An Introduction from Martin Khoury
Hi, my name is Martin Khoury and I'm the founder of BeliefMedia.
As personalities in the marketing industry we're expected to have a "story". While having a narrative is something that we tend to advocate, I almost always vacate the typical rags-to-riches approach and gravitate towards something that the marketing world often lacks: honesty. At some point in the past the idea that having $17 in your pocket and no future was a redeeming feature of an individual. The 'rags to riches' approach propagated itself over time and variations of the same BS story now repeats itself over and over. To put it bluntly, I've always enjoyed success and tend to get frustrated by those that manufacture adversity in order to be seen as successful. As a business person you'll want to work with somebody that is the best at what they do. If empathy is important to you, know that I've worked with hundreds of people in the exact same situation as you - regardless of your circumstances.
Digital marketing is now the single most important strategy for new lead generation. Period. It's not uncommon in the digital marketing arena for businesses to pop up that focus on only one area of digital marketing (normally just Facebook advertising) and they're technically ill-equipped to handle the plethora of 'other' channels that will drive your business growth. The apparent 'boom' of the digital industry has attracted its fair share of charlatans that are grossly in-equipped to handle your campaigns. So, I'd like to introduce our background and programs (in brief) so you'll understand why you absolutely need to call us (and you may call anytime on 1300 235 433, or 1300 BELIEF). We love helping businesses grow and our results almost always far exceed those of our competitors.
I personally don't think it's possible to help business grow unless you've owned and managed traditional business yourself. That underlying truth is built upon owning and/or managing multiple successful businesses and working in various unrelated fields over 20 years. Keep in mind that while I partook in what might be considered a bizarre career path, it's the Internet and digital marketing that has been the heart and soul of my life for as long as I've had an Internet connection.
When I turned 20, shortly after qualifying for flight instructor qualifications (and working a number of jobs to pay my way, including time with the NSW Fire Brigade as a firefighter), I was basically handed the keys to a flying school and told that I was now running the place. That burden came at a time when the Internet really was in its infancy and very people knew what it was. Despite the lack of online adoption I set up the very first flying school website in Australia and within a very short time watched as we attracted a massive influx of clientele. I saw the value of the Internet and quickly began developing online tools that extended our online reach. AviationTheory.com was the first online education portal in the world, and I developed about a dozen other aviation websites that were world firsts. Somewhat short-sighted at the time, I used my aviation LMS as a means to educate our pilots... and it wasn't until much later that I built a global learning management system.
My early websites predated PHP so I took to Perl as a scripting language for building various tools. It was during my time as a flying instructor that I established my first web company: Australian Web Exposure. Despite operating the company in my spare time, struggling with the complexities of an emerging industry provided an education that paved the way for me to build my online empire!
At the age of 24 (after a few thousand hours of teaching people to fly and flying general charter) I migrated over to another company that operated turbine charter aircraft. Once again, I saw the need for aviation management software and built what became known as CAMS (Complete Aviation Management Software). It was developed on a self-hosted Windows platform running Cold Fusion as the server-side language of choice. It was one of the very first systems to take advantage of growing mobile coverage coupled with handheld PDA devices. As revolutionary as it was, it never saw widespread adoption because of an infantile and short-sighted regulator that was reluctant to accept digital solutions.
After several thousand hours of some of the best flying I'd ever done (in around 60 countries worldwide), and now the Flight Operations Manager, I sold up some of my early web projects and had the freedom to explore other digital opportunities. Simply because I could, I joined the NSW Police Force where I worked for a few years. I'd recently qualified for a commercial helicopter licence so it was my early ambition to migrate into the Police Air Wing. If I had of taken that path it's quite possibly I would still be there today.
It was the free time that the police force provided that allowed me to build a massive library of various websites. I used the earliest version of Google AdSense to monetise the projects and many of those early sites are still being used today. By the time I had left the police service I had a library of over 750 profitable websites and online stores (more were later to come).
It was while I was in the Police Force that I completed a degree in Criminology. I'd previously taught Human Factors to the aviation industry (and later worked as a Human Factors specialist with Virgin Australia alongside my role as a pilot) and the social science subjects further reinforced an expertise in the areas that are necessary for a successful business.
Despite working a number of roles within law enforcement (State Crime, Intelligence, Detective, CCU etc) I knew it wasn't my path. Annual leave came around and I explored a few options back in the aviation industry. The Royal Flying Doctor Service was the first to first to make contact with me so it was the first job I took. I flew King Air air ambulance around outback Western Australia for a short time before slow Internet (seriously) had me to abandon the remote town of Meekatharra for the East Coast. I worked with a Corporate company in Canberra flying a mix of VIP, charter, and freight operations for over three years.
It was 2008 when I was offered a job with what was then known as V Australia (later re branded as Virgin Australia) flying the Boeing 777 between Sydney and Los Angeles. I arrived at the company with a handful of other employees nearly 12 months before we even tool delivery of an aircraft. Over that 12 months I worked with Virgin's marketing department, managed a few projects, and helped set up the regulatory framework for the new carrier. As we took on more and more staff the need for a centralized Learning Management System became necessary so, over a few sleepless months, I built a system that was fully compliant with the regulator's requirements. For a system that was meant to last "around 6 months", I ended up managing Virgin's learning management program for nearly 5 years. It wasn't the first LMS I'd built, but it was the first I'd built that needed to scale for thousands of staff.
I left Virgin in 2015 to pursue the digital areas of my life full time. At the time I left I was struggling to manage a number of SAAS services I had on offer and, as much as I enjoyed flying jet around the world, didn't want to spend the rest of my life bored at 40,000 feet as an employee of anybody else.
Finance
Just before I headed off to Meekatharra in 2005 I set up my first independent Mortgage Broker business. That business has since become the leading brokerage agency in NSW and one of the top 10 Australiawide as ranked by MPA Magazine. As somebody that came to the finance industry with a fresh online outlook I was nothing but disappointed by the lack of digital progress the market had made. Even more disappointing were the under-qualified characters touting themselves as 'marketers' based on mediocre performance and no IT or marketing/business background. The mortgage industry is plagued by a disease that goes by the name of certain individuals that think they're qualified to build digital solutions... and it was this poor representation that had me direct my company's efforts into helping broking businesses like no marketing agency could. There is no question whatsoever that we deliver better results and more effective digital solutions than others that share our space.
Since we started our broker marketing packages we've helped businesses generate billions of business volume.
Aviation
Our expertise in aviation is no secret. Quite outside the realm of marketing work, we've built operations manuals, flying school (competency-based) programs, and we provide expertise in the areas of crew resource management (human factors) and safety investigation. While my background in aviation is detailed briefly above, others in our company have the same expertise. Our MBA qualified Queensland director, for example, was a former Jetstar captain, and he's owned numerous aircraft and aviation businesses in his relatively short life. He's also operated an aircraft leasing company successfully for nearly 10 years.
It's our experience in the rotary field that has enabled us to offer services to the real-estate industry encompassing high-quality drone photography or in-house aerial photography on a traditional helicopter. This supplements our 360-degree videos, floor plans, and other real-estate marketing tools.
So, if you're after an in-flight safety video, pre-flight preparedness video, a training video (we've produced online video for the Boeing 777 and Boeing 737), or marketing material for your business, you should call us to see what we can offer.
