We were lucky to catch up with Gil Breef recently and have shared our conversation below.
Gil, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
Shades By Design was incorporated in 2014 as a custom window treatments company with a single employee handling customers inquiry and coordinating meeting while the founder Gil Breef was the only sales person and also handled the installation. “We worked out of a shared office space with one desk, a computer and a cell phone”. our focus was to provide un parallel customer service and provide out of the box solution to our clients.
As the demand to our products and services grew, we hired full time installer and a second designer, both had no industry knowledge and were trained by our founder. We then moved to a 900 sq ft office space with three desks and a showroom, which attracted new clients and required additional staff. we staid at this location for 3 years before our next expansion once we hired our 8th employee and moved to a 5,000 sq ft space.
During the first years of the business, the expenses were larger then the profit “it was very difficult to stay motivated while not producing income, but the investment is starting to pay off now that we have a great team and organized procedure which allow us to keep growing”
We are now a team of 15 employees and are growing the business about 30% every year! we are looking to move to a 10,000 sq ft space to allow a great work space and a showroom to all of our products.
The key to growth is to build a team and follow a plan to help you scale the business up! I am grateful to my team and advisors!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started designing window treatments in 2004 in NYC, working with my older brother Yaniv who thought me everything i knew about the industry.
I was always trying to find and incorporate creative and decorative solutions for our high end projects. Always researching solutions from other countries and industries to be able and provide customized products to very large windows and motorized applications.
This knowledge brought me to starting Shades By Design in 2014, where we provide custom window treatments and outdoor shading solution to luxury properties and clients in South Florida and the Caribbean islands.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I learned that my team is by best investment, that i cannot expect anyone to read my mind and see my vision without being able to share it
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Investing in customer service and a CRM software is what allows us to stay on top of our projects and keep our clients updates about their status of the project. being consistent and delver in time is key to building good reputation
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shadesbydesign.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shadesbydesign/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShadesByDesign/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shadesbydesign
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shadesbydesign
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Shadesbydesign
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/shades-by-design-miami-2