Bolton’s first business networking event hosted by CBIZ

Written By JULIA LLOYD

Last Wednesday (July 31) Caledon Business Innovative Zone (CBIZ) held their first networking event at Via Trailers and was a huge success. 

“We did a study back in 2016 and we found out a lot of small businesses in the area were having a hard time getting access to resources from, say the accounting department to the marketing department,” said Jith Dravin, Business Development and Research Officer for the Town of Caledon.

The owner's of Via Trailers hosted the event. There was delicious food catered by a local business and there was a bar with complimentary sangria. 

The theme for the night was marketing and there were three “marketing champs” who put on a panel for everyone to share their insights on best practices in marketing for businesses. 

The night started around 6 p.m. and the panel had Jacqui and Tyler Viaene, owners of Via Trailers to speak first and introduce how they first started the business to the success it is today. 

Tyler started the business out of college. At the time he worked in North Etobicoke, so when he was looking for a lot to buy he found one in Bolton for $700 a month. 

“So we started there. We had an impressive inventory of three trailers and it was slow going like any business when you are starting out. But I think there was a bit of luck and timing that came into play, the industry started to grow, more people were going into trades, landscaping, marketing and food trailers all started to grow year after year,” explained Tyler. 

Eventually Tyler and his wife's business grew and they expanded and moved across the street to a larger property. There, their inventory grew to about 90 trailers. Tyler talked about how for a while they were the only dealer in the area that they knew of, so that helped them out a lot but they also used the tactic of marketing. 

“We do use a lot of marketing services. We work with agencies and we partner up with a lot of local businesses and so we have a good relationship with the local community,” continued Tyler. 

The couple said they worked with a lot of local papers and local magazines to have ads to promote their business.

“So — now we not only just do regular trailers but we do fleet for organizations like Hydro, we do a lot of government speciality trailers. About eight years ago food trucks became a lot more popular, so we got into that. We are kind of the alternative to food trucks we do food trailers and that has gone really well,” Tyler said. 

The next speaker was Samira Abubakar from Brand Tigers — a marketing agency.  Samira has an incredible background in marketing consulting for big agencies in Toronto. Her father was a businessman. She understands the business community and what impacts its failures and successes. 

“But really, I belong to an entrepreneurial family and my dad has lots and lots businesses, I have seen so many failures and successes in my life that my forte has become turning around brands,” explained Samira. 

Samira introduced a powerpoint that went over her formula to starting a successful business. She also discussed some of the ways she's been successful in only a very small amount of time. 

The next speaker was Steve Conforti who started We Are Creative, a graphic design marketing agency that helps its customers to create their own website to help them gain a greater online presence. 

The night was deemed an incredible success, with roughly 50 representatives from local businesses and start-ups around town. 

The CBIZ program helps connecting financial incentives with like-minded people and mentors. This year CBIZ started a training program that launched this June and a few people in the training program attended the event and were overwhelmed by the community support in local businesses. 

Jith Dravin asked everyone at the end of the night if they would like a similar event like this in the future and the audience just screamed — YES.