methods of optimization, and Employment of the right team and culture.?

As follows, each of these factors can determine a business’s potential for success or failure. Engineer Masgidi mentors failing businesses as well, he focuses on diagnosing the core issue to create a turnaround strategy while building a foundational mindset for entrepreneurs to counter any future instabilities. Besides, he prescribes joining the PRIME Sucess Circle group coaching program for start-ups and struggling entrepreneurs.

Etisalat and Beyond

Having worked with successful businesses including Etisalat, Nakheel, AWRostamani Group, and others, Coach Masgidi has extensive experience and he notes the common factor in their success and persistent growth to be their profound understanding of their ideal customers.?

Elaborating on the key feature of successful enterprises is their investment in identifying their customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points which results in clarity in providing solutions to their clientele which automatically results in sustainable growth and success. The first mentee of Masgidi was a firefighting equipment factory that was able to double their business profits within less than a year under the guidance of the coach.

He mentors entrepreneurs from different industries in the UAE and across the world as programs are also available online. Each country poses different challenges for businesses with varying laws and regulations, Masgidi is experienced with regulatory compliance across the GCC, Middle Eastern, and European markets.?

We asked him about the most challenging industries in the UAE, he deemed the service, retail, real estate, and hospitality industries as the most challenging. The service industry poses regulatory hurdles for SMEs whereas the retail, hospitality, and real estate industries pose the challenges of market saturation, fluctuating demand, and increased competition.?

However, the UAE continues to be an ideal hub for businesses due proactive government approach to addressing such challenges.?

Attitude towards Challenges?

Although businesses differ in goals, Masgidi advises those aiming for growth to be ambitious but to balance it with clarity and sustainability, while those content with remaining small should be flexible and adaptable as market conditions fluctuate and demand change in business goals.

Mentoring businesses is like being responsible for their success and failure which can be overwhelming and pressuring, but Masgidi navigates these challenges gracefully. He views his role as being a guide through the challenging business turf, shaping and building entrepreneurs to be responsible and resilient.?

And instead of being daunted by the challenges, Masgidi feels inspired by the diversity of challenges as they can be turned into opportunities. A business coach cannot guarantee the success of a business but they can provide valuable insights which allow entrepreneurs to uncover blind spots and prevent incurring losses.?

Inspiration and AI

Seeing the technological development ease business operations, have they not also intensified competition in the markets? The engineer affirmed technology intensifying competition but he also emphasized how leveraging it effectively can differentiate a business from its competitors allowing it to gain an advantage.

What about Artificial Intelligence (AI), can it replace business coaches? Masgidi said his job as a business coach involves empathy, intuition, and personal connections to mentees. AI assists in providing quantitative insights which he uses and at the end of the day, a business coach is the one who builds a strategy contextualized to specified business aspects whereas AI provides a general input.

To sum up, Masgidi mentioned the top three mistakes that business owners should strive to avoid, the first one being the failure to understand the customer base, neglecting financial planning, and avoiding innovation and adaptability to change.?

He further offered advice for businesses struggling in the UAE with the main things to keep in mind being, understanding the regulatory framework, identifying your market niche, leveraging UAE's innovative ecosystem, and networking. He highlighted networking to be crucial as connections with local stakeholders and business communities can facilitate a business with additional guidance.

Even to date, Masgidi himself seeks guidance as throughout his career he has had the privilege of being mentored by remarkable professionals. He credits Robert Kiyosaki as his inspiration for building businesses and entrepreneurs.