Entrepreneur Rahim Hassanally looks back on personal and professional highlights following more than 20 years in business.
From an invitation to law school to establishing a highly successful automotive dealership while still in his 20s, Rahim Hassanally has now enjoyed more than two decades of success in business, raising tens of thousands of dollars for good causes, such as breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen, in the process. Hassanally looks back on his life in the fast lane.
Growing up, Texas native Hassanally’s family had already established themselves in the thriving Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex hospitality industry. With his parents owning a number of popular hotels in the area, you could be forgiven for assuming that Rahim, too, made his name and fortune in hospitality, but you’d be mistaken. “Getting into the hotel business would’ve been easy for me,” he explains, “but at a very young age, I figured out that it simply wasn’t my cup of tea.”
Instead, aged just 16, Hassanally eagerly accepted an opportunity to embrace a work-study program run by his local high school. “I was able to work and earn money while also completing my studies,” he reveals.
It was in his first job—and the same job facilitated by his high school’s work-study program—that a young Rahim Hassanally would find his feet in the industry in which he would quickly go on to make a name for himself. That industry? “New car sales,” says Hassanally.
Studying each morning until midday before reprising his daily role as a salesman at a local dealership during the afternoons, within two months, Hassanally had exceeded all expectations.
Not only was he excelling in his classroom studies, but the aspiring entrepreneur was selling as many as 30 vehicles a month in his part-time capacity as a new car salesman. “Coaching from a mentor who also worked at the dealership certainly helped!” admits Hassanally.
Fast-forward several years and the high school sophomore had gone on to graduate from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with a bachelor’s degree in political science while also working at three different dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
It was around this time that Hassanally made the decision to opt out of an invitation into law school in order to pursue his passion for automotive retailing; something at which he had now very much come to learn that he enjoyed a serious natural talent for.
“By the time I was 24 years old, I’d risen to general sales manager at my current workplace,” reveals Hassanally, “and, less than four years later, I bought my very own dealership.”
It would be the first of many for Rahim Hassanally who, over the next ten years, would go on to establish himself as one of the automotive industry’s leading players, truly living life in the fast lane.
“Looking back, I’ve always been extremely driven,” he adds, wrapping up, “and when I set my mind to something, I won’t give up until I’ve achieved it.”
To learn more about Rahim Hassanally, visit https://rahimhassanally.co/.
