He can be best described as creative, inspirational, and determined, Aly Osman is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur and a rising influencer. In our interview with him, he tells us his journey as an entrepreneur, how he started his own business at a young age and became a motivational speaker. You can watch his interview below, or read on to find out more about his exhilarating story:
The backstory of the motivational speaker
Over the years Aly had acquired the proficiency and expertise that helped him to start his own business and become an entrepreneur at a very young age. Not only that, he’s also a reputable motivational speaker and an up and coming influencer.
Aly believes that when it comes to his educational background that he was privileged to attend one of the most prestigious schools in Egypt, the American University in Cairo. He studied finance and got a bachelor's degree in business administration, he says:
My financial knowledge and background helped me a lot with setting up and managing my own business.
At the same time, he was always indulged in extracurricular activities, which was also very beneficial when he decided to start a social media agency. As he learnt how to create and maintain a marketing strategy, campaign and manage social media accounts. Finally, the internship opportunities that he took part in while studying had also helped him with the skills needed to start his own business at a young age.
The entrepreneur and motivational speaker
Three years ago, Aly’s entrepreneurial journey started, he explains:
I started the agency called ‘The Influencers’ with my partner Sherif El Shafei three years ago.
At that time his partner was a senior manager in one of the leading telecom operators in Egypt. They both believed in their idea, so Sherif resigned from his full-time job and Aly used his savings to start their agency.
The Influencers is a full-fledged 365 social media and digital PR agency. Aly explains that they are in the business of ‘creating ideas’, as they provide their clients with creative and out of the box ideas to be implemented online.
As for his career as a motivational speaker, Aly explains how it all started:
A couple of years ago I started an Instagram page called @egyfunnysociety, it is one of the leading Egyptian comics platforms on social media.
He says that when he first started his page with three followers his mother, father and brother, then his follower base started to grow until he started receiving deals from multinational companies. This is how his passion for social media and digital marketing started. Shortly after starting his agency, several people and entities started reaching out to him, as they wanted to know how he started his own business when he’s still in his early twenties.
His first speech with Alexandria’s Rotary, and ever since then he delivered around 26 speeches with TEDx, AUC, GUC, and other entities in different cities in Egypt.
As a motivational speaker, Aly hopes to inspire the younger generation to pursue their dreams. He believes that the digital era that we currently live in opens many doors for people with ideas to put them online easily, he says:
The secret ingredient for success is following your passion, no matter what that is. Because one of the best things in life is to find what you love and do it every day.
Online journey
As his digital identity started gaining more visibility, Aly felt the need to create an online portfolio for himself to showcase his skills, experience and talents, this is why he decided to build his personal website alyosman.com.
Aly realized that when people look his name up on Google, they will find his Instagram and Facebook accounts, and a website would be more professional.
His website made it easier to list the brands that he worked with before, the universities where he delivered speeches in, post previews of the speeches that he gave. He says:
My website made it easier for people to contact me, and I receive several business inquiries through my website and I always try to respond to everyone.
As a person who loves to do everything by himself, Aly found it very easy to search for a domain name. Then his next step was to build the website, he chose GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing tool which he describes as very easy and simple.
Launching his website took him no time, after choosing the desired template and customizing it to fit him, he published his website. Aly also uses the professional email tool to create domain based emails that he uses to communicate with potential clients.
Tips for small businesses
Aly and his team are aware of the constraints that small businesses are now facing due to the current situation, and the implications of it. He shares some tips and best practices for small business owners to weather this pandemic in order to stay open during this tough time. His core advice to SMEs is to watch the current and upcoming trends and keep a close eye on eCommerce. As people are more cautious of shopping in offline stores, online shopping is now growing faster than ever.
Having a website now is crucial for all businesses no matter how small or big they are.
His final words to small business owners, entrepreneurs and anyone who has an idea is to follow your passion, never give up and follow the trends.
You can check the top 4 marketing trends that you should keep an eye on in our blog here.
