How to grow and expand your business: Tips from a successful entrepreneur

August 28, 2024 admin andrew watson, entrepreneur, entrepreneur tips, entrepreneurial immigrants, Entrepreneurs, People, setting up small business, start-ups

Credit to Author: Canadian Immigrant| Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2024 13:31:31 +0000

Watson Design Inc. (WD) is a custom trophy design studio, crafting boutique awards for businesses around the world. In 2013, Canadian Immigrant interviewed its founder, Andrew Watson, an Australian native who had recently immigrated to Vancouver and started the business.

Over ten years later, the business has expanded and continues to thrive, having worked with a host of well known clients including Google, Disney and the United Nations. Now a talented tight-knit team of 11, the business was awarded a Silver New York Product Design Award earlier in the year.

Given his wealth of experience, Andrew has shared some of his key learnings and tips for entrepreneurs looking to tackle challenges and grow their business.

Create a winning formula
It’s vital to establish a winning formula that works for your business and stick to it. Before starting WD, I conducted vast amounts of market research and planning to identify a gap in the market and determine how to position the business. A simple SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis was extremely helpful in conducting thorough and informative research.

I found that the majority of awards out there were generic and tacky. Traditionally trophy shops would cast awards in metal. I intentionally bucked the trend and decided to work with materials and processes that were not commonly used in the trophy industry.

I decided that clients needed to be involved in the design process to create completely unique and custom, beautiful recognition pieces that recipients would value and would show genuine gratitude.

I believe that the key to success is 40 per cent hard work, 20 per cent talent and 40 per cent pure luck. I have always been mindful to respect the business for its successes and not take it for granted. My formula has been a success but I am not a gambling type of person and don’t push for major expansion. Bigger is not always better.

Build a business network
A strong business network is key to starting and running a small business. I have surrounded myself with peers to share experiences which have provided countless solutions to challenges.

I’ve found that building a network of clients has a snowball effect. I have an ethos to never be rude and always provide good professional services and it’s shown that clients will return and share their experience with other businesses. It’s as simple as that. Big or small clients, we treat them all the same.

Develop new skills
There are too many key skills to list that I’ve had to develop since launching WD but all of them have been important to its continued success. I was a designer with a master’s degree. Then I needed to learn how to be a boss, bookkeeper, HR manager and much more, all while solving every problem that came my way. It’s a lot to take on but my advice is not to get overwhelmed, just keep an open mind and stick to your business principles and the development of skills outside of your specialism will come over time.

Find and retain the best employees

We have a great team here at WD who have helped with its growth and success. Working with a team of other designers is inspirational and it’s great to experience a range of perspectives within the office. Our team are all very passionate about every project they work on which correlates into our finished products.

We offer what I think is a unique workplace. I aim to be friendly and treat everyone with respect. We provide competitive salaries, a four-day workweek, varied job duties, and each person is self-directed — never micromanaged by me. I think these factors are all important for attracting our amazing employees..

Engage with clients and attract new ones

Having an online presence for old and new clients to find us has been crucial to the growth of WD. I recommend developing a visually attractive, informative and easy to navigate website with strong SEO. Social media has been useful too and we have built a following on social media platforms including Instagram, Pinterest and now LinkedIn – which is proving effective for B2B networking and engagement.

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