“I don’t flinch from that. I truly believe that you can survive in business and still hold true to your morals and values,” he said.
Mr Amaneddine was speaking on the eve of the Western Sydney Awards for Business Excellence in which his business AAA City Removalists is a sponsor of the Business Leader category, an award that recognises entrepreneurial spirit, strategic direction and innovative ideas.
Sharing his insights on leadership, Mr Amaneddine said: “You need to know who you are as a person, what service or product you want to give to people and do it in a way in which you don’t have to sell out your integrity or values.”
It’s a lesson he learned the hard way many years ago.
“I was a chameleon adapting to my target market but in doing that you lose your true identity and spark.
“Business can be a dog-eat-dog world where any tactic is used to get one up on the competition; ultimately many decisions are based on greed.
“Instead, I searched for who I was as a person and what I believed in and then I surrounded myself with mates who shared my vision.
“The people who work for me subscribe to that same vision: service based on integrity, respect and love. And since then we’ve attracted the type of customer base we want, one of great value.
“In business, you build relationships one at a time. You give each customer 100 per cent of your attention and service and leave them better off than they were before they met you.”
In a bid to inspire rising business leaders, Mr Amaneddine turned his hand to coaching and mentoring through his website Message of Peace.
His business workshops give an insight into how to achieve “harmony in your home, vibrancy in your workplace, ongoing relationships with your customers and more money in your pockets.”
“The scariest word in business is fear. It stops people from taking that leap of faith that inevitably could make them a better version of themselves,” he said.
So what was the greatest leap of faith he took? “Going into business by myself. I decided to run my own business and leave my own mark.”
Inevitably he made mistakes along the way.
“The hardest lesson I learned was just because you are honest and trustworthy, not everybody else is,” he said.
While Mr Amaneddine said he looked forward to meeting the recipient of the business leader accolade, he said all the entrants were winners.
“Winning isn’t the be-all and end-all. All business leaders who do the best they can do are worthy.
“We all just need to remember that to be successful, we need to be the epitome of humility.”
