Career development can be a tricky thing. As a student myself, I feel this very often- how to develop myself and my career, what to do, and what not to. To help you build yourself and to show you your true potential Smartifier Academy was founded by Mr. Md Sohan Haidear. Recently he even launched a book for career development in bangle to help the students in their road to success. It was a privilege for me to get to know his amazing stories. Hope you can be inspired by his experiences and journey.
Hope you are doing well. Could you kindly give a brief introduction about yourself?
My name is Md. Sohan Haidear. My job is to help people transform their brains from a Core i3 processor to a Core i9. If they already have a Core i9, we help them learn how to make that more efficient. You can also say that I make a living by telling adults how to behave. Jokes aside, I’m a soft skills trainer. I have completed my MBA from IBA, the University of Dhaka and I am a certified NLP practitioner. I did my NLP training from Navigo NLP Center, Malaysia.
How was your entrepreneurial journey like?
My entrepreneurial journey would reflect that of many other entrepreneurs. Dealing with goals, challenges, setbacks, and opportunities to ensure growth so that you can help your customers and clients more effectively and efficiently. Smartifier Academy started on 18th August 2018. But I’ll say that unofficially it started from the very day when I was learning to read and write. My passion for learning has moved me ever since and I’m now doing that with my company.
What is the ‘Smartifier Academy’ about? Could you kindly walk us through the journey of ‘Smartifier Academy’? What was the motivation behind the ‘Smartifier Academy’?
Do you remember your graduation day? The thrill and the joy of finally completing 16 years of education? And also the anxiety and uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what your career will look like? Sohel& Ria is fresh university graduates, who’re going through exactly that. They’re anxious because they know that their soft skills are not well developed. Their university did a very good job of training them in technical skills, but their lack of confidence in soft skills is creating a lot of confusion in
their minds.
On the other side, Mr. Nizam is a team leader in a renowned company. Every time he has a fresh university graduate joining his team, he gets anxious. There is so much he has to do to groom them up, which will take away money, time, and other resources. And in the end, some of them still won’t learn.
Imran on the other hand is working for Mr. Nizam and seeking a promotion. But he’s not being able to perform due to lackings in his learning and behavior.
To save people like Mr. Nizam, Sohel, Ria, and Imran from such problems, Smartifier Academy was born.
We aim to improve the performance and productivity of people by boosting their meta-learning skills. We do this by providing result-oriented, gamified, entertaining training. Besides having the regular elements like Pre-Training Assessment, Post-Training Quiz, & Feedback, we do two more things. We align our training with the business goal and we make the experience full of fun. We show memes made on training lessons, do mimicry of Hollywood/Bollywood/Dhaliwood celebrities, sing songs consisting of the training lessons – all to intensify the learning. Our focus is on soft skills training like Communication, Presentation, Time Management, Storytelling, etc.
We initially started with unique courses designed to teach Meta-Learning Skills but later pivoted to more traditional topics that are in demand. We still use the topics of meta-learning to enhance the learning speed and are continuing our research to launch them as new courses in the future.
Did you face any failure? If so what lessons did you learn from it and what was the driving force that helped you to go on?
I faced countless ones, but only a few that had the potential of hurting the company. The most important lessons from those few incidents would be:
- Taking care of your team doesn’t always mean providing incentives and allowing favors for your employees, being strict is part and parcel of being a good leader. Pay attention to each core member and ensure their growth. Sometimes growth can be painful. But when the teammates see what they have achieved, they will forgive your strictness and respect you more.
- Before launching a new product, you need to give your promotional plan enough breathing room. Some products may require a week and some a month. You must calculate that carefully. And you must align your audience and create a surge of demand for your product before it’s out there.
- Avoid competitive pricing as much as you can. Create your own blue ocean. Spending a lot of money on making the product premium and building the brand are better moves than discounts and cashback. I’d like to point out that this lesson won’t apply to homogenous products, but for companies like us, it’s the golden rule.
This learning can best be summarized by Sun Tzu’s words from the Art of War, “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The one reason why we didn’t encounter huge failures is that we use the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ method to scrutinize all of our plans and projects before executing them. And we have been attentive and responsive to our customers and taken their feedback to improve our training since the beginning. That data made us stronger.
Where do you see yourself in the future or where would you like to be?
I want to become the best soft skills trainer in the country. I also want to work with international clients in the future.
Where do you see ‘Smartifier Academy’ in the future? Are there any specific goals you would like to achieve?
Shortly, we want to see ourselves becoming a trustworthy brand in the B2B sector. This is a critical challenge that we must solve. We also aim to be a thought leader in the Bangladeshi Training Industry. In the distant future, we see ourselves working globally with clients from all over the world.
What are the challenges that you are facing now and how do you deal with the challenges?
The challenges I face all focus on the same thing – getting more businesses to recognize us and understand the high potential that we have of transforming their employees. Many companies based in Bangladesh see training as a novelty but not as a necessity. But if you look at the developed nations, training plays a huge role in the development of their workforce. According to Statista.com, the global workplace training industry was valued at 370.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. But in our country, that the scenario doesn’t reflect directly.
While most of the MNCs have rigorous training programs designed and executed, they don’t trust local trainers and bring in their own experts from other countries of the world. For a small start-up like us, we have to go a long way to earn their trust.
Our strategies are simple. Be so good that the companies can’t ignore us. Be so good that the competitors look up to us. Be so good that the clients become our loyal spokespersons.
We take a lot of training and courses. I study books regularly to improve my knowledge and understanding of the subject matters I deal with.
I also believe in the ‘Practice what you preach’ principle and give my best to apply the lessons I teach into my own actions. For this, we don’t experience super-fast growth, but this is a silver bullet strategy for any training company.
Recently you have published a book- Smart Career. Can you give us a small sneak peek of the book? What is it about and what motivated you to write the book?
I’ll mention the stories of Sohel and Ria. For graduating students, this book contains the key lessons needed to secure a job and start a stellar career. The young professionals starting their career in 2020 need a lot of foundation knowledge to stay ahead. The book covers 7 chapters on – Growth Mindset, Career Planning, Personal Branding, Networking, CV Writing, Interview Tips, and Salary Negotiation. There is not a single book in Bengali that contains all these topics written for university students and young professionals.
Though it’s a bit irrelevant would love to know is there any books or movies or any person that motivated and influenced you in your journey?
Movies and books have been highly influential in all my life. Naming one or two would not do them justice. To name a few movies: Rocky, Forrest Gump, Fight Club, Shawshank Redemption, Godfather. To name a few books: Himu, Misir Ali, Srikanto, The Alchemist, Sophie’s World, The Foundation & Trilogy.
What do you think is the future of Bangladeshi entrepreneurs? What kind of opportunities do they have?
The future is dark yet full of opportunities. Dark because of the customer response, as COVID 19 carries along an economic disaster along with it. The customers won’t be ready to buy a lot or they won’t do impulse buying. Usually, entrepreneurs sell novel things and depend a lot on those two factors among others. But there is an opportunity because usually during the recession, the big investors start betting on good ideas. After all, they can make better deals.
Also, during such distressing times, quality service has a higher priority to the customer. When a start-up can provide superior service and solve the problem, customers will show a lot more loyalty than they would in normal times.
So, for those entrepreneurs who are there to build a sustainable business and are working on a real problem that is affecting a sizable audience, this is a very good time for seeking an investor and serving the market.
What does success mean to you?
Success means living a life of balance and principles. Many people associate success with a bank balance. Some associate it with happiness and fun. Others associate it with family and friends. For me, it’s maintaining all of that and not going for one end all your life. Then you will either become lonely or financially poor. The key is to be strategic and smart and not become too greedy or too sentimental.
Lastly what advice would you like to give the people of this generation especially aspiring entrepreneurs? What do you think should know before starting?
I’ll avoid giving a technical answer as that can be content for a whole new interview. First of all, you must find a problem that a lot of people are facing or will face in the future. You must feel deeply about the problem, otherwise, they won’t be able to stick long enough to solve it. Then you need to know three things – do you have the knowledge, the network, and the money to start a business and solve it? Then begin your journey – if you have all three, go ahead. If not, then collect the missing pieces and begin. Remember to have a growth mindset and accept your flaws and mistakes. It’s a humbling journey. But in the end, satisfied customers will make you feel that the pain is worth it. And if you play your cards right, you’ll make a good profit too!
Finally, quoting Lao Tzu, “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
