In the past year, Arlene Dickinson has burst into prominence as one of Canada’s most celebrated woman entrepreneurs.

But it hasn’t always been roses and champagne for the ambitious president and sole owner of Venture Communications, who has been recognized in the past year as Calgary’s Small Business Owner of the Year, a member Profit magazine’s list of Top 100 woman business owners in Canada and Global TV’s Woman of Vision.

Dickinson’s initial foray into business, as owner of a collection agency run from her kitchen table while raising four children, didn’t garner any awards.

Yet, the 45-year-old Calgarian eagerly discusses her humble start in the business world, chalking it up as a valuable education on the road to becoming a mainstay on the Canadian marketing and communications scene.

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
Venture Communications president Arlene Dickinson knows the value of an open mind – her Alberta-based marketing company believes it leads to better solutions. She’s come a long way from her former kitchen-table job as a bill collector, and is growing her firm into a major national player on the communications scene.

1. Who has had the greatest influence on your life?

“My father (the late Calgary entrepreneur Mervine Massey-Hicks). I think the biggest lesson he taught me was to be responsible for myself. I think the values he taught were about accountability and integrity and a lust for life. He was a person who taught me to be thankful for every day and spend my time being a part of that day instead of worrying about what could be. He instilled a lot of confidence in me. He was a huge mentor. He taught me the value of knowing who you are, caring about what you’re building and caring about
giving back to the people around you and your family.

"He was a very strong individual and also taught me about contributing to the community.”

2. What do you remember about your first business venture?

“It was a little collection agency (Profession Collection Agency) I ran from home. I hated it. I recall thinking there had to be a better way to make a living than trying to get people who couldn’t afford to pay their bills to pay them. I didn’t enjoy talking to people who were in
financial difficulty.”

3. What did that experience teach you?

(Laughing) “It taught me a lot about getting your receivables in line.”

4. What initially appealed to you about the marketing
communications industry?

“I think in communications, whether it’s technology or any of the things going in the world, at the end of the day what appeals to me is direct contact and direct communications with individuals. I just love communications. I love advertising. It’s a passion.”

5. What trait has had the most to do with your success with Venture Communications?

David Lazarowych photo, Business Edge
Arlene Dickinson worked to give Venture Communications a national profile.

“I think it has been about really having a genuine interest in how our clients’ businesses are doing. If you don’t generally want to do good work and care about the results of what you’re doing, you’re not going to be as successful. I think we filled a market need of smart marketers that were aligned with the business needs of our clients.”

6. What are the biggest obstacles you’ve had to overcome?

“First, it was getting the financing and securing the financial partners to help us through the growth that we’ve experienced. The second was making that shift from entrepreneur to business (person) and having to let go of a lot of the things I did to get the company going and then letting other people do them.”

7. Have you been able to balance your personal and business life while building Venture?

“Yes, I have. I remarried about two years ago. My husband (Scott Richards) is very supportive and my kids are very supportive. My family has helped me a ton. I travel a ton. I don’t think you could do that if you didn’t have a family that was really supportive. I think my family made more sacrifices than I did.”

8. How would you describe your management style?

“I think I’m very decisive. I believe I have strong direction, but I’m also very inclusionary with major
decisions. My style is to get input from a variety of sources. Because it is still a very entrepreneurial business, you have to act and then make sure everyone knows why you’ve acted. The most important lesson I’ve learned is to trust my instincts. When I haven’t done that, I’ve usually regretted it.”

9. If I’m applying for a job with Venture, what do you want to see on my resume?

“I’m going to look for values. I’m looking for somebody who has a generalist background and hasn’t done just one thing, someone who has a passion in an area which has exposed the person to a variety of areas. And I’m going to look for passion and integrity. And I’d like to see on your resume that you were keenly interested in the world, in pop culture and what’s going on around us. I’m going to look for a career path that is a little bit out of the ordinary. I don’t care if you’re a scientist or an artist. I’m not going to look for an industry skill set as much as I’d look for a thinking skill set.”

10. What’s the best advice you can offer a young woman entrepreneur?

“It’s a really tough question because I tend to want to say that you should not think of yourself as a woman, but you should think of yourself as an entrepreneur. And if you encounter barriers that you feel are unfair barriers that are there because you are a woman, then you should work hard at breaking those barriers down. But I think it’s too easy for women to say: ‘Well, I didn’t get there because I’m a woman.’ ”

11. How much of an impact do you expect the Internet to have on marketing and communications?

“I think it’s going to be a refined tool. I think it’s going to be repurposed, to more of an information tool and to more of another way of communicating directly with other clients. But it doesn’t replace the other mediums and other methods of advertising that are out there. I think it’s another really strong tool in the arsenal.”

12. Is the Internet overrated?

“I think it’s wrongly applied. People are using it as an exchange for other communications. They expect people to be entertained on the web and they expect people to spend a great amount of time and energy going through their website. Really, all people want is to find information. I think a change from these glitzy, flashy sites to more informative sites that are easier to navigate is the future of the Internet. So I think it’s overrated in its ability to replace other mediums.”

13. Can you talk about your company’s approach to
marketing?

“When we go out in the world and talk about ourselves, we have a saying: ‘Open minds open better solutions.’ This is a concept that says we’re a little bit agnostic about what the solution can be when it comes to communication. I think that approach and that whole idea that integration isn’t just a word but a way of doing business. That has been our best marketing tool.”

14. What’s your vision for Venture five to 10 years down the road?

“Five years from now, I’d like to be able to say that we pioneered the new way of doing business for marketing communications firms, that we have created what synchronized marketing is all about, which means that you don’t just do advertising, you just don’t do online, you just don’t do PR (public relations), but you bring to your clients the specific tools under the banner of generalist planning and you allow them to find the right tool for what they require. I think, five years from now, we’re going to continue to look for new ways to provide strategic solutions that are creatively designed for our clients and we’re going to be a national independent player doing that.”

15. Will you continue to focus primarily on the Canadian
market?

“We do have some work in the U.S., but we want to be a really significant player in Canada. We’re going to know Canada better than anybody. We’re going to be free to do what we need to do and we’re going to organize
ourselves the way our clients need us to organize ourselves, as opposed to what multinationals (companies) have to do – which is to organize according to what their shareholders want.”

16. How important is money to you?

“It’s not my driver. Success is more important to me. I think money comes out of success. Building something that is successful in terms of what it’s building is far more important.”

17. What does your involvement and your company’s involvement with Kids Help Phone mean to you personally?

“As a mother of four and grandmother of one, I think it’s a hugely important service to the community. I think kids are looking and searching for answers nowadays that aren’t always readily available. This is a place they can phone anonymously and get the help they need. I just can’t say enough about the good they do.”

18. God taps you on the shoulder and says you can change one thing in your life?

“You know what? I don’t think I’d change a thing. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I think I’ve learned a lot from those mistakes.”

19. What do you want to learn about in the future?

“People. I’m interested in the dynamics of people, how they interact, the psychology of people. I’m tending to become a little more political as I get older than I used to be. It’s not because I’m interested in politics, but I’m interested in the mechanics of politics as it relates to people.”

20. What’s your greatest ambition beyond business?

“It’s to be a successful parent and then a successful business person. It’s very difficult to be good at both.”

IN PROFILE: Arlene Dickinson
* Title: President/sole owner, Venture Communications.
* Born/raised/age: Germiston, South Africa; Edmonton, Calgary; 45.
* Family: Husband Scott Richards, children Garett, Michael, Carley and Marayna.
* Education: Grade 12, Sir Winston Churchill High School in Calgary.
* Career: Dickinson became the fifth partner in Venture Communications in 1988 and eventually bought out her partners, becoming the sole owner in 1998. She has spent 20 years in marketing communications and has also owned a collections agency business.
* Accolades: Named Calgary’s Small Business Owner of the Year in 2001, one of Profit magazine's Top 100 women business owners (No. 24) and Global TV’s Woman of Vision. She was also a finalist for Ernst & Young's Prairie Entrepreneur of the Year.
* Motto: “Open minds open better solutions.”
* Community Service: Dickinson is a member of the national board for Kids Help Phone.

THE COMPANY: Venture Communications
* Brass: Arlene Dickinson, president/sole owner; Barbara Miller-Hodges, chief financial officer.
* Profile: Founded in 1984, Venture is a national full-service marketing communications company specializing in strategic planning and creative services. The company has 60 employees and is based in Calgary with offices in Edmonton, Ottawa and London, Ont.
* Key clients: Subway Sandwiches, Unilever, Toyota Prairie Dealers, Alberta Milk, DeVry Institute of Technology (Calgary).
* Projected 2003 Revenue: $19-million range.
* Honours: Venture made the list of Canada’s 50 best-managed companies in 2001.
* Website: www.venturecommunications.ca
* Headquarters: 720 11th Ave. S.W., Calgary, AB, T2R 0E3. Edmonton office: 18520 Stony Plain Rd., Edmonton, AB T5S 1A8.
* Phone/Fax: 403-237-2388 (1-800-665-4927); 403-265-4659.