Flow & Grow Expert Interview of David Parrish by Tom Bailey

David was the guest in a Flow & Grow Expert Interview with Tom Bailey.

The subject of David’s interview was “How to Design a Business for Your Version of Success”.

Tom Bailey’s interview format is 7 questions in 7 minutes.

You can watch Tom’s Flow & Grow Expert Interview with David on YouTube or as an Apple podcast.
Also the full interview is below:


Flow & Grow Expert Interview with Tom Bailey


David Parrish works worldwide as a business coach, keynote speaker, trainer and author. He specialises in helping creative entrepreneurs to achieve even greater success, in harmony with their values and objectives.

Why you’ve got to check out David’s episode on the Flow & Grow Expert Interview with Tom Bailey:

– Find out how David helps businesses in the creative industries i.e. designers, architects, people in music and publishing. And how he helps them grow and achieve success

– Discover how to become successful in the right way. This means not just financially successful but how you can get the right kind of success for your passions and your lifestyle.

– Learn what David means by the ‘wrong kind of success’ and what to do if you become an accidental CEO of your business, feel trapped and unable to do what you love while growing your business.

– Understand how to re-design your creative business and how to set yourself on the right track for success.

– Finally, gain access to a free copy of David’s guidebook called T-Shirts and Suits


Transcript

So, the title for today’s episode is How To Design A Business For Your Version Of Success, and David is going to show you how to do that in just under seven minutes.

Tom Bailey: David, the first question for you today really is who are your ideal clients?

David Parrish: Well, my ideal clients are those businesses in what we call the creative industries. And so that means, you know, typically web designers, creative agencies, photographers, people working in video and film, even architects, sometimes people in music publishing. So, all those businesses that are somehow fundamentally artistic, but nevertheless are still businesses. And I’m looking particularly for those businesses that are keen to grow and achieve even greater success.

Tom Bailey: And it’s really useful, having that niche as you get to know the business, the challenges. So, what’s the typical biggest challenge that these businesses will face from your perspective?

David Parrish: I think the real challenge is how to become successful, but in the right way, in other words, to achieve success, not only financially, which of course they want to do, but also creatively so that they can choose the coolest creative projects that give them that satisfaction. And thirdly, in terms of lifestyle. So, I think it’s really about getting the right kinds of success. And that means that they need to carefully design their business, you know, with a formula instead of just, you know, letting it develop organically and ending up in the wrong place.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. And just because you mentioned that at the end there, letting it develop organically, if that does happen, what’s the typical impact that that will have on their business.

David Parrish: Well, in the worst cases, people end up in what I call having the wrong kind of success, which sounds a bit daft, but I’ve come across many examples where people say we’ve grown the business. We now have, you know, 25 employees and turnover of millions of pounds, top class clients. But I’m not really happy because I don’t do the creative work anymore. I’m just managing other people. And I am trapped within my own business. And because I can’t take a holiday and it’s putting pressure on my family life. So, in my view, that’s a failure to design the business. And ironically, a lot of designers are guilty of that. They do fantastic design work for their clients, but the one thing they haven’t designed is the business that will give them commercial, creative and lifestyle success. So, I think that’s the worst thing. And that happens because people don’t look ahead, they just get busy and employing more people and get a bigger office and grow in a sort of willy nilly way without stopping to think.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I guess we’ve got this new CEO who used to be creative. What, what’s one valuable piece of advice that you’d give to somebody that’s got to that position that’ll really help them solve that problem so they can get that creative spark back.

David Parrish: Well, of course, when people get to that position, we need to do a repair job and I talk then about redesigning your creative business, but I try to get people on the right track earlier on ideally, rather than doing remedial work. It’s about helping people at an earlier stage. And therefore, my advice is that you should be super clear about what you mean by success. So, I asked people at the beginning, do, what do you want to be successful? And they say, yes, of course, what a stupid question. But when I asked them exactly what success means to them, it’s different for everybody because it’s a different combination of the kind of what they want to do, whether they want to grow, work in teams or alone you know, lifestyle issues.