The Edge Magazine Interviews Bassem Ghali, Founder of Green Lotus. Canada's #1 Digital Marketing Agency

By Bassem Ghali

Bassem Ghali is a 2-time winner of the Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year award and a digital marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience working with companies such as Canadian Tire, Vistaprint, Remax Canada, Alpha Laps, Xplornet, and Toronto Star.

#1 SEO Company in Canada

“My journey in Canada began with humble beginning where I did a lot of labor jobs working in a chicken factory and McDonald’s because I was a non-French speaker living in Quebec,” he said.

His big break came when he was asked to do the redesigning and rebranding for a company—his first office job in Canada for an IT company. “One day the CEO walked up to me and enquired ‘how can we get on the first page of Google?’. That was the question that changed my career. At the time, search engine optimization (SEO) was not a thing.” The rest is history as they say. “I got into a career before it became a career,” he added.

Tell us a bit about your background? What shaped the person you are today?

I think growing up in the Middle East; I’m from Egypt, it’s kind of similar to Europe. You have to be selling and doing stuff—hustling—all the time. I was a salesperson when I was 16 years old. I sold timeshares and computer devices. I worked in the supermarket for a while. If you are a good salesperson, you will be good in any industry you choose, and I think that’s what my upbringing in Egypt taught me. That street smartness you don’t get in traditional education.

What initiated the idea of your online marketing company Green Lotus that you created in 2012?

After working in the corporate sector for many years (I managed some of Canada’s top digital marketing teams at Toronto Star, Direct Energy and was the head of marketing for Canadian Tire), I took a leap of faith.

I told myself that if I fail, I can always go back to a corporate job. Since then, I have never looked back. We focused on two products; search engine marketing and search engine optimization. We’re a very specialized boutique agency—we do two things and we do them very well. We gained the trust of big clients like EgyptAir, Xplornet, and Metro College.

A lot of companies look for lead generation, and the initiation of company interest into products and services. Lead generation is what we do very well because everything we do is performance-based. We wouldn’t take an action unless it had an impact on the bottom-line, and this is why we gain more and more trust.

You partner with many worthwhile charities and causes with Donate & Learn initiative. Do you still believe in the benefits of a simple idea?

Yeah! The whole idea started very simply. I believe that no matter how big or small your brand is, you must have a charitable approach. We thought of getting a few good speakers together to have a workshop with proceeds going 100 per cent to charity. We thought if we got 50 to 60 people and $500, it would be amazing. The first time we hosted the workshop, more than 300 people showed up. We didn’t have enough seats, water or food but the proof of the concept was there.

Thereafter, we raised $4000 to $5000 in a few hours. We have gained the support of big international companies like Go Daddy- who spoke for the first time in one of our events here in Canada—Teksavvy, FreshBooks, and Microsoft—who sponsored our events. It was a win-win situation and we all saw the value. That was the main reason for the initiative’s continuous success. We have done seven expos so far and raised more than $35,000 for local charities.

What are some of the major challenges and successes that you faced with owning your own company, especially at the beginning?

When I first started my company, I didn’t really know who my customers were, who I was marketing to, who my services were good for and who my pricing will make sense to because I met a lot of very small business owners and they couldn’t afford much a month.

I said “Well, I can’t start with you.” Just getting through that process and sometimes selling yourself a little bit cheap and losing on that project was a challenge. It took a lot of learning to know the ideal customer because if you are talking to the right person then there is more chance of you closing that deal.

I can’t even give you advice on that since it’s a learning curve every entrepreneur start-up has to go through to recognize and paint a profile picture of their ideal client. Once you get to that, then you will be able to improve your service and launch new products to match specifically what that client needs.

I’d imagine there’s also an intuitive part to the process.

That’s the best part about being an entrepreneur! If you are an accountant you are really good at accounting but you don’t know anything about digital marketing. If you are a lawyer, you are really good at being a lawyer but nothing else. Same here, I was really good at digital marketing, but I didn’t know anything about business development, sponsorship and speaking. An entrepreneur has to wear many hats, you have to put your feet in the water and learn yourself.

If you could transport back in time and communicate any lesson you’ve learned with the intention of saving yourself from mistakes, what advice would you give yourself?

I would have launched my own business years ago. I think the Canadian market is strong. After 2008, the economy shifted to more small-medium businesses, and the people who launched at that time, way before me, have made it big. I wish I had taken that leap of faith earlier.

Do you have a habit or set of habits that you swear by?

I don’t want to sound like a cliché, but it’s very hard to give up. I just keep going. I might get down, depressed or discouraged, but I just can’t live my life saying “I failed” or “I should have given this a shot.” I think that’s a habit that you develop over time. The more you fail, the more you find yourself getting back up.

to, who my services were good for and who my pricing will make sense to because I met a lot of very small business owners and they couldn’t afford much a month.