Before discussing victories and success, I want to give you a little hope for life. And that hope is necessary to keep you aligned on the path to success. You can visualize this by taking an example of a professional mountaineer who never falls due to his expertise but always carries a stick with him. And, whenever he is about to fall, he uses that stick to stabilize. That stick is hope for that mountaineer. And for the people like us, our faith in God is our hope, who never lets us down even if we fail. If you believe in God, no matter how bad your condition is, there is always a little hope that God has imposed this situation on me, and God will show me a path to overcome this. I, Faisal Mubarak Shaikh, started my life in Saudi Arabia, and now I am successfully running a Real Estate business in Pakistan. But, the path I walked on to reach this destination consists of many lessons, experiences, and stories, which made me successful. I would love to share these learnings and experiences with you so that you can also become No.1 in your relevant competition. 

Business is the biggest of all games being played in the World. You cannot play any game for even a single second without knowing the rules of that game. If you don’t know the rules, you will keep doing fouls, and the referee will ask you to leave the game. And in the Real Estate business, other competitor companies are the referees, which will allow you to play only if you know the rules of the games. And I entered into this business when I was In the USA, California; I left my family business and joined MHM Real Estate company and got to know the dos and don’ts of this game.

Now, if you know the game’s rules, you can jump into the field. If you are playing as a seller in any genre, you cannot sell if you don’t know who your target should be and what your target is. I learned this thing in 1997 when I moved to the USA for studies and worked at Nestle for 5 years. And it was that period for Nestle when it grabbed the peak of success. Nestle didn’t target the people living in the countryside because they didn’t need such products. Nestle targeted students and people living in cities who needed those products. And you can only sell if there is a need or you create it.

If you are into business or thinking of starting off, identify the correct target audience. A successful realtor will never pitch a person earning 40,000 Rupees per month because I know he is not in the situation to invest his money. Instead, I will target that person earning 2 lac Rupees per month and wants to invest his savings. That will be my actual target.

Now, considering that you successfully identified the target, what would be the next step? Back in the days when I used to work in MHM real estate in California, USA. I learned that you should never leave your client or customers in any puzzle. You must provide all the answers and solutions to all the problems he can come up with during the pitch. You must have a vast knowledge about the thing you are selling and a solution for every problem your audience can ask for. If you get puzzled, your audience’s trust will break, which cannot be repaired once trust breaks.

I left that job too and returned to Pakistan in 2016 and implemented the skill I learned there. I explored the audience of Pakistan, developed a team of realtors, jumped into this race, and maintained the pace and now leading a successful Real Estate company. This all started by studying and exploring the target audience. The day I found all the solutions to the problems of Pakistani people who were ready to buy property, I started the race, and now I am leading the race.

If you also feel a sense of accomplishment after learning about the target audience. So, I want you to hold up. I will take you all with me to my success party. But there is a lot more to learn. The question that arises here is here that how you can target your audience. And here I am talking about the mediums. And obviously, there is only one medium working in the World right now, and you all know the answer. Yes, you are right! Social media. But the problem is that 90% of people use social media for entertainment. So how can you grab the attention of such people? So, let me tell you a story about our favorite teacher from school. I always enjoyed his class because he was not like other teachers who only wanted to teach every time. He was the most fun teacher and always entertained us. But, in between the entertainment and fun, he used to incorporate bookish knowledge too. And we were happy with that thing, that this teacher entertains and teaches us as well. You can apply the same trick here. People are using social media for entertainment, so let them use it. You incorporate your message most attractively in the form of advertisements. Let me tell you again, in the most attractive way, that the viewer got oppressed to have a look at that. And once he showed a little interest, 90% work was done.

Sometimes you must have seen some unethical advertisement or any mistake in ads. For example, you are driving, and you see a billboard, but there is a mistake in spelling or some other odd thing, and you tell your friends sitting in that car about the item, and they also notice. Do you think the brand owners made a mistake in designing that billboard? You are wrong, that mistake was intentional just to grab your attention, and all you need is people’s engagement. Engagement leads to interest, and interest leads to the execution of the task. These all are marketing tactics. And you all are aware of this. Why is there no ugly actress in any commercial ad? Why every billboard has a picture of a girl on it? Why criticism leads to publicity? You can answer all these questions under this one heading, as these are marketing strategies to grab people’s attention and build their interest.

Suppose you passed all the checkpoints mentioned above very efficiently. You targeted the right audience, you did good research about your customer, you grabbed their attention very well through advertisement, and they are also showing up their interest. Now, it’s time to show them your product, your brand, which you are selling. Here, you don’t have to make any effort if your brand is authentic. The quality products speak for themselves and grab the attention of customers. Once you have introduced the audience to the right product, you have executed your job.

But if your brand is not authentic, believe me, it doesn’t matter how hard you work. It will give any fruit. And, old customers can create a significant impact and can help you grow. Let’s understand this point with a hypothetical situation. Suppose you want to buy a car but are confused between Honda and Toyota. Suddenly, one of your friends called you and started talking about the positive features of one of these two cars. The advantage of this call will result in your decision-making for which you were confused. Same thing you need to do by preserving the reviews of your happy clients and then sharing them with your new customers so that they can easily trust your brand. You need to share your clients’ thoughts on your social media pages, on the front page. Because people trust those people who are already using that thing.

Grabbing people’s attention is not that difficult; just make them feel you value their money. People love discounts and extra services and allowances. Try to understand this with another hypothetical situation. Consider there is two barber shops side by side. Both charge the same price and provide the same quality. But, one of them gives a head massage too after the haircut. In short, he has added an extra service. And is providing value to the customers in the same price ratio. So, obviously, the customer will prefer that one. The same is the with the real estate business. You can provide value to your customers who only came to buy a plot by giving them a long-term plan, offering them other free consultancies, and giving them extra industry knowledge. Tell your customers how your company can work and what additional services you can offer. Maybe they will not show any interest in other facilities at that time, but at least it’s in their mind, and in the future, if they need such a service they will come to you for sure. But loyalty is the real thing if you want to keep being your regular customer. This statement is the easiest to explain as compared to others mentioned previously. Because you can prove the loyalty of your brand by delivering quality. That’s it; this thing needs no further explanation. If you believe you are providing quality services, you don’t need to worry about loyalty; it’s already there.

I, Faisal Shaikh, have always focused on growth and have always looked forward to establishing my business in Pakistan, which I am doing right now. I feel happy when someone learns from my experiences and take influence. And I believe you can become No.1 in any competition by focusing on these critical points.