As a wise and successful entrepreneur once said, it's better to take a risk than regret it.
It's safe to assume that she's not talking over bad coffee in a cramped office cubicle, but rather in the boardroom of the company she built from scratch on her own.
“I always had a vision of myself at the helm,” says Shelly True, 44, owner of Ottawa-based TRUEdotDESIGN Strategic Marketing, Branding + Design. “Of course, a safer, less risky path would have been to work for someone else's agency, but with or without the opportunity for growth, I would have held back.”
Five years ago, True left behind a promising career with a steady income to start her own company dedicated to filling the marketing void in architecture and engineering. She has already been working in this industry for 15 years and she thought she could use her power to promote this industry.
Considering her situation, this was a courageous move. She is a divorced single mother raising her young daughter (a competitive dancer with a demanding schedule) on her own. She had to be very insistent with the bank regarding securing her loan. Still, she managed.
“I'm not averse to taking risks,” says True, who supported herself while attending college. “I've never been afraid of failure.”
In 2015, she made another bold business move. She has acquired the award-winning Ottawa-based marketing and advertising company Avenue She Designs. The acquisition of a larger agency meant that TRUEdotDESIGN worked with more clients and a larger talent pool, offering a broader range of strategic marketing services. Her clients remained in construction, homebuilding, architecture, engineering and related fields.
At the time, True had no way of knowing whether her financial bet would pay off.
“It's a little scary when I think about it, because I don't know. I could fail and lose my home, my daughter's home.”
The acquisition proved to be a wise move. Then in her first year, her company's revenue increased by her 25%.
It didn't take long for TRUEdotDESIGN to start receiving accolades. The agency won his record 10th SAM Award in sales and marketing at last year's Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association awards ceremony. Ms. True was also named Distinctive Women's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016 and a finalist in the Emerging Entrepreneur category at the 2017 Business Woman of the Year Gala in Ottawa.
new office space
TRUEdotDESIGN recently moved to a bright and airy new location on Spruce Street in Little Italy, occupying a space with architectural interest that dates back to the early 1900s and now serves as a creative hub of sorts.
As the company has grown, so has our team, from three people to now 15 people. And all of them are women. It wasn't planned, True says. She is willing to introduce male testosterone to this place. She describes her team as cohesive, supportive and never catty.
“We talk about women standing side by side, but never in front or behind. Don't compete with each other. Just be comfortable in your own skin.”
True's biggest challenge is finding enough time in the day to prove that the life of an entrepreneur is not a lazy life.
“I love what I do,” she explains. “For me, a 14-hour day feels like 7 hours for her.”
Typically, True wakes up around 6:30 a.m. and works from home before dropping her 12-year-old daughter, Bryn, off at school. Later, I listen to her TED talk on the drive from Barr Haven. This is a routine that helps you transition between roles and embrace the mindset of the next day.
At the office, she learns a little more Java, answers some emails, and spends the rest of the day until 6 or 7 p.m. meeting with clients to build marketing strategies or working on new projects in business development. and approach clients. role. After she returns home, she spends part of her evening preparing for her next work day.
“Nothing really upsets me,” True says of her ability to appear calm, cool, and collected even in stressful situations. “If something suddenly happens, I will deal with it because there is always a solution.
“I live through the daily challenges of being a business owner.”
- She was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her classmates at Algonquin College, where she earned a degree in marketing.
- Only once did she turn on the auto-reply for her “out of office” email. That was in January of last year. She was away on a ski vacation.
- One time, being a dance mom saved her life. True was serving as a keynote speaker for a group of architects and engineers at a conference in Toronto, and while she was preparing to present on stage, she discovered that there was a large hole in the back of her dress. I realized that. The concierge didn't have a sewing kit and only had a few minutes. Luckily, she had extra safety pins in her bag in case her daughter, a competitive dancer, needed them for a costume. She said, “I pinned up the dress and presented it in front of a crowd.'' Phew.
- True only wears dresses. And when she wore heels, her height increased to 6 feet 2 inches.
- She is the Event Team Leader for Communications on the Advisory Board of the Women in Business Conference in Ottawa.
