From High-Profile Project Management to Thriving Entrepreneur: Kamelia Salimi’s Journey

In this episode of The Forward Thinking People Podcast, host Namita Ramani talks with Kamelia Salimi, the managing partner at Zoga. 

Kamelia shares her diverse background in project management and interior design, detailing her journey from overseeing large-scale projects like JW Marriott Marquis and Plaza Versace Dubai to co-founding Zoga, a leading wellness studio in Dubai. 

She delves into the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from a corporate career to entrepreneurship, offering insights on managing a successful yoga business. 

Kamelia also discusses the importance of location, team building, marketing strategies, and the role of a supportive community in running a profitable wellness studio. 

Join us as we explore Kamelia’s inspiring story and her dedication to fostering health and well-being through yoga and holistic practices.

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In this episode of the Forward Thinking People Podcast, host Namita Ramani interviews Phil Bedford, a leading expert in relationship marketing, referral marketing, and business networking. 

With over 15 years of experience in the UAE and GCC, Phil shares his inspiring journey from an unplanned move to Dubai to becoming a renowned international speaker and author. 

He discusses crucial insights into leveraging social networks for business growth, overcoming common networking challenges, and the power of strategic relationship building. 

Listen in to discover the secrets behind transforming networking into a superpower and achieving a healthy work-life balance.

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In this episode of The Forward Thinking People Podcast, host Namita Ramani sits down with Wolfgang Hohmann, known as Wolf, the visionary behind Wolfi's Bike Shop. Wolfi shares his inspiring journey from being a chef in Germany to becoming a leading figure in the UAE’s cycling community.

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Today on the first episode of The Forward Thinking People podcast, we are in conversation with the incredible Warsha Joshi, a top business strategy adviser across MENA and the Managing Director of Dare To Scale.

With over four decades of experience, Warsha has scaled multiple ventures to seven-figure revenues and navigated complex family business dynamics for sustainable growth. 

Her leadership earned her business a spot among the top ten Great Places to Work in the MENA region. Warsha's expertise, certified mentoring, and masterful communication skills make her a powerhouse in business strategy.

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Today on the first episode of The Forward Thinking People podcast, we are in conversation with the incredible Warsha Joshi, a top business strategy adviser across MENA and the Managing Director of Dare To Scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L1ZskLKaGA

In this special episode, Ambreen and I answer some questions we get from business owners on making sales through digital marketing. We take you through what digital marketing is and how it can sometimes be challenging to get it right in the UAE, while also talking about the right mindset and approach one should have when doing digital marketing. We go through KPI's and expectations from agencies or people you work with, and what the foundation of all marketing should be to help you get successful sales.

Things we discuss:

Notable moments:

(29:52) If what you're offering is not valuable to the audience, then in most cases, it's not going to work. And that doesn't just go for digital marketing, it goes for any form of marketing

(31:06) Your sales cycle and your customer journey - this is the businesses responsibility, to start thinking about these things. What is my customer journey, what is my sales process? If your sales team is not equipped properly and is not trained well and does not know how to handle the buzz that the digital marketing campaign creates for you, then you're not going to get a result

(39:24) Your audience targeting is the most important thing you should keep in mind, because who your ad campaign reaches out to and who starts interacting with your ads.. the algorithm is watching that

(44:20) Consumers are also spoilt for choice over here in Dubai because of the fact that we're a small audience and the locality, the area is also small. The audience has a lot of options on where to go in a small vicinity, so they're picky - they can easily move from one place to the other, which makes it difficult for businesses

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If you enjoyed this episode of Successful Marketing for Small Businesses in Dubai, check out the show notes on: https://www.abovedigital.com/podcast/

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A week ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to be featured on Dhiren Bhatia's Elevated Entrepreneur Podcast - an exceptional series that invites successful entrepreneurs and industry leaders to share their insights and experiences on what it takes to run a profitable business. In this episode, Dhiren and I had an in-depth discussion on everything from how you can market your business using different online platforms, to what kind of digital marketing campaigns should you be focusing on and how you can quality drive traffic to your website effectively.

Notable Moments:

22:50 - So you know a lot of clients come to us and I asked them so who is the target market? It is everyone. Everyone cannot be your target market. It has to be a particular kind of person who is your target market.

33:59 - You should know the goal of your campaign, what exactly do you want to achieve by running a digital marketing campaign? Like if you have a store, do you want people to come to the store? Then it's a different kind of campaign. Do you want to get phone calls? That's a different kind of campaign. Do you want to receive leads as email addresses and phone numbers like full leads like proper persons interested in your product or service? That's a lead generation campaign. In eCommerce, we usually run sales based campaign because it's an online eCommerce system right? You can run a campaign driving traffic to the website and making actually as the conversion-based campaign. So for different businesses, different kinds of campaigns, so one know your goal. No digital campaign should be without a revenue KPI.

In this episode, Reim El Houni, talks about the challenges she faced in the filmmaking, tv and digital industry and how she has to constantly be on top because of the evolutionary nature of these mediums. She talks about perseverance as she shares her journey which began 20 years ago as a production runner to winning the bronze medal in The New York Festival’s World’s Best Television & Films in 2018.

Things we discuss:

Notable moments:

15:00 - Well, I’ve made so many mistakes. The fortunate part was that I had already been in the industry for 10 years before I started my company so I had a good gauge of the market, what others were charging. So I think that's usually a good starting point. However, even with that knowledge, it was very important for me, in the beginning, to just get clients.

34:00 - When the brands started to realize:

1- We had just started and had no track record and views yet and

2- When they realized it was all online and all on YouTube. And back in 2014 most of the brands we met with were not interested on YouTube.  It's so fascinating to me now that 5 years out and everyone is on YouTube. I’ve always been a little early, you know.

40:00 - I think it’s great and terrible at the same time. I'm a big learner and I love going to conferences. I spent years going to the US. For my industry you go to different events even in Europe. I always came back very excited with a lot of ideas and wanted to implement them. As a result, I have implemented very early for this market. So, it’s just about whether or not you can keep the momentum going. I was very fortunate with Dubai on Demand. In 2014, no one was ready for that. I am fortunate to have a second coming with that in the last two years. But there was definitely a phase in the middle where it was very disheartening and I was thinking, “Am I doing the right thing?”

1:04:12 - I am a big believer in not having any regrets. I might make the wrong decisions but atleast I made the decisions.

In this episode, Roy Koyees, talks about the struggles he faced while launching his healthy snacks company, Freakin Healthy. Roy discusses how healthy snacks often come with an elitist badge and are too expensive for the common person. He talks about how he wants to break this notion and make sure that health is mainstream, affordable and delicious for everyone.

Notable Moments:

33:00 - The first year I think I almost did everything. It was very tough and coming from a senior management position in corporate, with everything was at your beck and call, to going to a place where nobody knows you and you’re actually delivering packages. But that, for me, builds the brand in a different way. It builds a character on the brand.

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If you enjoyed this episode of Successful Marketing for Small Businesses in Dubai, check out the show notes on https://www.abovedigital.com/podcast/

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In this episode, Nina talks about how her passion for art and creativity led her into the world of fashion and beauty. Armed with talent and a strong entrepreneurial spirit, Nina launched her own brand, The Mink Lashes, and wants to inspire other women to be fearless with their approach to beauty.

Things we discuss:

Notable Moments: 

20:24 - I’ll be honest. I didn't think to myself that this when I was freelancing, that it is just something on the side for me. I knew that I wanted to be huge. I wanted to make sure that this business is a success. And I wanted to be a lot more business savvy compared to my competitors who were out there.  That was always in my mind. 

27:00 - You can't continue doing business in a way where you are not making the money. Ultimately you’re in for business, not for fun. There is a bottom line that you need to look in as well. 

45:00 - I had a very strong business core DNA into me from a very young age. Because I was working in a bank, I was not able to utilize the experience that I had because I was working for someone else. 

57:00 - I don't think it's often that you’ll find a husband and wife able to work with each other. I have to say, we do that pretty well.

1:27:32 - If I have got collaborations to come through paid or through social media bookings and it's something that I genuinely don't use, and there have been many, I won't do it. Because it isn't just about the money. You have to be genuine.

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If you enjoyed this episode of Successful Marketing for Small Businesses in Dubai, check out the show notes on https://www.abovedigital.com/podcast/

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Above Digital: https://www.abovedigital.com/