About Andrea
Andrea Bailey-Brown is The Business Growth Strategist.
She has been buying, building, scaling and selling businesses since 1989. She has experience working in direct sales and multi franchise ownership, as well as experience building her own businesses from scratch. She has an Executive MBA from Royal Roads University, received the Entrepreneur in Residence award while there, and is a highly skilled Lego Serious Play facilitator and speaker.
Andrea’s Story in Her Words
My journey into entrepreneurship started when I was working at a chocolate store while I was a University student, at the tender age of 20.
The owner was putting the store up for sale and I had the audacity to make her an offer to buy the store. She accepted my offer and that was where my love of business started!
A year later I took on a second retail location and started selling teddy bears, and gift baskets. This entrepreneurial time in my life, would set me on the path for a lifetime of entrepreneurship.
After graduating University with a degree in Education, majoring in French with a German minor, I did what most graduates do…
I took a J-O-B as a full time teacher.
I had just completed four years of University and the responsible thing to do was to secure full time, steady and guaranteed employment.
Within a year, I missed the lifestyle and freedom of being an entrepreneur.
When a colleague approached me about direct sales, I jumped in without hesitation. I started my direct sales company with Weekenders Ladies Wear. I quickly moved up the ranks and shortly thereafter, became a Sales Manager and built a team which allowed me to increase my income, leverage other people’s efforts and reduce my teaching schedule to part time.
Weekenders taught me about sales, booking shows, team building, compensation plans and the power of incentives.
In spite of that, I could see the signs that the company was struggling and my business instincts told me that they would not be around much longer. Trusting my instincts, I made the decision to leave this company and within three years they were out of business.
In 2008, I moved back into direct sales with a jewellery company called Silpada. This time, I built a team of 450 people and became one of only four Directors in Canada.
At the same time, my husband and I bought our first Jiffy Lube Franchise in Calgary in 2008 and have owned up to five stores since.
In 2010, after doubling my salary working with Sipada and doubling our Jiffy Lube sales, I resigned from teaching to focus on our businesses.
With the knowledge I had gathered, and business insight, I once again saw signs that Silpada was changing their model. I predicted that change was not going to be positive for their distributors so with vision and foresight, I went back to school to get my MBA. Silpada later shut down their direct sales business and sold their assets to another company.
With decades of business experience, combined with my business degree, I found a new passion in entrepreneurship. That passion is helping driven entrepreneurs double their sales, increase their profits and for some, plan their exit strategy.
To learn more about working with Andrea, click here. If you’d like Andrea to speak at your next event, click here.
Some of the people Andrea helps are:
ENTREPRENEURS
People who have started their own business: online, service based or bricks and mortar. Typically revenues of 500K up to 50M.
DIRECT SALES
Entrepreneurs who are in Direct Sales who are looking to be top performers; or organizations who hire Andrea to speak to their distributors and leaders.
FRANCHISE OR DEALER OWNERS
Either individuals or corporate. Andrea would share best practices from starting, opening, acquiring, scaling and selling Franchises.
CORPORATE
Organization looking for Lego facilitators. Focus on executive leadership and team building.