There are a few keys to being an entrepreneur, and none being more important than the ability to recognize that you have the desire to create. Our next guest shares his story of how he was able to find the thing that resonated.
Please introduce yourself to our readers…
My name is Fahd Khan, I live in London and I’ve been working professionally for 15 years. I’ve spent the majority of my career in sales and business development roles. From a young age, I’ve had a desire to try my hand at running my own business and I finally realized this ambition in 2009 when I set up my own company.
You once started your own business – what was it?
I founded my own immigration law firm and successfully ran it for nearly 6 years. We helped clients with a range of UK immigration applications and issues, ranging from help in bringing their spouse or family members to the UK or simply extending their current visa. We also offered services for a lot of corporate immigration and helped companies hire talent from across the world.
What made you decide to go out on your own vs work for someone else?
I had always been business-minded from a young age. Like many children when they are young, I did dream of becoming a football or basketball player, but I also felt I had an entrepreneurial streak in me. Whether it was buying and selling comic books in the school playground or coming up with ideas for things to sell at the school fair be it popcorn or candy floss. Having always had a knack for sales, if I was selling it then many people were reeled into buying it.
Whilst at college I worked at a Leather jackets shop. It was a small family business and had been struggling for a few years to the point where they were considering either closing down the business or going into another trade. I did a little research and having had a passion for fashion and based on what the local area needed I recommended that they leave the leather trade and go into urban fashion. It took them a few months to be convinced with the idea and having been in the Leather industry for over 20 years this was understandable. However, once the family decided to make the move, they never looked back. The business went from strength to strength and thanks to the success of that one store, they now have a considerably larger store within a major shopping centre and opened up a few more stores and other businesses since then.
The success of their venture gave me the self-belief that if I can be well organized, determined and have some financial backing then it is possible to make a real success of any business I set my mind to.
After finishing my education, I worked a few different jobs until I eventually landed myself a job at an immigration law firm as an account manager. It was a very sales oriented role and targets were tough and hours were long, but I soon got into the flow of the business and was in my comfort zone. When thinking back on that job, cut throat and ruthless are some of the first words that come to mind. At first it wasn’t a major issue for me as I had always been in some type intense target driven sales role. What eventually became an issue was certain unethical things that were going on within the company, especially when the sales for the month were down and management would expect all employees to missell the companies services to individuals that wouldn’t even qualify for any particular service. It was clear I couldn’t continue working in such a toxic and dishonest environment and having always had a passion and desire to run my own business, I made up my mind and decided to leave to set up my own firm.
Did you take any outside funding?
We started this company from our own savings. It wasn’t much, but we thought it would be enough to help us keep running without any profit for at least 8 or 9 months. We figured if it wasn’t going to work within that timeframe then it probably wouldn’t work at all. We worked hard to set up our little office and we managed to get everything up and running below our initial estimations. The first 2 months were really tough and filled with doubts and questions over whether what we had done was intelligent move or plain stupid. However, business suddenly started to pick up in only our third month and we were in profit consistently every month from that point onwards.
Did you have any partners?
I had myself and 2 other partners.
What was your vision/goal for the company?
Our original goal was to run an ethical and honest business which was motivated by the countless dishonest firms that were in the industry at the time. The more business we gained the more we spoke to clients and companies who had dealt with other immigration firms who had basically taken them for a ride. After all the unethical behavior of my previous company was one of the real motivating factors that made me take the first steps of opening my own firm. As with any business especially one offering a service, there will be complaints and issues that clients may raise from time to time, we didn’t have many but when the rare complaint was made, we would use that as motivation to improve ourselves and attempt to achieve as much perfection with the service we offered as we possibly could.
All of our clients spoke highly of us and only 0.003% of our customers were dissatisfied with our service, this was something our governing body who audited us every year had advised us was a level so low it was almost unheard of in the industry, especially considering there were numerous companies in the industry that hired staff solely to deal with the raft of complaints that were made against them. We prioritised the importance of focusing on our clients and offering them a high-quality service and I would like to think we achieved this with flying colors.
What was your company culture like? Did it ever change?
From the moment we hired our first staff, we tried to create a family culture; treating all staff like they were our own brothers and sisters. Even in our sales team which had a higher turnover in staff, we would always ensure that the successful members felt appreciated and the ones who were struggling received extra training and attention in order to help them succeed. I would say the culture lasted for the majority of my time there but eventually with more staff and different personalities I couldn’t maintain the same feel for the company as our earlier years and inevitably some issues and office politics did eventually start to creep in but overall I always tried to do my part to maintain a pleasant office environment.
Why are you not with that business anymore?
With the Immigration industry, a lot is dependent on government legalization and as you may or may not know in the UK, immigration is a big issue and has been for a few years now. Due to this, many visa options were either closed by the government or new legalization was brought in to make the available visa options a lot tougher to qualify for. This had a considerable effect on the business and forced us to downsize. Eventually with time more and more firms were closing down including the one I originally left to set up my own firm. After dealing with a number of ongoing issues that come with running a struggling business and having had a number of other potential business opportunities and ideas that I wanted to get involved with, I decided to cash in and sell my majority share of the business.
Would you do it again?
The simple answer is “no” to doing the same business again. The reason is because I would not go into a business that is at the mercy of government laws and legislation and secondly because thanks to the experience I gained I have been involved in consultative work with a few smaller projects where I have advised and helped others start their own businesses.
My experience helped me get a job that I love and a company that I feel lucky to be involved with.
I still have a passion for business and I get to fulfill that within my current role as I’m actively involved in a number of important facets of the business.
What are you doing now?
I work as Business Development Manager at a Technology start-up called zsah – Managed Technology Services. It’s a great company to work for and everyone is a genuine expert at what they do. The founder has a real focus on running an ethical company which offers a high quality of service to each and every one of its clients regardless of whether they are a small business or an enterprise.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting their own business?
This is a tough question as there are so many things I learned from running my own business. I think if you have an idea/ideas for a potential business don’t just talk about it.
Put pen to paper and write up a business plan.
A thorough business plan is essential, it will give you a clearer picture as to what needs to be done and whether the idea can even become a viable business or not. I also think if you can find someone with great experience and business acumen who can mentor you as you develop your business, this can be priceless because you benefit from the ideas and experience of someone who has essentially “been there and done that” helping you avoid pitfalls and giving you a more mature perspective on your business decisions. Finally, I would say always over estimate your expenses and underestimate the business you believe you can bring in to start with, that way you’ll be better prepared for the hard times and if things do take off then you’ll find yourself doing better than you initially estimated and nothing feels more satisfying than realising not only is your business up and running but its exceeding expectations.
What is your favorite song?
I enjoy music from a number of different genres, so I could never tell you one favorite song, but a song that really motivates me whether it’s in the gym or for work is by The Roots featuring John Legend – The Fire.
Thank you for sharing, Fahd!
You can reach him on Twitter or Linkedin.