Shayan Dehdasti has always been interested in the world of marketing. His training and studies in the world of marketing only strengthened his love for the field. After graduating, he threw himself full force into the marketing business and has never turned back from there.

“I graduated from University in Psychology and did my thesis on consumer marketing. I’ve always been intrigued about how we connect and associate ourselves with brands, and inversely how brands use AD campaigns to communicate with their target audience. It requires research, a lot of data, and most importantly a creative mind. 

After graduation, I kicked off my marketing career working for one of the fastest growing companies in Toronto, where I currently reside. I got the opportunity to learn a lot about brand development, sales, and managing a regional team. After a few years, I felt unchallenged – I was young and ambitious and wanted to find myself. I took the next couple years to get as involved as possible in a variety of industries that I was passionate about and that’s when I decided to go solo. I felt the best way for me to make a difference was to start something of my own. So I did the freelance gig for a year and now I run a full service boutique digital agency. We work with clients within a variety of industries like fitness, retail, food & entertainment, medical aesthetics, and real estate development,” Shayan explains.

When Shayan decided to begin his own venture, with his marketing company known as SD Marketing, it was not easy. He faced many of the challenges that others face when beginning their step into the business world. Despite this, he was able to overcome these challenges with hard work and determination to make his business succeed.

“There is so much to do and such little time to do it in. As an entrepreneur, I would say that some of the challenges I faced and still do consist of time management, marketing strategy (yes, even a marketing agency needs a marketing strategy), hiring employees, delegating tasks, strapped budget. You have to be a visionary and with that comes a lot of responsibility including strict habits from early-days and late nights. It’s a lonely path being an entrepreneur and you have to deal with the unknown. For example, How long will your business exist? How profitable will your business be? Will customers like your product? Will you be able to give yourself a steady paycheck? If you can work your way past these major obstacles, you’ll be well on your way to establishing yourself as an entrepreneur,” Shayan states.

Shayan has created a different kind of marketing business since getting over the original speed bumps in the road. With Covid-19, his business has become even more important as everything moves to the world of digital marketing.

“We are different because we are full service. We are boutique. We are bold! Think of us as your in-house digital partner. We will take care of your entire plan from the initial strategy phase to budgeting to creative and implementation,” Shayan says.

Despite the harm of the pandemic to many parts of the economy, Shayan is continuing his hard work. He has many great projects coming up in 2021 that he and his company are very excited about.

“Although things are abnormal due to this pandemic, we are fortunate to be working on several great projects. We just became a marketing partner for an activewear brand – where we will be working on content creation, social media management, building influencer campaigns and creating AD campaigns to generate sales for their e-commerce platform. We are also getting involved in a few real estate development projects as an exclusive marketing partner which I am excited about,” Shayan exclaims.

With the future holding much for Shayan and his team, you can keep up with them by following them on instagram here and checking out their website here.