The "Michigan Left"

This was the first time for me to visit the SE Michigan area and give seminars on the Amana Funds. This was also the first time that I had the opportunity to give a joint presentation with another company in the area of Islamic Housing. All presentations were given jointly with Abdulkader Thomas from SHAPE Financial, who is working with a local Ann Arbor, MI bank, University Bank, to offer savings accounts and a mortgage alternative for Muslims. I was a little skeptical at first when Abdulkader suggested the idea to me and we had some issues with timeliness of getting places reserved. However, having completed the weekend, I think the joint presentation idea is a good one. Usually in my presentations, when giving them alone, I get questions as to whether or not Amana offers housing. Having these joint presentations answers the issue. The only thing I would do differently is that we should plan our own seminars and invite them to attend. We have a much better organized system of preparing and executing seminars which far more professional than any others that are out there. This was confirmed by Abdulkader this weekend.

Friday April 30, 2004

I gave the Friday sermon to approximately 70 people in Ypsilanti, MI. I spoke about earning a halal provision and it was well received by the audience. I had some people afterwards come up to me and ask questions about housing and investments.

Saturday May 1, 2004

In the morning, we gave a joint presentation at the Islamic American University located in Southfield, MI. There were approximately 10 people in attendance, including some shareholders. The university is only a few years old, and the brainchild of the Muslim American Society (MAS). It has approximately 60 full time students and many more in its on-line program. The University has quite an influence over the Arab population in the SE Michigan area. Remember, this area is home to Dearborn, which is majority Arab and in fact it has the biggest population of Yemenis living outside of Yemen. Driving through Dearborn, you feel like you are in the Arab world with restaurants, signage, and everything else being in Arabic (even the pepperoni pizzas are catered for Muslims, they use beef pepperoni, since we can't eat pork). Anyway, there were some people from the University in attendance and they seemed to have more questions for the mortgage product than Amana. And the questions were mainly having to do with its permissibility in Islam. This usually never comes up with regards to Amana, due to (in my opinion) the age of the funds.

In the evening, we attended a dinner at the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit. There were approximately 150 in attendance and we had a small table to pass out information. I did not use the booth, but did have the DVD playing. Many of the individuals that came up to me were already shareholders and I think this is a good mosque to visit for a future presentation.

Sunday May 2, 2004

We started the day giving a presentation at the Muslim Center in Detroit. Do to some miscommunication, there were only 10 people in attendance. The timing announced by the administration was an hour off, and since we had another presentation at 1:00pm we could not wait. The audience was mostly inner-city African American Muslims and I was surprised that none of them had heard of the Amana funds. they were very appreciative of the presentation. I was able to ask them more information about how to advertise in the community and where and which conferences to set up booths. Although many of them don't have extra cash to put in the funds, many do have 401k's and they do change jobs often. So there is still a market for us to capture.

In the afternoon, we gave a presentation at a hotel organized by University Bank and again there were approximately 10 people in attendance (we never seemed to break this threshold). Since it was held a hotel, the people who came were definitely interested. Normally, I do my presentations at the mosque in between the sunset and night prayers which usually get the most attendance. This tactic gets more bodies in the room but many stay to listen at the spur of the moment. Having it at the hotel, people came because they were interested!!! However, I still think that doing it at mosques in between prayers is a better idea. In my opinion, the more people the better. I think that even if they don't open an account right away, they will be aware of Amana and when the need arises, will look to us for investments. this should be views as branding and seminars at the same time. Plus, the people still sign up, so we do have an ever-growing prospect list and if we stay in touch with them, eventually, they will turn to us.

In the evening, we presented at a mosque in Hamtramck, MI. This area is dominated by Bengalis. Like Dearborn, Hamtramck makes you feel like you are in Bangladesh (not that I have been there) but all the signs, the aroma of food is all Bengali. Again, they are mostly first generation middle class immigrants and like the Muslim center, don't have extra cash, but have retirement plans through employers. One of the attendees was an employee of Ford and is welling to get a petition going to try to get Amana into there 401k. Obviously, there are many Muslims at Ford, in the US and around the world, and this would be a big win if we can get this.

Monday, May 3, 2004

I had a meeting with the Chairman of University Bank before heading to the airport. I picture most Chairman as people in their 60s, and "good ole boys", however, to my surprise, this guy, Stephen Ransini, was 39 year old that looked like he was 25. The bank itself is a small outfit based in Ann Arbor, MI and has about $44 million in deposits. I had a discussion with him about using their brokerage arm to sell the Amana Funds (cross selling with the Mortgage Alternative product). There brokerage is through Equitas, which clears through Pershing. He and the CEO of the bank were very enthusiastic about signing up Amana. They began offering the Mortgage Alternative product as a specialty, but it is slowly becoming their biggest seller. One of the things that they are noticing amongst the Muslims applying for a housing loan is that all of them either have excellent credit or no credit. Excellent credit because they pay off their cars, credit cards, etc. to avoid interest, or no credit (amongst the stricter ones) because they refuse to get credit cards, and buy everything with cash. And so far, majority of the applicants have been Drs. in the area some with huge amounts of cash in checking accounts (one had $200k in a checking account).

I think there is an opportunity here to work with University Bank. They have a dedicated savings account (FDIC insured) that is for the mortgage alternative product. The Chairman said that if we provided depositors, he could give us a 50 basis points as a one time fee (its more detailed than that). The bank is very serious about opening markets in various states and are approved in VA, and are looking to CA by the end of the year. They are already getting face time with Muslims in there presentations, and if we can get the selling agreement signed, they can begin to open accounts for Muslims in Amana. At the same time, many Muslims ask us if we have something more stable than our Income fund, and this would be a good alternative. The only downside I see is that we would be directing our shareholders to another company, which could end up dropping us if another fund came out offering a larger commission. They are familiar with Azzad and DJ Islamic fund, but they are too small. More thought needs to be given as to how we can work together.

On a side note, I must say that this whole weekend, no matter where we drove, and no matter if there was a local person with us, we got lost!!! One can say that we were lost the whole weekend, with a few stops along the way for seminars. I couldn't figure it out and neither could the MI residents. Every time someone had told us to make a right, we later figured out we should have turned left and vice versa. If they said go North, we should have gone south, and vice versa. I finally came up with a hypothesis as to why this was happening. It is a phenomenon called the "Michigan Left" where on majority of the streets, you cannot make a left turn. You have to pass the light, make a U-turn and then come back and make a right. I have not seen this in any other city. Also, the other thing that was weird was the names of some of the cities. One such city was Southfield. You would think that it was south of Detroit, but it is not, it is in the north of the city!!!!