His success caught the eye of TLC Marketing Worldwide (not to be confused with New Zealand-based company TLC Marketing) which called him last year and offered to buy his business.
The options were sell or compete - a choice which was not hard to make, Mr Waters said.
"It came out of the blue, I had no idea that call was coming but up until then I had reached a stage where to get bigger we needed to invest, we probably needed offices in Auckland, we certainly needed more sales staff out there."
Mr Waters still works out of his Bellevue home office on Mondays and Fridays but spends three days a week in Auckland where most of his clients are located.
He would probably have to open an office in Auckland soon, he said.
Mr Waters' expertise is in consumer promotions. The model he uses was almost unknown in New Zealand when he moved here, he said.
"A lot of consumer promotions are based on the in-to-win model," he said.
"It's 'buy this for a chance to win this great prize' which is great ... but there's a certain tiredness about it, there's a feeling by consumers that actually they've got no chance of winning it."
"So what we are offering is a 'buy this and get that' model."
A promotion he ran for Ribena several years ago was a perfect example of how the model works, he said.
Mr Waters created a network of children's venues around New Zealand willing to offer a child free entry if accompanied by an adult.
He then created a card giving the holder "kids go free" rights at more than 70 locations for six months and offered the card free to anyone who bought a bottle of Ribena.
"We've got Ribena who are winning because they've got this really straight forward targeted campaign which reconnects with mums. You've got the venues around New Zealand who are really suffering with internal tourism who are getting a free marketing campaign, and you've got the customers who are getting something for nothing."
