W. Brett Wilson
Three Season Star of CBC TV's “Dragons' Den”, Celebrated Entrepreneur & Philanthropist
Brett does it all—he loves what he does and he does it with total conviction and passion. He shares with you his insights on prioritizing success. Brett’s the real deal—a true Canadian leader with an inspirational message.
With a penchant for investing in people rather than projects, W. Brett Wilson is proof that it’s possible to succeed in business without losing your principles. His stories about success, loss, and finding balance leave his audiences inspired to achieve even the loftiest of goals.
Brett is the co-founder of FirstEnergy Capital (one of the industry’s leading investment banks), and has holdings in real estate, agriculture, sports, and entertainment. A popular television personality, he spent three years on the hit CBC TV show, Dragons’ Den, where he established himself as the lead deal-making “dragon”; most recently, he acted as host of Risky Business.
A noted philanthropist, Brett has sought to inspire, engage, and lead the business community into seeing corporate social responsibility as an opportunity. To this end, he has organized dozens of events and raised tens of millions of dollars for Canadian charities. He is also the founder of the W. Brett Wilson Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Saskatchewan.
Brett has received wide recognition for his business and philanthropic leadership. He has been recognized as “Alberta’s Business Person of the Year,” as “Calgary’s Person of the Year,” and as a Nation Builder by The Canadian Youth Business Foundation. In 2010, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Royal Roads University.
He is a member of the Order of Canada and has received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit.
Redefining Success: Still Making Mistakes, was published in November 2012.
Books by W. Brett Wilson
Videos featuring W. Brett Wilson View All
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Retaining Your Customers
W. Brett WilsonA lot of people under estimate the value of “Customer Retention”, as I call it. As so that really comes down to making sure that your brand is always in their mind.
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What is #GoodBusy?
W. Brett WilsonFor me the whole campaign and the concept of good busy is about being smart busy. A lot of us in our lives are always dealing with the urgent, but it’s not always important and so it’s a matter of prioritizing and getting to work in a way that I call smart busy or good busy.
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Handling Business and Stress
W. Brett WilsonA lot of people worry about things that they can’t control I always somewhat smilingly say if you can’t control – control it - why are you worrying about it? On the flip side is if it’s something you can control once again why worry about it? Just get it into action and do som...
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Taking Action on Business Plans
W. Brett WilsonYou know there’s often power in action and so it’s one thing to plan and it’s one thing to write out these detailed business plans - it’s another to talk, it’s another to do research, another to do homework.
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Maintaining a Competitive Advantage
W. Brett WilsonOften in small business people underestimate the importance of understanding your competition because your clients always have choices, your customers always have choices. If you don’t know what those choices are your customers will find them for you.
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Managing Your Cash Flow
W. Brett WilsonIn the context of managing cash flow obviously when you’re writing cheques things are clearing the bank on a daily basis you’re having to track your cheques, you’re having to track your cheque ledger and you having to track all your expenses and so it’s bit complicated.
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Growing Your Business
W. Brett WilsonOne of the biggest challenges we have in running businesses is thinking about tomorrow because today is where the fires are, but again if you stop and start your day with a planning session you can include taking some time to look at the day ahead, and the week ahead and frankly, the month ahead.
Have you seen W. Brett Wilson speak? What did you think?