Asif Zamir Brampton Business Consultant
Asif Zamir's Featured Consulting Projects
The bible says that we shouldn’t give pearls to pigs, because that won’t change them into great men, it simply dresses them up and wastes our resources.
This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way several times over. One of my biggest frustrations is giving my time and resources to people who piss it away.
Okay, to be fair, most people in my circles don’t do that, but the few that do are all the same. A few months or even years they come back hoping for more pearls.
You’ve all heard the “glass half full or half empty” saying. Today I talked to one of my clients in Calgary Alberta who’s business I’ve been consulting for only a few months. In this short time he’s managed to radically improve his client base, customer satisfaction and just as importantly, his financial strength.
I just got off the phone with my client and afterwards realized that much of my work involves presenting a full picture, and pointing out the good and bad. Whatever the client seems fixated on, is what I gear up to fix. I love hearing good things from my clients, so this was a good day for me.
A problem might take a lifetime to solve, but a perspective can be changed in seconds. – Asif Zamir
You don’t want to name your child Asif. It’s a silly name, even though it’s a take on the biblical name Asaph who was a major part of King David’s team.
But naming a cow Asif Zamir? Yup, a cow in Rwanda has been named Asif Zamir in my honor.
Why? Becuase I donated money to a theater company in Rwanda, so that women can perform their stories at the largest art festival in Africa. Yup, the largest art festival in Africa!
Five women, including a poet, a few actresses, a couple Americans, a pop star, a singer, a radio personality, several dancers, three Rwandans all raised in different countries, and even a puppeteer. Using movement, dance, poetry, puppets, personal testimony, and their wits, they’ve written a new theater piece. They explore questions of nations, bodies and borders, of what it means to be local in this messy, globalized world.
Travel within Africa isn’t cheap (go ahead, look up travel costs TO and IN Africa right now, I dare you…you probably won’t do it, because your a lazy bum), and the festival is unable to provide housing for so many artists. Anyway this whole thing cost around $4,300 and 71 donors including me covered the cost. This is not a business project, just a straight giving project to make a LOT of African women smile.
In terms of Rwanda, I’ve participated in building several orphanages and several long term child-care programs. For those of you who don’t know, 1 million people in Rwanda were murdered in 100 days back in the 90’s.
I have good friends who survived the ordeal and now live in Canada, and I’ve had dinner with people who still live in Rwanda today, rebuilding the nation. – Asif Zamir
Asif Zamir Bike Lock Project
I grew up in Malton, so I’ve had my bike stolen many times — probably 6 that I can remember.
It didn’t matter if I used no lock, a cheap dollar store lock, an expensive lock, they’d get the bike or at least parts of it no matter what. You live in Malton, just learn to walk because your car or bike will get stolen. Gosh, people’s shoes have been stolen in Malton, right off their feet.
Actually, quick story: In the mid 90s I purchased a bike for myself at Canadian Tire (I always get the cheapest one because I know it will get stolen). Anyway, I put it against my front door for about 5 minutes while using the bathroom, and when I came out, it was gone. I was too poor to buy a new one right away, so for 2 years I rode my sisters bike which was a child’s pink and white girl’s bike. People from school would laugh their butt off when they saw me, but it got me from point A to point B.
2 years later I had moved near the Westwood Mall. One morning around 10am I was at the mall doing errands when I saw my bike in the Price Chopper lobby. You won’t believe this – it still had my chain lock wrapped under the seat. The person who had stolen it took my bike, added a rear cargo hold, broke my gears so they were stuck on the hardest, and didn’t bother to lift the seat to slip off the lock. I rode my own bike home that day, and it lasted for about 4 or 5 more years as far as I can remember. My bike after that got stolen.
So here’s the idea: a titanium bike lock that’s designed as cleanly and thoughtfully as a bike. It’s secure but elegant, simple and easy to use and store. I came across this idea on a crowd funding site, and thought it was genius so naturally I had to play a small part.
The lock includes a flexible titanium bow, and a compact, almost pick resistant lock cylinder. It has a protective coating to protect your bike, and stores snugly and unobtrusively on the top tube with simple and light weight straps. The bow is flexible so you can lock your bike to a variety of structures up to about 5 1/2” in diameter. Depending on your wheel base, rim, and tire configuration, you can even lock both wheels (without removal), and frame to a structure. Thanks for reading!
Asif Zamir
Digital Jewelry
This product was invented by an international violinist who has performed for multiple famous personalities including the president of Israel. He has contributed to causes like the earthquake relief in China in May 2008, and the Tsunami relief in Japan in March 2011, and that’s what got me so interested in working with this product. I love when people don’t just store up their money, but they give some of it away regularly.
Product Features: USB 2.0 w 8GB storage Dimensions: 4.7cm x 2.1cm x 0.6cm Material: aluminum + plated gold Usability: bracelet Packaging: soft pouch
It’s meant to be a beautiful jewel you wear around your wrist or neck, that’s also musical and digital storage.
Haiti can be healed
Port-au-Prince, Haiti is a very poor place, and as a result, there is no developed banking or venture capital marketplace for small business or new business owners (not that Canada is much different LOL). This new entrepreneur designs and creates beautiful paper-mache sculptures using mostly recycled materials. The project’s goal was to raise $9,000 USD, and actually raised slightly more from several different investors! Yay! (Yes I was one of them).
The money was used to pay for initial inventory and freight shipping from Port-au-Prince to Albuquerque, NM where the items could be sold at a higher price (the marketplace in Haiti is non-existent).
In total, around 20 artisans are employed including, family, friends, and local youth.
Creating sustainable work is one of the most effective ways to help the Haitian people as they rebuild and recover.
Paper-mache is one of the oldest traditional arts in Haiti. The response to the products have been very positive. Buyers are asking for more, and in a few years from now, I’d be glad to see this project expand. (And yes, the people in Haiti are receiving fair wages for their work).
So this project needed to raise about $4,000 but raised $8,000+ instead. This happens VERY often, especially when
1.) the entrepreneur / inventor is a great person and not a dope smoker
2.) the idea is loved by the investors in the room
3.) the project / business is undervalued
I can’t give complete details because I don’t have permission to do so in this post, but the project involved a selling an intuitive graphical programming environment for physical computing devices and educational robots. (I know, it’s a niche product but has a big market).
One of the inventors main goals was to bring this platform to primary schools, kids and beginners which is something brand new, you usually wouldn’t see this kind of thing until you got into college. – Asif Zamir
Are you working to gain money, or to gain time? Are you investing your money to gain more money or to gain more time? Are you investing your time to gain more time or more money?
Today I got to sit and chat with some of my clients who are simply rich. But they don’t have time for anything. No time for their family, no time for themselves. They barely have time to look up at me from their smart-phones. Talking to me, and typing a text. Taking a phone call, while I’m sitting there smiling.
It’s not just the rich, it’s almost everyone. Everyone, even bums seem to be too busy. I myself am drinking protein shakes instead of eating food, to save time so I can squish in more meetings. But what’s the positive result of that? Nothing. – Asif Zamir
There are these 2 restaurants almost side by side in the same plaza. I don’t know how that happened, usually landlords of commercial real estate don’t allow that to happen for obvious reasons.
They both have the same theme, same food. Two different atmospheres though, one is a grungy dark bar type style and the other is a bright family friendly style.
One has no clear hours posted, and is usually out of food (the chef is usually at the bar). The other has hours and website clearly posted, menu clearly posted and (expensive) prices clearly posted.
Of course the second one, the family friendly one with great customer service is doing very well, they can barely keep up, and the business is expanding. The first one that never seems to have FOOD to sell…they aren’t doing so well.
There are plenty of customers on planet earth…what 7 billion? So please spend some time thinking about your business and what you can do to make it better. – Asif Zamir
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