How to Market & Scale an Accounting firm in Dubai | Ft. Zubair Mohammad (ex-Xero)

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗮 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲? 🤔

In this episode, 𝗥𝗮𝘆𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗺 sits down with 𝗭𝘂𝗯𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗱, 𝗖𝗼-𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 , a marketing strategist who’s helped scale accounting and fintech brands like Xero, IRIS, and several GCC startups.

Zubair shares what he’s learned about real marketing — the kind that starts with understanding your customer, not just chasing clicks.
From product positioning to personal branding, he reveals how founders can move from noise to traction.

They talk about what it means to build relationships that drive business, the difference between Dubai and the UK’s growth cultures, and why trust always beats tactics.

👉 Follow 𝗭𝘂𝗯𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗱, on LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/4hkxEwA
👉 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: https://www.refigured.tech/

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𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗺 𝗜?

My name is  Rayhan Aleem, Founder and CEO of 𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 and 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀. At  𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 podcast I sit with top industry leaders for in-depth conversations that dive deep into their success stories, market dynamics, and firsthand tips on entrepreneurship and profitability. Whether you're just starting out or already running your own business, 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 offers something valuable for everyone.

👉 Follow 𝗥𝗮𝘆𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗺 on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3U2niHn
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𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀:

𝟭-𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.alphapartners.co
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3Yf4VRZ

𝟮-𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.taxstar.app
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3ZVjzPD

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𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗻:

🔗 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: https://bit.ly/4nmA53y
🔗 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗯𝗲: https://bit.ly/47gaW3F
🔗 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆: https://bit.ly/3ZbtGiR
🔗 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁: https://bit.ly/4dOfS2f
🔗 𝗔𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗶: https://bit.ly/3Mutunk
🔗 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲!: https://bit.ly/3XfGYbD

𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲? 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘂𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & intro
• 1:32 Zubair’s early story and first steps into marketing
• 3:10 What he learned scaling Xero across the UK & South Africa
• 5:43 How Xero's marketing approach influenced Zubair
• 11:16 How Ai revolutionized the marketing and ads industries
• 13:19 Key differences between how companies operate in the UK and UAE
• 26:49 Finding your ICP: where every founder should start
• 30:40 “Paracetamol vs Vitamin” – building products people actually need
• 36:39 How accounting firm owners can grow their business
• 42:48 Co-founding "Accounting Refigured" and collaboration between Accountants
• 50:09 Final reflections & closing remarks

Transcript

0:00

I think technology's gonna continue to evolve right faster than we're ever gonna see it Um, and we're already seeing it happen with outside of this accounting space But if anything, all technology is doing is, it's enabling you to be more human to human And people are worried that technology's taking away their job, that technology, this kind of stuff But the reality is what? Technology is doing It's taking away the grunt work of your job and actually it's really giving you the ability to add value and do the things that you are really good at Welcome to the Alphapreneurs podcast I'm your host, Rayhan Aleem I'm also the founder of Alpha Pro Partners at Bookkeeping Business Space in Dubai and Tax Star, a tax technology startup automating corporation tax returns Join me on each episode as we talk to inspiring Dubai based entrepreneurs who share their stories, challenges, and secrets on building world class businesses Okay I am pleased to have Zubair Mohammad on the Alphapreneurs Podcast today Zubair is a marketing strategist and previously helped Xero Scale to become the UK's, the leading accounting software He's now advising accounting firms and FinTech startups scale across the UK and the UAE He has also worked for the likes of DExT, Iris, and capitalized Beyond Consulting He's also the co-founder of the Accounting Refigured and the Accounting Room, A private members community for accounting firm owners based in the UAE Zubair, welcome to the show Thank you for joining me today Your Like one of my other guests You've made that transition from being an employee to an to an entrepreneur And the Alphaprenuers podcast is very much about the story on the entrepreneur, how they became an entrepreneur and what pushed them to, um, through that journey And for you, it's similar to Ayman Ayman was, I think, on episode number three So you used to work for Xero Um, can you give us a quick introduction about yourself, what you was doing? Pre, uh, entrepreneur on what you do now For sure Um, thanks for having me Um, so I'm, I am the founder of a marketing consultancy, um, where I work with predominantly accounting tech providers, um, and accountants to help them grow and scale Um, also co-founder accounting Refigured, um, which is a event and our community that we run here in the GCC for, for thinking accountants, CFOs and people in the finance space I guess a background on me, um I left university to a degree in marketing, left university and was like going out to find a job and, you know, leaving university just after a financial crash It was hard Fell into a role at Iris, which is one of, um, the UK's biggest accounts production businesses, you know, really long standing Um, I started working in the accounting sector I don't think anybody leaves university or goes out and says, Hey, I'm gonna go work with accountants my whole career Excuse me But I, uh, but I started my journey there, um, and like I really got to meet lots of accountants, understand'em, understand that the impact the accountants have on the economy, on small businesses, on this whole world And spent a couple of years there learning about this industry and had the opportunity to then go and work at Xero who had just launched In the uk So you use it at the very beginning? Yeah, quite early on I, I, it's really funny, I remember the, um, the moment I decided I wanted to work from Xero, um, for anybody who's like, been with Journey for a long time in the Xero ecosystem, there was a, there was a video of Arthur, the three house builder, um, go look up on YouTube It's a really great video And they, I remember watching that video and being like Wow, this is such a different way to talk about accounting software Um, and then luckily, almost like six months later, I got the chance to go work at, with the guys at Xero And I spent about five years at Xero and we grew that business exponentially Mm-hmm In the uk I also had a chance to go to South Africa to go and help launch the business there And we had amazing growth in both those regions and I, I really got To connect with not only accountants but small businesses Mm-hmm And had the opportunity to sit down with'em and like really hear their story And it's like, it was so inspiration to see how people had like taken that leap that, that faith to say, you know what? I'm gonna go on in my own I'm gonna go run this amazing thing Um, after I went and worked at a bunch of like fintechs in London and around, around that kind of vicinity where again, we were working really closely with the s and b sector, and I've always had a close connection with small businesses I come from quite entrepreneurial family Um, so my grandparents used to have a really big, um, steelworks in Kenya Oh, wow They used to manufacture iron and steel and all this kind of stuff, so, you know Entrepreneurship's kind of been in my blood Mm-hmm But obviously as time goes on, people go into employment and stuff that happens And I always knew there was an inkling inside me I always knew there was a do a thing I had to go and do by myself at some point Um, and then, and I kind of have, end up where I end up wanna go into Xero Um So how, how big was Xero, just to give some context of how they've grown When you joined Xero, how big were they and how big were they? Uh, where did they grow to when, when you left? So the, the UK team, headcount wise, I think was about 40 or 50 people Oh, wow When I, when I joined in the uk Um, super tiny like individual functions Yeah So like marketing team was two or three people The sales team was five or six people Um, I think globally we were a hundred or something people at that point Um, now I couldn't even tell you how many Xeros there are in the world I think there's thousands Yeah I saw a picture from um, Xero Con Brisbane the other day and I was like, wow, that's an amazing amount of people in Xero t-shirts So yeah, they've had exponential growth over the last 10, 12 years Yeah And, um, you also mentioned something about the way Xero market Um, you mentioned that they're not like a traditional accounting software, uh, technology company You know, they, they have a different way of marketing to, to businesses and accountants, and I guess a lot of your Philosophy, a lot of your DNA and marketing came from that Do you wanna talk about some of the things that they would do that you are now advocating as a business? Yeah, so I, I think what I, and I reflect on this a few days ago was when Xero came to the uk, we, we were kind of breaking the status quo, right? Like as accountants, you guys were very used to a desktop solution, a very specific green software on a server in your office, and that was the status quo, and that's what everybody did Xero came to market with something that was quite revolutionary in that era The whole idea of cloud accounting And we talk about hosting data in the cloud, and we think about that today We're all very used to it, where we've got, you know, Google Drive and we've got drop boxes and we got all these kind of things But 12 years ago it was such an alien concept Mm-hmm You know, we didn't really even have, YouTube was not even that popular yet Instagram was bubbling Like there was stuff that we take for granted today was just starting up So They came to a market with a product and a, and a way of doing stuff that was very different And actually, I think with that philosophy of that we're bringing something different revolution, they kind of threw the rule book out the window and actually they said there are no rules on how we go to market There are no rules on how we have to speak to accountants There are no rules on how we speak to small businesses Actually, what they decided to really adopt was this, um, h to H as human to human philosophy Mm-hmm Where actually they, they look past this corporate facade and they look past this This is how corporates talk, and this is when you're selling a B2B solution This is how you talk and how you have to operate And they just said, Hey, we're selling this solution to humans for other humans to make other humans lives better And I think a lot of that came from the kind of mentality from New Zealand and the kind of culture that they bought with the product But I think that's always stuck with me and actually that human to human element of sales, that human to human element of B2B sales and marketing It's something that I like, I use across everything we do now, and I can relate to that because You know, I, I, I run an accounting firm and I work with a lot of clients, and a lot of these clients are first time entrepreneurs Sometimes entrepreneurs are obsessive on doing Google ads and SEO and posting AI generated content on social media, when actually they should go out there and meet people in person and, you know, show people who they are to be able to sell their products and services Um, and it's refreshing to, to learn about how Xero approached that Uh, you know, when they were growing, growing, growing their business, uh, back in the day Another thing I wanna touch upon is the fact that you mentioned 12 years ago you had the adoption of cloud, um, and now we're going through a new revolution, which is ai Um, I went to a CFO AI conference the other day and you know, they were showcasing some of their products A few of them were OCR We wouldn't O C's been around for a long time, where you OCR, meaning you take a receipt, you scan it, and it pre-populates all the information for you It goes into your accounting system But there was a lot of interesting things from a reporting point of view So the AI will pull the data from your accounting software and it'll produce the reports So you give you the insights without you having to go through all the different, you know, um, variance, uh, variances and, and, uh, edge cases And you can read that report with the help of ai Now With that revolution now coming into play, how do you see this new wave of ai kind of, um, you know, re you know, reinvigorating, you know, revolutionizing the, the accounting software market? I think technology's gonna continue to evolve right faster than we're ever gonna see it Um, and we're already seeing that happen with outside of his accounting space, but Anything all technology is doing is it's enabling you to be more human to human And people are worried that technology's taking away their jobs, it's taking all this kind of stuff But the reality is what technology is doing is taking away the grunt work of your job and actually it's really giving you the ability to add value and do the things that you are really good at You touched on OCR, right? So Before you'd sit there and you'd type out hundreds of receipts into a spreadsheet, and then you'd put them into a ledger and whatever Whatever you do, you know, OCI, technology, eliminate all of that So now all of a sudden, as an accountant, as a bookkeeper, you're freed up so much time and space in your Day to go and do other things for your clients And again, with this AI reporting stuff, it's taking away you having to pull a balance sheet, a p and l together, a forecast from over here or whatever, whatever, and sit there for hours analyzing the data It's going through that process for you to then say to you, well, I'm presenting you everything I'm helping you analyze this, so then you can go and add value to your client and say This is what the data's telling us faster than you could ever do that before Mm Which then enables your client to go and make decisions that they couldn't have made faster than ever, which take gives 'em the opportunity to go and grow their business faster than ever So everything has a chain reaction and I think The technology and the AI that's coming out, it just enabling us to move faster We've ever moved before and take advantage opportunities faster we ever had before You obviously use AI in your business Yeah'cause you've given me some tips as well So how has it revolutionized the marketing, the advertising industry? I mean, we have a lot of listeners who are also from that industry as well So how has that affected you and how you've been able to Service your clients and you know, give them barrier insights, give them better tools to be able to bring in more revenue We're able to look at how stuff is performing much faster So, you know, there's trainings that pop up on social platforms There's algorithms that are constantly changing and actually before You were kind of playing a bit of guesswork with the algorithms You were kind of saying, well, this is kind of working This isn't really work as well But now what you're able to do with AI is that you're really able to analyze the data way faster than you ever were before, and you're also able to take other people's information, analyze their data, to then help you make more informed decisions, and actually then go back into the algorithm and work on stuff faster than you ever have before But also, what I say enabling you to is to test faster as well Mm-hmm When you're posting on social platforms, you can test different variants of the same message much faster than you could if you were writing each post one by one by yourself Um, I dunno how true this is, but, um, I read something a little while ago about how, um, on Steven Bartlet's podcast, Dario, CEO Oh, sorry Yeah Dio, CEO, how they test messaging about how they test hooks From the podcast in real time online So while they're recording a podcast, they're taking snippets, publishing them, seeing how the audiences they want to go after reacting and then feeding Steven lines to use in the next questions So, I mean, that's super fast and technology's enabling 'em to do that Whereas, you know, before they'd recorded a podcast, create it, publish it, launch it, wait five weeks for some information and then, but in that time might recorded five other podcasts mm-hmm And not have any data around it Yeah No, I mean it's, it's, it's amazing what you can do now Yeah With, um, with ai So, Zubair, you Have a business where you're working with customers in the UK as well as the UAE Um, you work with accounting firms in the UK and in the UAE and you also work with tech firms, FinTech companies, uh, tech startup types, who also service accountants and small businesses in the UK and UAE So one thing that I would be interested to know is what are the key differences that you see in terms of the way companies operate, um, you know, not just from a operation point of view, but also from a sales and marketing point of view for accounting firms and also tech firms And can you give us some examples of what you know, when you've had like an aha moment with some of these companies? Yeah, for sure So, you know Let's touch on the tech companies to start with Let's start with tech businesses Tech business accountants are quite different Um, so tech businesses are really interesting Um, in the UK the, the tech market is a bit more mature Um, we're talking about s and b tech, technology, that kind of stuff And it's mainly because we've had a compliance landscape for a long time Mm-hmm So the tech technology companies know what the compliance landscape is and the SMEs know what the compliance requirements are when they're going to, when they're having to submit stuff to HMRC or whatever it might be So Uh, over the years, the tech companies have become more and more transactional in that space So people now are just looking for solutions that solve a problem that they have So they need to submit tax to HMRC They, they'll just go and download a, a product or buy a product off to shelf They're happy to do that They're happy to be self-served on that environment That what we find here in the UAE is that That same legislation, that same kind of compliance landscape is only just evolving here, right? Mm-hmm We've only just been through the first cycle of corporation tax We're about to go into e-invoicing, and that VAT has been around a little bit, but tech businesses, businesses here, sorry, are still not ready to go and grab hold of tech and And you're obviously seeing that with textile, right? Yeah They're not just going out and being like, right, I need a tax solution That's one I can use Great Push myself through it, happy days and go through that Um, there's a still a bit of a lack of trust in technology from a compliance perspective because they don't understand it Mm-hmm Saying that there is also a difference in adoption So people are happy to go out and get some stuff they want to, but what we have, and that's taken time to happen in the UK is adoption has taken a long time It's because of the aging population Mm-hmm And the ways that we've all done this, and I always use the example of money in this space So in the UK we went from Gold to cash, to checkbooks, to then cards, and we've kind of been on this journey to transitioning to, you know, banking at your local bank to then, you know, chip and pin, et cetera, et cetera We went through this whole kind of journey of financial transformation from a consumer perspective And internet banking is relatively a new thing if you mobile banking, whereas in societies at the UA E, they've gone from Cash straight to mobile banking Mm-hmm And paying on your phone with Apple Pay, Google Pay, whatever So The adoption of stuff, once people understand it is way faster in this part of the world, it's just they don't know what to go and get yet and they dunno what they need Mm-hmm Is a big difference And that's where the relationships are a little bit different So people in the UK will be quite transactional They go and buy products quite freely online Whereas in the UAE what we're seeing is that more, um, businesses who need software and going up buying software are looking for a relationship with the vendor They really wanna understand whether they trust them or not Mm And whether they're gonna be the, 'cause we haven't had this for a long time We haven't We haven't had businesses arrive in the market, failing in the market, leave to market, or businesses come and succeed for a long time in the market Everything is very new So people are not that trusting at the moment So they want to build a relationship with a vendor before they go and like use their solution Yeah, that's a great point From an accountant's perspective, I It's quite interesting because it's almost the opposite So accountants in the, in the UK have very much guarded relationships for a very, very long time And you'll understand this Having firms on both sides is, you know, having a client relationship in the UK is quite expensive thing to bring a new client on board, right from a Go to market, bring a client, onboarding, et cetera, costs a lot of money to get a client on board So having that solid relationship and having that harmonious relationship with a client is so important Mm-hmm Whereas what we find in the UAE is that onboarding clients is relatively inexpensive because the labor costs are cheaper here, the rents are cheaper here, offshoring is more prevalent here So, you know, and also clients Who are coming to accountants here originally weren't coming for the compliance, the submission, that kind of stuff They were more coming for internal bookkeeping and internal accounts just to help understand what they're doing in their business So there wasn't a real need for the accountants to over service their clients Mm-hmm It was more just like, Hey, just do what I need you to do Great Thank you very much Quite transactional to some extent Yeah Whereas the UK accounting sector is very, very advisory led, very relationship red We are seeing that shifts start to happen here in the UAE, um, you know, where we're getting the compliance coming into it, where we're having accountants having to have discussions with their clients about, okay, well this is your corporation tax liability What do we do about that? How do we make that more efficient for you? You've got e-invoicing coming next year How do we start to prepare for that? How do we make sure you've got the right ASPs in place? How do we make sure Your business is in the right financial situation You've got the right technologies in place that you're gonna need So we're starting to see the accountants here really focus on the relationships and say, okay, how do I come into your p into your business and become a part of your financial transformation? Those are really great insights Um, and it's really interesting to know where we were at, at both sides of the, um, of the coin from a Technology, point of view, tech companies and um, you know, an accounting servicing point of view as well I think from a UAE point of view, we are starting to catch up with the rest of the world Yeah I don't think people come here and think we are, we are no longer like, you know 20 years behind some of the emerging economies I think we are now probably five years ahead because we're very adoptive on digital, uh, applications and processes You've met a lot of tech founders, you've met a lot of, uh, accounting firm owners as well Um, I wanna flip it more towards the actual owner Mm-hmm You know, the, the entrepreneur that you've come across Um, how have they differed between the UK and the UAE? I find that Tech in the UAE, the tech entrepreneur is a little bit more cavalier They're a little bit more, yeah You know, they wanna take risks They wanna really grow the business very fast I haven't been to the UK for a long time I mean, I moved nine, almost nine years ago So my perception of the UK typical tech entrepreneurs, they tend to be a bit conservative unless you are a massive tech titan, right? Um, and the accounting firm owners, again, they tend to be a bit more conservative in the uk, whereas in the UAE, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, they see that this market is quite Is growing for the, in the accountancy space So there's more and more accountants who are practicing as an accountant As an accountant, setting up their own business Yeah How have you found that kind of shift? What kind of insights can you give? Yeah, like I, um, I say every time, like I'm back and forth between here in the uk, like almost monthly And when you land in Dubai, it's a different energy There's an energy of opportunity, um, and I think that's driven by the infrastructure that's available here It's also driven by like the belief that the government puts into the space expansion And everywhere you look around you, there's growth, whether that's Buildings going up, schools, opening hospitals, highways, whatever you might be Everything is about growth here So I think when you land here as a tech entrepreneur, you come with the same mindset and, and I was having dinner with some friends last night and we were talking about how Dubai's land of opportunity and actually everybody who's here to some extent is maybe not here to live the rest of their days here But actually they're here for a period of time to better their lives Mm-hmm And that's whether you are a tech founder, whether you are a partner at pwc, whether you are a taxi driver, whether you're a delivery guy, whatever it might be, everybody's come to Dubai with an ambition to better their lives and do something better So I think that mindset across every single person you meet in the street, in the taxi, whoever it might be, kind of like, gives everybody energy, which then makes people more cavalier Right And With everyone having that same mindset here, it means that people are more likely to collaborate, people are more likely to help each other out Like networking and go to networking events is very different in this part of the world than it is in like northern Europe in, in the uk How about in the uk? How does it compare to the uk? People here are, and I was talking to a, um, a friend who's setting up a business in the UAE, um, from the UK coming across, and his business partner had never been to the UK before and we were talking to the other and he said, you know We'll call him Dave for this example Like can you tell Dave like what the UAE is like, what to expect? He's never been there before and the thing I said to him was that everybody's there to better their lives Mm-hmm Everybody's there to do better, to grow, to make their lives better, to family, your lives better, whatever it might be So every conversation you're gonna have, everybody you wanna speak to, there will be a level of value exchange People will talk to you because they'll think, how can I Gain value from this person in what I'm doing, but also how can I add value to this person? Because there's a chain reaction of value continuously And I think that's a super like Interesting thing that's happening here was if you look at networking events in the uk, in Northern Europe, and a lot of the time it's just about being there, showing up to some extent hiding what you're doing People are so open here Yeah With what they're doing, and people share a lot more than I expected the first few times I came here to be like, wow People are very open book about what they're working on, what they're doing They're not very secretive because actually they're saying if I could open up What I'm doing to you, there might be somewhere you can fit in to do this and we can grow and we can, you know, take a journey together So that's the main difference You don't find that in the UK where people are a bit more open, I think I think the UK is going through a very interesting economic challenge Yeah At the moment So actually people are Tightening their belts a little bit Mm-hmm People are being a bit more conservative about how aggressive they are with growth And it's not to say people aren't aggressive with growth people, there's definitely business out there growing exponentially, doing amazing things, but I think people are looking over their shoulder and I think that then makes them feel, doesn't give them the bullish attitude that you probably need for high growths businesses Mm-hmm You know, when you look at global high growths businesses They're very, very bullish in how they go to market They take big risks and I think when you're looking over your shoulders, it's quite difficult to take a big risk Mm-hmm Okay No, that's a very interesting point you've raised Um, I've got a question for you as well Silly question Why do you love accountants? Why do I love accountants? Why do I like, do you know what? Because I genuinely believe accountants have a massive impact On the economy and the world that we live in And I was explaining this to somebody the other day and was like a small business owner is gonna go to an accountant or a business owner goes to an accountant and says, I need your help I'm trusting you to help me run my business Growth seems very logical, like business to business transaction, but what we don't see is how that trust relationship is also the accountant saying, so the business owner's saying, I'm also trusting you I'm putting food on my table I'm trusting you to pay my employees I'm trusting you to pay my employees who then need to feed their children or go on a holiday or buy a house and do whatever So the accountant has such an important role They actually, they're so integral to it and economy, a community, wherever it might be So I think we overlook that a little bit I think we just look at accountants as, oh, they're the guys who submit my tax return, or they're the guys who do whatever And yes, there are some accountants who just do that, but I think there are real accountants who are, they're the guys who are Working with founders, working with business owners, working with CFOs, and like really getting into the business saying, how can we add value and how can we make your business flourish so the economy can flourish so people can go and buy a new house, buy a new car, take their kids on holiday, whatever, which has a circular effect from the economy Mm-hmm Which then goes back to the other point, which then makes the tech founders more bullish to go and build new products to go and deliver new services So it has a cyclical effect on the whole economy Yeah, no, great point So Zubair, you've um, you have worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, you've worked with solar founders, you've worked with tech companies, you've worked at very large companies, um, Xero Iris, just to name a few And your role as marketers to help grow their business in increased top line Uh, revenue ultimately Now we have a lot of entrepreneurs who listening to our podcast and many entrepreneurs are quite new to the journey in a sense that they are setting up the business for the first time Um, they're probably good at a specific skill, whether it's it marketing, accounting, um, could be opening a restaurant, for example, from your point of view as a marketeer What do you think is the number one thing they should focus on in the first six months of their business to kind of get the revenue in? Obviously marketing is a massive, you know, subject You could do, you know, paid ads, you could do social media, you could do, um, you know, you could do radio ads, you can put newspaper ads on, um, you know, you could do branding as well You could Do YouTube videos, but for you, what is if you to advise an entrepreneur Their first six months on what they should be doing and what they should be doing right for them to get that first kind of revenue in the door so they can get that encouragement, uh, to continue that business and to keep growing What would that be? So I think it almost starts before that first six months And, and I say this to everyone I work with and I say to every single founder, accounting firm, tech, whatever business I work with, get to know your ideal client Really, really get to know them And I don't just mean like, cool, we're gonna sell to, you know, tech businesses Mm-hmm No, no, no Get to know them You really need to get underneath your ICP, your ideal client profile Understand every single pain point they have, understand how their businesses operate, understand who the decision makers are, understand the way they want to consume information, how, what information they like to consume, how they consume it, all of that stuff Because if you don't understand your customer In and out, and you don't understand where they wanna operate and what they do It doesn't matter what tactic you use It doesn't matter whether you go and spend a million Durhams and radio ads It doesn't matter whether you go and spend a million dollars on paid ads, if that's not the right place for the audience and the types of businesses you want to go after, it's a waste of time and effort So do that first Really get into it Go and talk to them and go and spend time with them Go and understand them That's one of the things I'm really passionate about So across my whole career, I always And working with accountants I spent so much time in accountants offices just sitting like doing my own work, but sitting in that environment to kind of understand how the business functioned, to understand, okay, how do client managers work? How does the bookkeepers work? What does a partner, client manager relationship look like? How does all that stuff work within a, within a working practice? Which then enables me to be better when I go and try to sell a solution to an accounting firm When a tech business says, Hey, we wanna sell to accountants I know how the firm works I know the decision making processes I know how they consume information, how they go through that process internally So before you do anything else, just get to know your clients really, really well Not only will that help you Create the right content, whether that's Facebook ads, whether that's LinkedIn ads, white papers, checklist, whatever that might be It also helps with your products and service development, so you'll definitely be developing services for the problems that they're actually having, and you have to look at your products and services Twofold I like, I call 'em paracetamols and vitamins Some things founders and business owners are looking for when you're selling them Products are para models They've got a problem, they've got a pain, just fix it Mm-hmm And that's all they need And there's some things out of the vitamins, some things they know they need is good housekeeping It makes them feel good over a long period of time But the reality is no one really takes the vitamins, but everyone needs a paracetamol when they need it straight away So how do you then start to think about your product set like that? That, that goes back to the pain points They're having their long-term ambitions and you can help build and develop your products and services like that, but also your messaging then fits into that So how then do you nurture businesses through that journey as well? So, I suppose I know my, uh, my customer profile and I've figured out whether I need to alleviate their pain or help them, you know, have longevity or, you know, help my customers With my vitamins Um, what is the one thing you would recommend founders do to as they grow their business, uh, from your point of view? Now, this is a very generic question, obviously, 'cause it could be any business, right? And, you know, B2B is the way you would market a B2B is different to B2C, for example But in, in your And what, what, what advice would you give? So they, they figured out what they, what their customers are and what they need and where to go for you, what would be the most important thing that they do? So I think in the kind of more founder-led businesses, uh, kind of space that we operate a lot is be connected to your customers And this goes back to that human to human approach that we talked about before is How you be in a human level with those guys And a lot of that will come from your personal brand and who you are as a person and how you interact with the audience and interact with those people Whether that's a LinkedIn profile, whether that's a Facebook profile, whether that is a TikTok account, whether that is appearing at events, whatever that might be Um, make sure you've got that personal brand Built because at the end of day, people will buy from people Mm-hmm Um, and a really good example of this is, and I only really reflected on this a couple of months ago, was before the whole, you know, popularity of personal brand, all this kind of stuff Gary Turner, who's the one of the founders and M-D-U-K-M-D Xero, I had a phenomenal personal brand in the accounting and tech space because he spent so much time On the road, visiting accounting firms in their firm, attending events, you know, going on wherever he needed to go on because he was connecting directly with the audience The accounting firms that wanted to buy Xero wanted to be on that journey with us at that time And I think that had a phenomenal impact on the adoption of Xero Mm-hmm And people are buying from him People are buying because, you know, Gary's here, he's talking to us, he's engaging with us, he's doing all that kind of stuff So I think People had an affinity to Gary and they say with Rod, who was like the main founder, people had an affinity with these people The product behind them kind of just backed them up more So yeah No, that's great Um, great insights in in, in that I think that's especially true for accountant founders as well Yeah I find that there's a lot of accountants who set up a business and they stand behind their staff They don't, not really present with their clients Um, and I think they miss an opportunity in a sense that When you build that relationship, uh, yes, you may have 2, 300, 400 clients, but there's no harm in answering that email or, you know, being able to meet with them or have a coffee or lunch or dinner with 'em because I think that's important as a founder led business and being, being present Um, and I think that draws parallels to exactly, you know, what, what, what you said in a sense that ultimately they're buying from you There could be people who don't wanna buy from you, which is fine, but there's plenty of people that who will buy from you There's a reason, right? There's a reason why people came to you There's a reason why they decided that I'm gonna entrust you, and we talked about this earlier I wanna entrust you with my business I wanna entrust you with my children's inheritance I want to entrust you with the payroll of my employees There's a reason they did that And if that reason is more than just, you are the cheapest on the market, and I think that's a whole different problem But if they've come to you for a reason and said, Rahan, I want you I want you to look after this I want you to help me build my business Then that's way more important than the compliance submission you're gonna do Mm-hmm The way you're going to, you know, get them to write Peple a SP, or whatever it might be Actually, they're looking at you to saying like, how are you as a person gonna help me as a person, do something? And if you can't be bothered with that relationship, then actually you're just gonna lose those clients over time And if your clients don't have that relationship with you Maybe they're not the right clients for you Mm-hmm Maybe you're not adding value to those clients And you know, if you think about it from an economics perspective, and we talk about technology taking away the grant work, et cetera, as soon as the grant work stuff is taken away, and the SMEs can do that by themselves and they can to some extent today Receipt capture bookkeeping, SMEs can do all that by themselves today If they can get rid of all of the ground work, almost you become invaluable Mm-hmm And if you're not providing extra value, then you're losing clients and lose your, your practice is shrinking Yeah And um, I also wanna go into more accountants, accounting firm owners as well Accountants obviously don't come up from a marketing or sales background You know, the back of the office, you know, processing invoices Doing payments, preparing p and l for their, uh, for their, uh, you know, the owners and stuff like that So when an accounting firm, uh, when an accountant sets up a, uh, a firm, and I get this a lot, a lot, I have a lot of accountants ask me questions about marketing and how I grew my firm as well, but What, what would you say We've spoken about the entrepreneur, generic entrepreneur Yeah Now, now let's talk about the accountant who sets up a, an accounting firm in Dubai or in the uk, for example What would be your advice to them? Uh, would it be the same? Would you get them to do something slightly different? How would you help them? How would you approach that problem where they've just set up, they've got one or two clients, but they want to grow to, you know, some, some may wanna grow to a thousand, some may wanna grow to a hundred What kind of advice would you give them? So the first two would be, don't think about yourself as an accountant anymore You are an entrepreneur Mm-hmm You need to shift your mindset, because I think a lot of people who go and set up their own accountancy firm still think about themselves an accountant and As accountant, your job is to advise more businesses day in, day out on how to grow, how to go to expand, do whatever they need to go and do You kind of need to drink your own Kool-Aid a little bit if you want to go and do that So first you think about yourself as an entrepreneur Think about your goals, your ambitions Think about why you did this What's your why? Why have you gone out and done this by yourself? Now? Are you just trying it, is it just a, a fad? Is there something behind it? Is it to have better life, um, work-life balance? Mm-hmm And spend more time with your family? Is it because you want to go and provide new jobs? Is it because you wanna work with someone? What, what's your why? Really harness that to start with Um, and then we go back to like understanding the clients you wanna work with and then go and be where your clients are, you know, if you wanna work with Tech businesses, you know, there's no point in you having an office in Jamira Mm Right If you wanna work with tech businesses and FinTech businesses, you should be in DIFC Mm-hmm You should have an office there You should have a presence there You should be at every single possible event that's going on there You need to become synonymous in that community Right What can you do become synonymous So go and be where the clients are that you wanna work with Go and interact with 'em Go and engage with them Do you think they should niche when they start off with Iisha is a super interesting topic It comes up a lot Yeah When accountants talk about it And there's really, really good people out there who talk very, to do a really good job at helping accounting firms niche Reza Hood is a really good example of that Not being an accountant I have a slightly different, not different opinion, same opinion, but I have a kind of angle to the opinion where niching isn't just about industry You can niche in a bunch of different ways Mm-hmm So, you know, you could say Businesses also don't realize they've niched So account firms, sorry, don't realize they've niched until they look back and say, oh, we actually have a niche where, you know, it can be, I wanna work with tech businesses, or I wanna work with influencers, or I wanna work with whatever, whatever But actually sometimes you realize that I like to work with Kitchen table Businesses who operate at home doesn't matter what industry I like to work with businesses who are series A, series B only because I like that journey that they go through I'm good at that I can help them do the fundraising I wanna work with big multinational businesses who are multi-jurisdiction That's cool that that is still nicheing to an extent It's just the way you look at it, it's a bit different Mm Um, but I think Again, when you're starting up, you really understand That way you can add value Think about the client side there Think about what your skill and say, where can I add the most value to these businesses? Is it, and if I come from a tech background, how do I go and do that? Like, do I work with just tech businesses? Do I come from a creative background? Do I go into work creation services agencies, or whatever it might be? Think about where you provide the most value, because that's where you're most needed Mm-hmm You're not needed to do grant work anymore Technology is taking away the grant work Yeah No, that's, that's a great, that's a great point You've obviously done your, your marketing agency has niched as well, right? So you focus mainly on accountants and, um, you know, FinTech, uh, tech, technology, uh, owners as well How have you found that journey you niching as a marketing agency? Yeah, and I think it goes back to work would add value I think I asked myself when I first, you know, I went on this entrepreneur journey I thought, well, I've worked out FinTech businesses, accounting tech businesses I worked in more traditional businesses in the ERP space and I was like, well, you know, I can help businesses Mm And I kind of went to market and I said, well, hey, I do marketing, go to market I can help you And the, the world was too big and I couldn't talk to enough people Mm And I couldn't get around And you kind of get lost in the noise And I said, well, hold on, let's, let's rewind a little bit And I went back to myself and I said, what am I good at? Where do I add value? And what do I know the most? And No, I'm good at helping people go to market, be scrappy Think about those first few hundred customers Get outta the blocks, test and learn really fast What do I add? Value in the accounting tech space, in the SMB space is where I add value And what do I know really well? I know the accounting space really, really well So, okay, let's go and focus there And I've spent years sitting on accountants Obviously I've spent years being around small businesses Mm-hmm Small businesses My family like I know those pains I know the fact that people sit there on a Thursday at night and they're going through a spreadsheet trying to figure out how they're gonna do payroll tomorrow Like I've seen those pains I've seen people who sit on a dining room table with cash and divvying out into payroll and trying to figure out what tax liability is on it because they've got workers in like blue collar jobs that they have to pay tomorrow morning, like I've seen that pain I've seen people think about it I've seen the fact that where entrepreneurs don't pay themselves, people don't take a wage because they can't afford to take money 'cause they have to pay an employee or whatever it might be So I thought, I've been there, I've been in their shoes I've seen it happen I've seen it develop It's why I go into that space I know that, you know, great insights You and Aman Uh, I think you, both of you have really come into this region Rejuvenated the accounting industry, uh, for me anyway And, you know, you've done that through co-founding, um, accounting Refied, where you and Amen created two amazing, uh, so far, two amazing, um, events for accountants, which are a very high quality, uh, almost at the same quality as the Xero events Which one? Um, and, um, you've now kind of Added a new element to it And that's more of a community for accountants And we don't, we have some communities, but it's fragmented Um, but I mean, I'm part of that group and I see all of the questions and that some of the accounting owners have, uh, put out there and some of the answers that we are able to share And I think that's created a lot of value within, you know, within the, um, accounting industry in, in the UAE Um, tell us about Why you did that? How has it benefited accounting accountants? What are your plans with Refigure and, and the accounting room? Yeah, it is quite interesting Um, accounting Refigure almost came about by accident, even moved out here We started Scope and we, we were just talking one day about, you know, how the industry here felt a bit behind where the industry was in the UK that he left behind, and how Education was a big problem and the accountants, because they hadn't been through this compliance landscape yet, didn't really understand why technology was an important part, you know, of their, of their firms And we're in a region where we're so close to the subcontinent, the far east, we're outsourcing and labor costs are, you know, lower than they are If you would look in the UK or other kind of like Western markets So actually technology didn't really make sense for people because, you know, they didn't really understand the, the value of it And we, we realized that there was an education gap for the accountants where, and on the flip side of that, we also realized there was an education gap in the accounting tech space and the SME, um, FinTech space where Those businesses didn't understand how the accountants could be a route to market for them You know, we see that in the, the UK for example Lots of their tech businesses use accountants as resellers Mm You know, to use a better word for, um, whether that's expense cards, whether that's payments, whether that's, you know, whether it might be the, the accountant is almost a reseller of that solution It adds value to the client and it adds value to the accountant firm In essence, they're a reseller, so we thought, well If the accountants are on this side, they don't understand technology, and if technology is on this side, they don't understand accountants, then maybe we should be bringing the two of them together in one place So we had a conversation over WhatsApp in November 23, and in March 24 we launched our first event Mm-hmm Um You know, we had almost a hundred accountants in the room who paid for tickets You know, we were, we were very clear that this wasn't gonna be just another fad event, another networking, another meetup We really targeted this at the CFOs, the, the partners of firms And we made sure, you know, the people at the top of these firms who were making decisions really understood what was happening in the region, what was changing Um, we had some amazing sponsors, global sponsors come and join us, which was great And what we saw at that event was really Kinda nostalgic for me You know, we talked back to the early days at Xero when we started this journey of there was this community of accountants in the UK that really set the bar for what The industry has gone on and done today and you know, we talk, you know, likes of, um, Paul B Pit, Stephen Paul, Alex Herrera, Alex Falcon Herrera, we talk about Sharon Pocock, all these guys, they were really early adopters of Xero and cloud accounting region These are guys who owned accounting firm They were accounting firm owners Yeah But they were really, they grasped technology with both hands and they said, this is what we need to go to future do They didn't work against each other They actually worked together and actually helped each other and actually had conversations, built their firm individually, but together And at first event, I kind of saw that same thing happening where people were discussing their firm, they were talking about what they were doing, and I thought, well, hold on There's a community here And having experienced that community as an integral part of the growth of the accounting tech space, we knew that we had to do something about that Mm-hmm So we went round a, a year later we did Academy figure 2025, you know, 200 people in the room this time round Again, amazing sponsors, amazing tech placement people, textile were there Thank you very much for being part of it Um, but we knew there was still more to, we knew that once a year as a touch point, which just wasn't enough And people actually said are networking ad hoc? They're meeting at random industry events Why, you know, the A CCA, the ICAW, whatever it might be, but There was nobody beholding them together and there's nobody be kind of took that So we decided to take that responsibility So we launched accounting room off back of the second year of accounting We figured, and we're almost 200 members strong in this community And actually it creates an environment where Accounting own accounting firm owners don't feel alone Mm-hmm They don't feel like they're doing this by themselves They don't feel like they're having all these problems They actually feel like they're part of a community of accountants who can, who are facing the same problems And we've seen it over the last few weeks of the first corporate tax deadline Right Stuff hasn't worked Stuff have been breaking And you know, originally they would be sat there by themselves pulling their

hair out at 11: 48:25

00 PM Mine's already gone Yeah But you know, they They're now able to come into the community, say, Hey guys, like I've got this problem Are you guys facing the same issue? Mm-hmm And people are like, yep, we're doing it Here's a solution that I found Here's how I did this And actually they're sharing each other's wins Mm-hmm And we're really hoping that this community keeps growing and we are hoping that people keep joining this community, adding value to each other We're just the custodians of it We're just the people kind of putting our arms around it and saying, Hey, like, come inside, like work together to grow Yeah No, it's, it's, it is a great initiative Anything that's popped out that really you've been proud of in, in, in Refigure and in the accounting room that you, you wanna share? I think one of the things I'm least, most proud of is that we, the feedback we've had mm-hmm That we've had lots of people come back to us and say, we didn't know who you were You guys turned up randomly, outta nowhere Um, and we didn't know that we needed this We need them more than ever Mm-hmm Um, has been such a massive piece of feedback for us Um, the other thing is being able to get the industry bodies involved here So the A CCA, the ICAW are both deeply now involved in this and we're actually pushing them along to some extent We're saying guys, the industry is moving very, very fast And I know they're part of big global organizations, but we're kind of Taking some of the pressure off them to say, you know, we are gonna push the industry forward We just need you on board to help us do that Um, and they'd be really supportive, um, to do that So yeah, couldn't have been happy with that Yeah No, that's great, great achievement in, in terms of what, what you, what you've been able to do Before we wrap up, is there any final thoughts in terms of what, what you want to share with our listeners? Yeah, I'm always spouting some kind of nonsense on LinkedIn So if you like, if you like to watch me spout nonsense on LinkedIn, uh, definitely come and talk to me Um, there, um, I think my biggest thing always is that be authentic Yeah In everything you do be you be authentic and the people that you want to buy from you, the people you wanna share, the people you wanna work with will come to you As soon as you start being inauthentic and you start pretending to be something else, you not only lose who you are, you lose what your brand is about You lose what your business is about, and actually you end up in a spiral of something you don't want to be in Mm-hmm So, yeah, always be authentic and be the entrepreneur you want to be And remember your why Thank you very much Cool Thanks, man Thank you for joining us on The Alphapreneurs Podcast I hope you enjoyed the show Please subscribe and give us a five star rating and a review Your feedback is appreciated For show notes and more, check the link in the description and connect to me on LinkedIn and search for Rayhan Aleem See you in the next episode