In honour of International Women’s Day this year, we wanted to turn the spotlight on a successful and inspiring woman entrepreneur: Dawn Williams. President of Sirius Personnel, a sales and marketing recruitment firm in Montreal, Dawn has received numerous awards and distinctions for her work in promoting motivational work environments. She shares our commitment to using business to inspire and contribute to positive societal change.
We asked Dawn a few questions about the challenges and opportunities facing female entrepreneurs.
1. What would you consider the key benefits for businesses to build teams that are as diverse as Canada’s population?
Building diversity into your business allows you to expose your products and services to new and different markets. But most importantly, having a diverse team helps you to avoid blind spots. For example, I sometimes notice ads on TV, and I just think to myself, “someone just did not consult people from the community before running this ad!” It’s so easy to avoid these mistakes.
It’s also so important to always get another perspective because we don’t want to be in an echo chamber. When all the information we consume on Google or Facebook follows an algorithm, you often only get to see your own point of view. So having people from different communities on your team allows you to learn about other perspectives. Even if you don’t agree with this other point of view, it at least opens you to different ways of thinking and allows you to get to know your neighbours a bit better.
Canada is so diverse and filled with people from all walks of life. Having diversity in your team is easy. Especially in such a cosmopolitan place like Montreal. These days, if you don’t have people in your entourage who are different, it’s because you’re trying not to.
2. Success often feels like a marathon, with many hurdles along the way. What would you say are the 3 most important traits of a successful entrepreneur?
I love this analogy because I’m a runner myself. Not a marathon runner, but I do run half-marathons! I would say the 3 most important traits are:
- Small things that you do consistently add up. Just like running, you need a sense of rigour. That’s the key to success. It really is true, ask anybody who’s trained for a marathon, success is about the small things that you can do each day to keep building endurance for the long run.
- Make decisions for the long-term rather than quick and easy short-term decisions.
- Keep your word. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
3. The government is accelerating funding initiatives to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Are you encouraged by these initiatives? Is this enough? Are we starting to see results?
In the last year, I’ve seen more and more announcements on LinkedIn of diverse people being named to boards compared to the last 3 years. So we’re seeing some very qualified people in these higher-level positions now – I’m definitely encouraged by this and think it’s a good start.
4. You work with professionals from the Black community to help them get promoted into C or D-Suite positions. Can you tell us about that?
We started a non-profit organization more than a year ago called Groupe Beli. It serves Black youth who are already in the workplace and helps them to reach these C or D-suite positions. We’re still in the planning stages right now but will be ready to launch in the fall, hopefully even sooner.
The organization is about providing guidance to our cohort, letting them know that we’ve been there too. It’s a safe space for us to talk about our shared, lived experiences in hopes that this can provide advice and knowledge to overcome obstacles in the workplace.
5. What advice do you have for policy makers in allocating funds to level the playing field to allow more entrepreneurs to succeed?
I really do believe in mentorship, somebody to bounce an idea off, who has been there and done that. It’s very valuable to all entrepreneurs, whether you’re a small business, a painter, or an artist.
Providing more basic services to help entrepreneurs in their day-to-day life would also be very beneficial. For example, it would be great to have more programs about how to build networks, develop a business plan, learn basic accounting principles, etc.
Right now, these types of training and mentorship programs can be very hard to find.
6. Role models are important to inspire us. Did you (or do you) have any?
My mother is a great role model. She wasn’t in business, she was in education, but I could still always go to her and talk about business things. Maybe something that happened at work that I needed advice on, she was always there. I would say that I had a lot of strong, Black role models around me, including my family.
7. What key takeaways would you like to leave our readers with… any thoughts?
Attitude is very, very important. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing or not, but I don’t see a lot of people taking responsibility for their actions. If you’ve made a mistake, own up to it.
Try to find a mentor. And don’t be shy about asking. Ideally, try and find somebody outside of your company who will be honest and call you on things that you do. You want the type of person who will say to you, in private of course, “What you did there, you kinda screwed up.” It’s never going to make your ego feel good, but these are the things you need to hear in order to grow.
Don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know something. I’ve managed people for over 20 years now and the best new hires are always the ones who ask questions. This shows that you’re curious and you want to know about new things. Don’t ever be afraid to be curious and always keep learning.
