One of the most celebrated American Poet, Robert Frost wrote in his poem “The Road Not Taken”,
“… Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference…”
Here’s the story of one such leading business personality who chose the path less travelled and filled the world of business with innovations full of creativity. This creative corporate leader is Sanjay Soni, Chief Knowledge Director at Incredible Design, a leading innovative solution provider specialized in delivering total solutions for Exhibit Design, Convention and Event Management, Retail Communication and Brand Architecture.
In spite of having more than a hundred options, Sanjay chose a career specializing in exhibit and convention space design. Traveling on this path is not an easy feat; it rather offers countless number of challenges. But Sanjay is not just exploring the path, he is creating milestones one after other. People approach him with their dreams, and what Sanjay and his firm do is: Translate each of these dreams into a tangible form-function combination within a set deadline. Though it sounds exciting, every amazing piece of art needs enormous effort and a highly effective creative mind.
Under the expert leadership of Sanjay, this innovative company has successfully contributed in multiple events including Exhibition of Gandhi at UN headquarters, offering virtual tours of tourism destinations, immersive reality experience at various trade shows, and Marketing and PR Management for Madhya Pradesh Tourism across the globe since 2014 among many others. He has even led the team to build the first ever mobile application for a trade show with inbuilt artificial intelligence engine for image recognition.
About the Journey which Turned a Shy and Introvert Man into a Leading Entrepreneur
The journey began in the days when Sanjay was busy learning the hooks-n-crooks of architecture. He was a shy and introverted person who was often troubled with his stammering problem. Though he was doing well in his academics, nothing seemed to go in his favor. But he followed the famous words by the American business pioneer Henry Ford, “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
While working on a project in Russia as a part of his internship, he had to address a counter technical team and that is when he was forced to lose the stammer and at the same time his thoughts found words to explain. It was when he entered into the real world of exhibition and convention space design. Soon after that, he joined bricks and mortar with creativity and innovation to build up his business in an organic fashion, choosing quality over turnover, reputation over size and client satisfaction over volumes. This journey led his company to win over people’s hearts and explore several verticals spanning an array of services including marketing, communications, PR and technology solutions for client engagement.
Entrepreneurs’ Secret Sauce for a Better Tomorrow
Sanjay speaks about his motivational factors and says, “I constantly challenge myself to stay motivated. Every year I choose to add a new element to my portfolio of works. I pick something that lies beyond my comfort zone.” This is what makes him a leader. Building a creative enterprise is not easy, and Sanjay not only leads that entity but also picks up extraordinary projects and offers Augmented Reality experiences for clients and incorporates AI into publishing.
What makes anything look beautiful? The beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and inspiration comes from one’s mindset. Sanjay talks about his sources of inspiration and says, “My inspiration comes from innovators around me. They are the ones who defy the norms of our living in mediocrity and surge towards excellence. They show us the strength of the unseen.” He talked about the way Steve Jobs changed the way people used to see and use computers. He further adds, “Identifying the impossible and setting out to achieve the same is what is most inspirational. I believe anything is possible, we just need to THINK.”
The most inspirational thing Sanjay said during the interview was a piece of advice that his father once gave him, “You learn more from your failures than your successes.”
A Creative Company Creating Incredible Benchmarks in the Industry
With a passion for creative expression in the form of art, architecture, writing or speech, Sanjay ensures that he is in touch with all the latest developments happening in the creative sphere and derives his inspiration from out-of-the-box thinkers and creators. With an aim to create an environment for creative expression as envisaged by him, Sanjay created Incredible Design, a “Thinking Studio” where “Innovation” is the way of life.
What makes Incredible Design a unique organization is that the company not only provides a service, rather it provides a partnership in making their dreams into a reality. It works in the field of technology enabled solutions for Trade shows and Conferences with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Product Design. It offers destination marketing services all across the globe inclusive of content management system both the main-line and Trade publications, Communication design, PR management, Trade Show design and production, Event Design, B2B meetings management, Social Media Management, Technology solutions like on-stand displays to targeted mobile apps.
Sanjay is guiding the team of innovators at Incredible Design to design events for a major upcoming event, ITB Berlin, where it plans to offer information about the Indian Tourism participants. The interesting part of their participation is that the fair will have an inbuilt image recognition engine to scan various signs and symbols displayed at the pavilion for the visitors to learn more about the theme on the stand and thus destination.
One’s Goals Defines his Destiny
With a goal of converging all elements like design, marketing, technology, digital space, PR in a sustainable and scalable business model, Sanjay is paving the path towards success. And, his advice to the budding entrepreneurs is, “As budding entrepreneur what you need to do is to have a strongest belief in yourself and be prepared to handle both failure and success with equanimity.”
