My Mini

You probably wonder whats with the nickname. I am sure I did mention the reason somewhere in my blog. But this is the official blog. I chose Mini Cabrio, simply because I drive the Mini Cabrio, I love it, its my baby, I even have a nickname for it. I call her "Mommy". Neo recently bought nokias latest phone N-70, the clarity of the pictures are amazing, so we thought to take some pics of the cars and here they are:

My Huby the Entreprenuer

I mentioned in my previous post that Neo my huby would be featured in the next coming Business Today Magazine, what he doesnt know that I got my hand on the article before the publication. So you lot are the first people to see it and I hope Neo wont mind :). Beside my name is in the article, try to find out where!.

As well, the company has been given an exclusive interview for the upcoming Gulf Investment Properties exhibition which would take place in Seeb International Exibition on 20th March to 23 March. The article of the company will be feautred in their main catalog that would be distributed to the visitors as well and the participators and major real estate investors offices in Oman. I will post the article here earlier if I get my hands on it as well

Alhamdulliah, everything is working well considering its only been in existence for one and half years (knock wood!!!) Anyway, enjoy the article below and tell me what do you think


Note: You and as well Neo would be the first to see it on my blog, imagine the suprise huh!
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Salim al Harthy, managing director, Oman Homes, is in the business of real estate ­ the business of helping people find a base. The entrepreneur himself prefers multiple bases when it comes to work. The 31 year old is an oil engineer with PDO and the manager of the online discussion channel Oman Forum, besides being the mind behind Oman¹s first real estate website ­ omanhomes.com. And Harthy doesn¹t think that he has more on his plate than he can handle.

You know what business is? It is busyness. You have to be busy in order to do business,² he says. For someone who works 16 hours a day, busyness is really a way of life. ³As an entrepreneur, you¹re always thinking of new ideas. Then you work on those ideas. That¹s your business.² He says that with the confidence of someone who worked on an idea, put in a capital of RO50, and made a net profit of RO500 with his first deal. ³About a year and a half ago, I was looking to start a business that was connected to the Internet. At first, I really didn¹t have real estate in mind. I was just finding out about different business ideas. I came across this interesting software, which was designed for cars actually. I thought that it would be good if I adapted it for housing. It took me about a month and a half to do that. And that was the beginning of Oman Homes.²

In the beginning, it was just Harthy and his partner, and an advertisement in the paper about the houses. ³Three weeks later, we were getting 10-15 emails per day, with people enquiring about the houses. We got an email from this man in Australia, who wanted a house here. He saw the house on the website, liked it, and transferred the money. We had made our first profit - RO500. And it was a net profit because I hadn¹t really spent on anything apart from registering the website.²

To start with, Harthy¹s wife Adhra managed the administration of the business with a telephone and a computer from home. As Oman Homes grew, office space, a team of seven and two company cars, entered into the picture. More expansion is on the agenda now, both in terms of infrastructure and ideation. ³We¹ve bought land at Ansab, and are planning on building and selling next.²

He credits the success of Oman Homes in significant part to how user-friendly its website is. ³How we¹re different at Oman Homes is that you can see the inside of the house through photographs on the site. It is very easy to find what you are looking for.² Besides, Oman Homes has a sponsored link on Google that improves its visibility. ³Sixty per cent of those checking out the website are from overseas. Mostly they¹ve got job offers from Oman and want to find out about the real estate scene here. So the link helps.² What also helps is an arrangement with a certified real estate appraiser. ³Whatever enquiries we get, we forward it to them and we get a commission out of it,² Harthy explains about the value addition.²

The self-taught programmer and web designer describes the real estate business as one which is steeped in the art of negotiation. ³It is essentially all about how you talk to people.² And then there are the three Ls of real estate ­ listing (the number of houses you have), leverage (the people) and leads (the enquiries that come in). ³If there aren¹t enough listings, then I have to check how hard the people are working. If there aren¹t enough leads, I probably have to increase my advertising. They¹re all
interconnected.²

The interest in interconnections was what led to Oman Forum. Oman Forum actually started as the discussion board of the Oman Auto site. ³I realized that people just came to the discussion board to chat, and not even about cars at that. As it¹s popularity increased, we decided to make it Oman Forum.²

The website, which started with about 15,000 hits a day, now gets about 140,000 hits a day. Ask Harthy if he is trying to evolve it into a commercial platform and he says, ³Advertisers have shown interest. But I enjoy the fact that it provides information about Oman. And it will continue that way.²

For the continuing success of business, Harthy puts a premium on advertising. ³If you give me RO1mn to invest in a business right now, I¹ll put RO900,000 in advertising and RO100,000 in the business. There are so many companies here who think that the RO50 they might be spending per week or per month on advertising is too much. But they don¹t understand the power of that RO50. With that RO50, you could get RO1000.²

That sentiment makes its way back to his business. ³Every call is a potential RO1mn. You help out one guy with a house worth RO100. He is happy, he tells another guy. You help this other guy, he is happy as well and he tells his big boss. It is a chain reaction that leads to bigger things really. Each customer is important.² He points to a copy of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller and says, ³That is my favourite book and that is what I am trying to become.² He adds quickly, ³But I don¹t think money is everything. When you die, you cannot take the money with you. I realise that, which is why I am not afraid of taking risks.²

Budgeting is an Over Statement:

Let’s face it; few of us can actually maintain a budget. Something always turns up, whether it’s voluntarily or just its one of those thing that you got to have it. So the 64,000 dollars question is, why on earth do we even bother maintaining a budget?

For example, my hubby and I are into movies, we are deeply into them, I mean literally, if there aren’t movie that month, we would make one with our own handy cam, just to maintain the feeling.

So the budget goes like these, we would spend not more than RO 25 per month on movies, that’s include Cinemas and rental. Instead its something around RO 50, we have this crave of TV series, at least in a single month we would order two TV series, and if that month Shatti decided to join the world and show some mega box office hits than that so called budget would double. Really, you can’t just say, “I will skip Lord of the Rings, as I have exceeded my budget for this month”, how ridiculous would that be!

The funny is, it takes one major screw up on a certain budget that causes a series of chain reaction before you know it the rest of your budget is long gone.

Picture this, more movies, means more travel to the theatre or to the DVD rental shop, which means more gas for the car, which means more family visit to discuss or show them your latest DVD collection, which means more magazine or entertainment magazine to keep up to date with the latest so that you would not sound stupid in front of the family members when a member discusses other movie he or she saw. More cinemas, means more pop corn, more cinemas means more dining out, especially when watching those movies that start at 7 pm and ends at 9 pm.

And before you know it, your entire budget scheme is left to the gutters!.

How many of you actually maintain a budget and actually succeeds in doing so?

Notice The last Date Entry!

Yes, you got it. Guys forgive me for I have sin, it has been ten months since my last entry!. Homes Real Estate needed my full attention, and I just didn’t have time to blog, none whatsoever. I am proud to say that the company's cash flow is constant and finally we have a healthy bank statement, we have just acquired couple of lands and we are into the business of building and selling. So if anyone of you who are willing to purchase a house, you know who to call :)

Sorry for the sales pitch there, I did promise myself that this blog is my sanctuary and work shouldn’t be discussed. But what can I say, if I don’t talk about work, than I don’t have nothing to talk about, especially when one spend 18 hours a day working!

However, its not all work work work, I managed to free two days last week and spend it with my hubby (Neo) and the kids in Dubai. I could sworn that city changes every time I visit, its like a building construction zone, building keeps on popping out of no where, and I thought my Real estate business was doing okay, yeah right!

CITY CENTER:


City center, don’t consider yourself have been to Dubai if you didn’t get a swift of city center. I am sure you are all familiar with this statement. What does City center has that makes it a must for every visitors to Dubai to visit it. One would think with so many centers being built practically on daily basis, City Center would just be yet another center. But that is not the case, City Center is a like a monument of something. Your thought?!

SNOW PARK:

Finally the so called Snow Park was visited by moi. It cost me a solid RO 40 for myself, Neo, three kids and the maid. Question is was it worth it, for a mere 15 minutes experience in the ice. I said 15 minutes, because I don’t believe that there is a normal living soul could survive more than 15 minutes, the place is just too cold. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, I couldn’t move my lips and at one instance I thought I was going blind Literally. But overall it was fun.

The latest Boycott that Rocked the World!:

One last note, don’t use Danish Product, it will only harm 100's of employees who relay heavily of their jobs to feed their hungry families, employees that had no relation whatsoever of what that Danish Journalist done!.

See the irony, for god sake, surely there are other means of sending message across that would directly harm Denmark, but boycotting that the only people would be harmed are of the lower class just doesn’t make sense. Than that’s my opinion.

The main objective of the boycott so that Denmark companies losses money right?. Think again, wroong. they loose one million, the lay-off couple of hundred employees, so that the shareholder dont feel the loss. Its simple economics really!.

BTW, my hubby will be featured in Business Today Magazine, however knowing Neo, he would probably tell you all about it, so figured I should let him enjoy his 15 minutes of fame and tells the story himself! :)

You Judge

I have seen so many weired and wako stuff, but what i have seen today just blew my mind off. Below is a poster which was placed infront of a reputable company that either went bust, or its some sort of a prank that I dont get, or indeed they mean what they wrote, take a look and you tell me, YOU JUDGET

In English it means "We have moved to a new location, the venu will be announced later. Thank you"

Nawras

Forgive me members for I have sin, it has been two weeks since my last diary entry. What was the talk of the town for the past week?. You got it, the long anticipated launch of our next mobile provider, one and only NAWRAS. And belive it or not they actually have set a date now, 16th March to be precise.

I was not so keen to get a line with them, but knowing they were new and probably they would have special numbers, I said what the heck, let me do my hubby a surprise and get him a classy number. So off I went to Araimi. It was so funny to see on one side there it was the infamous Narwas, and just opposite to it our beloved OmanMobile. Talking about confusion, this was it, I can see it now, for every potential customer visits Araimi he or she would go something like this, Inni Mini miny mo, which of the two mobile provide should I go

Let me end this diary by saying, Narwas need to be careful , with the pricing scheme they introduced it’s a matter of time before they file for bankruptcy. One would think they would be cheaper, but its actually more expensive if you think about it. The cheapest package starts with 19 Baisa per minute, provided the call exceeds five minutes otherwise pricing of 39 Baisa per minute is applied, mind you this only works if the phone call from Nawras to Nawras network, if the call from Nawras to OmanMobile Network than it’s a fixed 39 Baisa per minute. If you compare with OmanMobile, they charge 25 Baisa per minute around Muscat, its only when distance exceeds beyond the Muscat area than the charges goes up.

The questions you need to ask yourself, how often you call beyond the Muscat area, more importantly, how often your calls go beyond the first five minute. Last but not least, statistically speaking, knowingly over half a million of subscribers are of OmanMobile, than one would easily safely assume that most of the calls made from Narwas Network would definitely be towards OmanMobile Network.

Frankly speaking it just doesn’t JIVE, Narwas are expensive, and the management need to realize this sooner rather than later, and if they depend on customer service as their competitive advantage, than they need to re-think their strategy, OmanMobile have improved tremendously in that area, otherwise I foresee yet another busted company in Oman.

But what to say, its the Story of our lives right!

Mughal E Azam (Hindi- 1960)

I was passing today to one of our supposodly, or is supposbly, whatever, one of our good movie theatres and to my suprise the below was one of their main attarctions




Aha, its a 1960 production movie. And to think the level we sunk down, this is all the way to the center of core, that much low we have dropped, I mean what the hell?!!??!?!?!? showing a movie which is 1000000 years old, COME ON!

Check, is muscat borrring?, duhhhhhhhhhhh

Customer is always right!

How far can you go to satisfy a customer? When would you be in a position to say "That’s it, enough is enough, I can't take it no more". Think about it, trust me when I tell you that some customers have a natural talent to bring the beast out of people.

Now do I look like a person who would steal?. Do I look like a person who was not raised well with my parents?. Do I look like a person who is greedy and all what I think of is money, wait, ignore my last question; just concentrate on the first two!

Yes, a certain customer today accused me with those hideous accusations, and for what, for a merely doing my job and asking for our fee.

Well, I think I don’t need to continue what happened next, let us just say that he will remember this day for his remaining pathetic life. And yes I did get my fee, just incase you were wondering

Question you need to ask yourself though, How far you are in an agreement with the phrase "Customer is always right", if it was up to me, I would get the person who invented such phrase shot and buried, than again that’s me!