Success “is not about having so much money as it is more about having people around you who are happy with you and happy as you are,” Adil tells Dubai Vibes Magazine.
Dubai, UAE: When you lose, you actually won something: experience – that which no one can teach you about and that which makes you stronger for the next fight.
This, in a nutshell, has what kept Muhammad Adil going as the universe, in the words of Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho said in “The Alchemist,” conspired to help the 37-year-old businessman from Pakistan, achieve his goals.
And success?
“It is not about having so much money as it is more about having people around you who are happy with you; who are as happy as you are; and when you’re sharing the happiness,” Adil tells Dubai Vibes Magazine.
Adil, CEO of three companies – Cable and Devices IT Dealers; MAD Middle East, a business setup service provider in UAE; and IMH Packaging – did not actually have it all in spades back in the day when he first hit the road.
“I took the risk,” he said. “This life is very short. So, what we need to do is we need to take risks. If you want to do something, have an idea. You must try and forget worrying about what is going to happen. Just go ahead and try,” Adil said.
He said things will fall into place as you go on. “As they say, if there’s a will, you will find a way.”
Adil, whose companies are operating in the United Kingdom, Germany, US, UAE, Pakistan and India, said he started all his business ventures “with really, really little capital.”
“My family and business partners were saying, ‘You are making a big mistake. Expenses in UAE are very high. You are not present there. It will be very difficult for you to handle everything,” said Adil, a workaholic, who ends his day at around 3am after putting in up to 19 hours in the office
“I said, ‘I want to try,’” he replied and he did, noting that it was not a smooth sailing enterprise during its early days.
“There was like $75,000 to $100,000 lost in the first year. Everyone was pointing fingers at me telling, me you were not listening and all that,” Adil recalled. Soon after things turned around.
“In the next year, we bounced back, we recouped all the losses and we made profit,” he said.
Risk taker
Adil said that would not have happened had he not taken the risk. “That’s what it is about: taking risk,” he said.
Adil, obviously seasoned as he is being an entreprenuer, said there is only just one thing that keeps finding its way in one’s mind when doing business: “Will this work or not?”
His advice? “Go for it.”
“What happens? You may lose it. But if you lose it, that’s no problem. You, hence, have an experience and no one else can teach you that experience,” Adil said.
MAD Middle East
Adil, who has been in the UAE for the past six years, started his business in the UK back in 2011, thereafter establishing offices elsewhere across the world.
Wanting to open a business in the UAE, Adil thought of doing something different.
“I wanted to work in a different industry… I wanted to start a set-up business, the MAD Middle East. The main idea is that we needed to establish a company where we …provide optimized services,” Adil said.
The mantra: “Keep customers comfortable.”
“We go a little extra and think out of the box to help them,” Adil said. He said his idea of running a business is having everybody works together.
“My vision is that we need to grow…if the company, any of my group of companies, grows, we grow together. It’s is all about building it together,” he said.
He said there have been ups and downs as in any other businesses.
“I always tell myself that if there is a will, there is a way; and, So we find a way all the time,” Adil said.
Adil said his team at MAD Middle East work “very, very hard putting in all the efforts.”
“Whenever you try to grow a business, there is an idea… there is a philosophy behind, and our philosophy is very, very simple: Our customers have to be comfortable transacting with us. We have to give our services and take it to the next level,” he said.
And how is this done, exactly?
“Businesses work with how you deal with your people, how you deal with your customers. How you make them happy,” said Adil
“It is all about giving the best services available in the market and being competitive,” he added.
Most important of all, Adil said, is not to make promises you can’t keep.
“We do not say anything that we can not not fulfill. We stand by our word,” he said. “If we cannot do it, we tell our customers straight away, ‘That is not going to happen,” he added.
Adil, who starts his day checking emails, said good business is all about customer relationship. “A good relationship is the key to every business success. It shows that this company is really doing something for its customers,” he said.
MAD Middle East offers business set-up services in UAE Free Zones, Mainland and Offshore for numerous start-ups, as well as medium and large business enterprises. The team helps clients to set up their business from scratch to licensing, license renewal and much more.
The company is composed of professional and well-established business set-up consultants guiding clients in selecting the best business form at a market competitive price.
