Halim Abou Seif Middle East Communications Guru

Speaking with TJ Walker, the show where we dissect how and what world class leaders communicate.

My guest today is a true, true authority on communications, public affairs and the media in the Middle East. When I'm in Egypt, he's the guy I meet with, have dinner with, and he really tells me what's going on. Halim Abu Saif is a longtime strategic communications expert, spokesperson, trainer and media consultant. He's been with RADA Research and PR for about 30 years and has worked with every kind of major corporation and government in the Middle East. Now, you and I can talk about crisis communication and I can say I've done crisis communication and I have, sure. But when you're in the Middle east and you're representing governments and governments in Egypt and elsewhere, I hate to sound like Donald Trump, but believe me, you know about crisis communications. These are crises that are existential in nature to the very societies in that region. And our guest today really walks us through what, what he's done, how he's prepared, the highs and lows. So I think you'll find this conversation interesting. Always a guy who's just a wealth of information about communication and the media. So sit back and listen. Enjoy my conversation with Haleem Abu Saif.

Halim, thanks for joining me today.

Yeah. Thank you. TJ for interview.

Now, we have an audience worldwide, but most of our audience members are people based in the United States and they work with a lot of traditional companies, government entities. Things are pretty staid and calm most of the time. You're based in Egypt, you've got an awful lot of clients who are in the hot seat. And when people talk about the war room and incoming fire, they're not speaking metaphorically. What's been the most fascinating experience you've had in your decades of service as a public relations expert and as a spokesperson?

Wow. Tj we have so many things that happened here in this region and in Egypt especially. We have been in turbulences and unrest for the last five and a half years, let's say There were so many things that are happening since the revolution that happened in 2011 and then the change of the government several times, change of president. So we were involved, and I was involved personally in a lot of training to see some newcomers to the market, newcomers to the political arena, and I had the chance to train a lot of them. So we have been in an unrest political situation since then. And I think that it was a very good experience. It changes. Some of these people were really very good and trainable. I would say they Made very, very good progress since we started working with them until the end when they go to public speaking and when they went to the media, some others did not do that well. So I can recall some of the people that really, after two or three sessions, start understanding the way things are and how to talk to the media, preparation, preparing themselves to go on video or to go on tv, how to really make the best out of the interview, deliver their messages, which. Which was a good experience that they would go through. But also some of them were very bad in learning the progress, in learning the process, and it was quite difficult for us to get them through. So people wouldn't listen or wouldn't really want to do the effort of preparing themselves, preparing their messages and try to deliver them the best they can.

Now, in addition to working with clients, preparing them for interviews, you've often done interviews yourself. What's been the most trying experience for you? I like to think of myself as this, you know, tough guy. And I've told people before about an interview. I was on a talk radio show where the host pulled a gun out, but for all I know it was a cigarette lighter or was it loaded? I'm not that tough. I've had people scream at me on the air, but I've never had gunfire going off or bombs or planes. What are some of the worst or toughest experiences you faced when actually doing interviews?

Yeah, well, I had one or two really bad experiences because I was for a while a spokesperson for the country that would speak to try to restore the tourism and try to comfort people to come back to Egypt and to really come and visit. And the worst thing that happened to me is I was in an interview and things were happening so fast that I was trying to comfort people to tell them that the country is safe and things are going well and we have a lot of security measurements and everything. And at the same time, exactly at the time of the interview, a bomb got in someplace in Egypt and I wasn't aware of. And the interviewer just got it on his. On his PC and he threw it at me. He said, 10 minutes ago there was a bomb somewhere here and there. And then what did you say and how would you respond to that? Oh, boy, that's a surprise for me.

That has got to be. That has got to be every spokesperson's worst nightmare as far as a. Having to react in real time. A genuine crisis, something that completely is against the message you just spent your time communicating. How did you handle it.

Exactly? Actually, it was very difficult to get out of it safe. And by any chance I had to go more general and more not specific going into the countries and the war and what is happening in other countries and these things happen, but the terrorism is everywhere and it's happening here and there. But actually it was so much surprise that I didn't have the chance to get out of it safe. I did the best I can. The interviewer was really shrewd, gave me a real hard time. But I think at the end I was getting through quite well and I was able to change the subject to how beautiful the country is and what are the opportunities and get away from the really massacre that happened.

What is your advice to spokespersons and government officials when they are faced with very tough situations about their viability? Now, we're recording this on election day, November 8, 2016, here in the United States. We don't really know who the winner's going to be. All the early polls show that Hillary Clinton should win by a small margin. But Donald Trump has said that he's not going to accept any result that doesn't certify him as the winner. There's a tradition in the United States that the loser graciously concedes and says, okay, this other person is now my president. Everyone's president. We'll rally around this person. Donald Trump has said he won't do that, and other former Republican members of Congress have said they're going to take up muskets. Essentially, there are a lot of people saying they're going to cause a civil war in the United States. If Hillary Clinton is popularly elected and installed as president, what is your advice? Let's just say, hypothetically, Hillary Clinton wins only by a couple of percentage points, and Donald Trump is acting like he's won, telling his supporters that he's won and he's going to be sworn in. How does a spokesperson for a government claim legitimacy when the normal systems have fallen apart?

I think the most important part is each one should have his messages ready. He works very, very hard on delivering the messages that he has prepared to the public. And that is the main trend that a spokesperson should take. A spokesperson should be as aggressive as possible on delivering his own messages, looking forward of his plans, what he thinks of and what his beliefs are to be able to win the audience, okay, the audience like very much to hear what politicians and government officials have to say. So they have to talk about something they know, something that they believe in. And this is how it is. And probably on the political side, mainly, things change so much and People just forget what he's saying and everything. So we need to win the public on his side, win the public opinion, the supporters at any point, and that the only thing to be done is to have clear messages and clear directions. That, that would be my advice to a politician that is in such a place.

Now, Halim, you work with a lot of major international corporations, especially when they are marketing to the Middle Eastern audience. You're not just in Egypt, you're quite active, whether it's Lebanon, whether it is Dubai. What is your advice to major international corporations when they are trying to figure out what's different about communicating to their customers, to prospects in that part of the world?

Okay. Now the problem in our part of the world, in our region, is mainly to gain trust of the, of the audience. A lot of people are talking. Companies close down, companies change the identity they're sold, they're changing stakeholders. So things happen a lot. So people now mainly would doubt anybody that it's going to the media. So the main thing that I tell my people to look at in this part of the world is to gain the trust of their supporters, to gain the trust of their audience, which they need to tell them something that is accurate, something that they can believe in. Talk about themselves, their company, their achievement, their plans, what is coming next, what they're doing today to make it better and everything. I mean, the overall talk should be very positive. Giving them grounds, giving them actual figures, numbers and everything to get the audience really feel that, yes, this company is here to stay. This company is strong and it's not going to vanish in few weeks or in few months. That is the problem in our place, the unrest, an economy that is changing all over the region. Okay, make people think that people are going to change careers or that change companies all the time. So they need to establish this trust between them and their audience.

At the beginning, trust, relationships, they take a long time, years, sometimes decades. How does a company start doing it in an effective way? And I'll just pick one company out, really out of thin air. I was walking in the mall last night with my wife and daughter here in suburban New York, and there was a, a sign saying a Tesla car company was opening up in the mall. So I just pulled that out of thin air. If Tesla were to start a dealership and try to sell their electric cars in your part of the world, what would be your advice to them? Especially since a lot of people, especially in Saudi Arabia, they like to sell oil, they don't really like to see cars, presumably that can bypass their main export.

Yeah. Okay. Some of our audience, some of our community are on, let's say the top class, the elite society where they love to be different. A company like Tesla is a different car, is a luxurious way of living, is a high prestige part. So my advice to a company like this is to try to gain this high end customer, okay, by selling an image and selling a prestigious and luxury look. Okay? It's now, now some people around this area would look at being different of riding a different ride, different car, different motorcycle. And the Tesla would be a very good example for that. There are not so many. They're going to sell very few in the first, at the beginning. So they need to really sell to a trendsetter, to an opinion leader, to somebody that really have very high prestige in those areas. Some of the countries it would be the leaders, the economy leaders, Some, some of the others will be a royal family, some. Others will be a prime minister or a minister, some. So they need to get into this high society, high exposure, trendsetters part. That, that would be my main advice to a company like Helim.

Here in the United States there's still a lot of Senior marketing executives, CEOs that when they think media, they think of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, cnbc, traditional outlets. Their customers may be spending their time on Snapchat, Instagram, listening to podcasts. There's often a huge divide. What's the divide with the companies you work with and what social media are really most popular and influential with your customers and with the audiences your clients are trying to reach?

Okay, that's a brilliant question because things are changing here in this region very quickly towards the digital arena, towards whatever is digital, whatever is on the phone, whatever is, is on mobile. Okay? The traditional media here is losing ground big time. Okay? The print is always almost dying in this region. They print very little. They're too slow. People do not. The online media is picking up a little bit, but not that much. The social media arena, like the Instagram, like the Twitter, like the Facebook, Snapchat, this, these things are the trend now. This is where the real value of news is. Okay, in this part of the world, we're divided between Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These are the three most popular in them, let's say in Egypt. Facebook is by far the highest. Okay, that is, I don't know how we're talking about 23 million users in the country now on Facebook. They are most of them. They spent more than six, seven hours a day on their Facebook pages. Or their Facebook chatting. So that is a platform that is very important and it constitutes mainly an opinion field where most of the people form their opinion through that. Although we understand very much that this information is not reliable and it's coming from unknown sources and everything into that. But still, companies have done wonders by just using their Facebook page, by interacting with their customers online, by making sure that they have enough two way communication with their customers, with their online complaints, borders, everything. So our advice to the companies, to the CEOs, to the executives here, to be active on the social media, okay, they have to have their own page, they have to have even their own Twitter account and they correspond on it. They put them, they put themselves, their credibility on it and everything. So that has been much stronger than the traditional media in the last, let's say four or five years. And I think the clever ones are the one that uses their platforms and to listen to their customers and respond to their needs on a more targeted environment.

And as far as your own communication practice, how much of your time or your agency's time is spent doing what we think of as sort of traditional pr, booking people on talk shows, major interviews, media tours, versus actually helping them create content for their own Facebook page and doing things like. Well, let me. First of all, is live video on Facebook popular there? It really seems to have taken off here in the United States. And I know, I mean, just last night I did sort of a live video behind the scenes tour of my own studio and that gets 10 times as many views than if I just posted a link to a YouTube video. Are you seeing that sort of thing?

Yeah, definitely. If we would say that on the tradition, we have three levels in our agency and we're working on them. The traditional media, the online media, and the social networks or the social platforms. Okay, so under traditional media, we're not more than 10, 15% of our time working on the traditional media. On the online media, we're still strong, we're still working on 30, 40% and I would say more than 40, another 40%. We're working on creating the content of the social media platform. Okay? Some of our clients, or let's say most of our clients, have realized already that social media is the right platform to be there. But creating the content, having the language that is needed, the type of videos, the type of pictures, the type of language that we want to use there, this is what is taking time to be transformed. We need to change the mind of our clients to accept, to have very short videos, to have very short Statements not to have the press release of three pages, but just have a few of sound bites, throw them in and then make it viral, push them through different channels. Working on a content that is so fast that it changes every day and you can repeat it and you can get new ways of doing it. So we are moving into that direction. We have some of the clients that have accepted this already and most of them are the multinationals that do this in other countries around the world. But the most locally focused are the ones that are difficult to move. But we were able to move them to the online media, at least from the traditional media. So we expect that very, very soon we will be working mostly at 80 or 90% of the time on the social media.

Now, Halim, when I speak to someone like you, I typically feel ignorant, ill informed and uneducated. Because you speak multiple languages. English, Arabic, French, I speak, just to name a few. I speak only English. You also lecture at universities throughout the Middle east and around the world to students interested in communication. What is your advice to them? What skills do they need to really make it in communications in the next 20, 30 years? Is it going to be more languages? Is it just being really deep in one social media platform? What are the skills you're advising them to build?

Okay, thank you for your nice words. Yes, because of the Middle east, we're trying to speak to as many people as possible. So this is why we have a lot of skills around us and we learn different languages. It is important to understand the strength of the languages. So one of the advices is to see other languages, because languages come with their culture and you see more culture and you can understand different people like European, the Americans and the Middle Eastern. And you can see differently what will happen in the next 20, 30 years. Definitely. I don't know. Definitely. Things are going very fast and we cannot predict. But there is one direction that I am 100% sure of and I'm telling all my students and all the people that I lecture and people that I talk to them is to listen to their stakeholders, to listen to their audience more than speaking to them. The things are changing now, in my opinion, instead of really taking my ideas and trying to put them in the heads of the people around me, is to hear what they have, is to digest it and come back with solutions or come back to what they really want to hear. I mean, the people are changing, the young generation is changing. They are more selective, they are more options to them. So they select what they want to hear, they select what they want to view. They select what they their news coming from. They have the opportunity of filtering what they want and hearing what they want to do. So unless we are into their line of thoughts, unless we are with them what they hear and what they want to hear, they will not listen to us. So my advice to the people is to listen, make sure that they target the right people. They understand their behaviors, they understand their way of life and listen to what they want to hear.

Helim, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for being our guest today.

Thank you, T.J. thank you so much. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to speaking with T.J. walker.