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The Australia Young Entrepreneur Awards celebrate the success of business founders under the age of 40 who have built thriving companies, delivered innovation and taken ideas to great heights.
Fitting that bill are One Power founder James Strathdee and Technical Director Sean Barry, who were jointly named Gold Coast Young Entrepreneurs for the Retail and Services late last year.
The One Power leadership duo was also named in the Top 100 Australian Young Entrepreneurs of 2019, at number 37.
“Being measured on both our financial performance and our standard of professional service, the award confirms that we’re on the right track,” James said.
Sean agrees: “Every day we take a lot of pride in serving our customers to a high standard and any official recognition just motivates us further to keep that up.”
A high standard of customer service has long been a linchpin in the ethos for One Power, which employs more than 50 staff across its administration, call centre, sales and installation departments.
“The award is a reflection of our team and the level of service and care they provide through every stage of the customer’s journey with us,” Sean explains.
“It’s that promise and follow through which see more customers choose to do business with us.”
Growth has been another key theme for One Power over the past two years, with new warehouses and office spaces secured to accommodate a growing team and drive expansion into new markets.
Leading up to the business awards last September, One Power doubled its team and turnover, as well as securing new warehouses in Sydney, Burleigh Heads, Yatala and Wollongong to complement existing sites in Newcastle and on the Gold Coast.
That expansion plan continues to play out in 2020 with the opening of One Power’s largest warehouse site and office space in western Sydney, marking the solar provider’s first major drive into a metro area.
“The areas we have been working in, such as Newcastle, South East Queensland, Wollongong and Coffs Harbour, all have smaller populations,” said James.
“The Sydney site provides us with high growth potential — there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to double and triple what we’ve been doing in Sydney alone.”
Sean is excited by the potential: “We’re pretty excited to get our teeth stuck into Sydney with some of the highest power prices in the country and generally a low standard when it comes to solar services.”
The debut Sydney team includes four sales representatives and One Power’s first in-house Sydney-based installation crew — the long-term plan is to build those teams as One Power gains a foothold in the western Sydney market.
Sean said One Power hopes to create strong opportunities for people who share the company’s values around service, standards and support.
“We’re bringing on new staff which creates opportunities for people who are looking to work in the renewable energy space,” he said.
“We love training staff to a high standard and providing an opportunity to work within a high-quality company and build the value we bring to our brand through our customers.
“We’ve done that already with around 50 men and women and we look forward to training more staff for a very long time to come.”
