EntreLeadership - Ready to Take Your Small Business to the Next Level? with Russ Perry

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Eight years ago, Russ Perry, CEO of Design Pickle, would have described himself as moderately successful—and extraordinarily unhappy. On paper, things looked good: Russ had founded two creative agencies in his early 20s and was the man in charge. But his marriage and his mental health were headed toward a breakdown as he struggled to handle the stress of work. In this honest conversation, Russ describes learning from his mistakes, starting over and building a business (and a life) he’s proud of.   entreleadership.com/podcast Russ Perry's website Design Pickle's website The Power of the Other by Dr. Henry Cloud Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lappin Under the Lid newsletter from Russ 6 Financial Reports That Can Save Your Company EntreLeadership Toolkit - Top tools to help your business can grow and thrive Schedule a call with Tim, the Producer   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're like most business owners, when you got started in business, probably wasn't easy. You knew you needed to scale. You started to grow. And with that came growing pains. I mean, it's a pretty normal thing. You want to get more clients. You want to sell more products. At some point, you probably asked yourself, should we try to do new things to get more clients?

Should we become all things to all people? Or should we focus on a niche? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty. And my guest today is Russ Perry. Russ is a lot of fun. You guys are going to love them. He's the founder and CEO of a company called Design Pickle. And, well, they're not really an agency. They're kind of the anti-agency, and we'll talk about that. But basically, you can work with Design Pickle and get access to a professional designer for a flat monthly rate. It's a whole new model in the space,

and he's blazing a trail because he really cares about doing it right and helping business owners win like us. So that's when we had him on. He's also a business owner. He's a fellow entrepreneur. He's an entree leadership success story. He's a real guy in the trenches. And on his journey, he faced the same question that many businesses face, which is, how do I scale? And what he discovered is that his business needed a niche.

But it didn't start out that way. He only got to this conclusion because he had several years that were really miserable. working and running a design agency. I had two creative agencies before coming up with Design Pickle, and let's just say that life was challenging inside of that. I mean, I was a young college kid working in a couple corporate gigs and thought, you know, what would be really smart with zero business classes, zero experience in business is to start my own business.

And so I was a creative at heart and went down that path. for about eight and a half years and pretty much made every mistake you could humanly make, both professionally, personally. And at the end of the day, found myself really at a juncture in my life where I was moderately successful, but extraordinarily unhappy and unhealthy. And had to really come to an awakening inside my own life was, do I want to be continuing, the stubborn entrepreneur. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going. Or do I take a different path and close down, you know, was all of my professional life, really,

because I started my first agency when I was 22 right after college. So yeah, it was tough. And I can't, to anyone who is running an agency, I feel you. I have been there. But from that was the ashes of my career. Like I said, I took those lessons and decided, you know what, I'm going to put. a different framework around what I want to do next. And that's been my journey the last six years. What happened that got you to wake up? Did you hit a wall? Or was it kind of just a chronic tailspin? So it started, I think, with this identity crisis that I had, starting a business at such a young age, the entrepreneur brand became my brand. I would be at events. I would be with friends. and most of these folks were in corporate America getting the jobs that they were going to get.

And I was this cool entrepreneur. I had my own time. I had my own office. I had a Nintendo Wii in our office that was really cool at the time. I'm in charge here and we have a Nintendo. Oh, that's fun. But I started to adopt that as the primary identity for myself. And their hindsight, you know, 2020, obviously, but there were a couple of influences that really came all to a head.

The first was that my business was just not a good business. I just didn't have business financial acumen. I wasn't comfortable with conflict. So managing people was a huge challenge. And so, A, I'm a poor business skilled kind of guy. And then there's a history of alcoholism in my family. and that was rearing its ugly head as I became an adult, you know, drinking and, and, and that was a social activity. I went to a state school, Arizona State University, so there was that vibe. But as you

had real life in, and I got married and I had kids, there was an unchecked balance inside of that. And so I really started to have a problem with alcohol as it pertained to stress management. And anyone who's been in that boat knows that it's like the worst way to manage stress. But that was, again, just lack of resources, lack of honesty, lack of support in my mind. And finally, at the end of the day, for me, my marriage became really stressed out during this time. I made some really poor choices inside of, you know, my own priorities. And the decision to just change it all was business. is not first. It's my life. It's my family. It's my health. It's my connection with them. And I knew that if I wanted to

truly achieve in those personal areas, that I would have to let go of this, this identity that I carried with me for so long, start fresh and focus on that, which I did for almost two years after I closed my agencies before I even thought about what my next business venture would be. It's funny how common it is, you know, especially in entrepreneurship. This story, like young 20s, wanted to be independent, set out to do something. Many times, you know, it's like we're chasing something. And then we've still got these insecurities and parts of our business are not working. And so we're compensating and there's stress and things like alcohol becomes an addiction. And like it's just, it's funny how kind of normal that is. And then you like wake up one day. Yeah. And I found it's this paradox because part of my awakening was quitting drinking. So I've been sober now seven years. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. But I found like so many people have the same problem. But it wasn't until I kind of made that leap and was willing to talk about it and share it. That it was like, oh yeah, I struggle with that. Oh, yeah, I struggle with that. Oh, yeah, I struggled with that. Oh, yeah, I struggled with that. And I was like, where were you? the last eight years. Like I wish I could have had these conversations. But I think the timing for us to change, there's always a reason why it happens at the time it does. But in the hindsight, you're exactly

right. There's so many people I've talked to since. I've actually wrote a book about my journey. And the connections that people have with my story, even though it's very plain, you know, There wasn't some horrible, like, you know, falling out moment. It was very gradual. There was a lot of bumps along the road. There were some definitely dark points. But as I've shared it, there's been almost people saying, you wrote my story. Like, this was my story.

And I think the willingness to admit it and to admit those struggles and admit those challenges, is it's not as celebrated as the big business successes, as the big wins, as the mergers, as the sales, as the profits, as the dollars. So people don't think it's important. Well, there's no big public trophy or milestone that as a society we point to and we say, that's an accolade. You know, it's more behind the scenes. It's more personal in some ways.

Yeah. Yeah. But since then, it's been my superpower is being able to be radically honest, almost making folks uncomfortable sometimes about my past, that has allowed me to then ratchet up those professional deficiencies that I carried with me. Leadership, strategy, vision, all of that has been built upon what I worked on personally. You know, you talked about this moment when you woke up and you put family first and, you know, social. It sounds like you're working to just become a more balanced person and the business was not all consuming. I think we all kind of

give a nod to those ambitions. I mean, everyone, I haven't met somebody that says, no, family's dead last, man, I don't care at all about family. Like, no one intentionally puts their family last. So practically, what did it look like to shift to actually prioritize family and the other parts of your life that weren't just, you know, sacrificing on the altar of the business? So two parts. One was philosophical and one was very, very practical. The philosophical part was not directly tied to my journey with alcohol, but it's very correlated if anyone's been down that journey, was recognizing I was an addict, not with alcohol, but with my business. And I argue that all entrepreneurs have to be addicted to their business at some point for it to succeed. The odds are against you. You have this crazy idea. People may not support you.

You're leaving comfort to go into this unknown world. It's like you have to be a little delusional. Exactly. Exactly. And I argue that there is a healthy level of that that drives us that we really need to get there. So being okay with that, but knowing that the byproduct of my success has to be built on that foundation. So not like fighting it or thinking that I have my work life and my business life and I'm going to work really hard so that I could have this great life and connection and all of that personally.

That philosophical acceptance was a big weight lifted off of my shoulders, both as an entrepreneur and as someone who struggled with substance. And the second part, and I know you get really high level advice here on the Entry Leadership podcast, was I worked with a business coach. And I never had worked with a business coach before. And I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, like, this, this is silly. But they made me write down what I wanted, irrespective of business success. And that was a game-changing moment. Like, what do you want with your family? Where do you want to live? What's the lifestyle you want to have? Putting all of that as my first goals and my first targets first versus where we as entrepreneurs are always like, I mean,

it's the new years. We're recording this. Like, what are our goals? What are our targets? Where do we want to be? So they made me do the personal values and goal setting and vision work first. And then from there, I did the rest of it. But like, hiring the coach and him making me do that, it's so simple, but I had never done that before. And it was radically changing. I've seen it happen thousands of times because, you know, we have a coaching program. And it's the reason that we have that. And it's largely based on our friend Henry Cloud, who's psychologist and author and speaker. He has a great book called The Power of the Other. And the whole dynamic there is that it takes another person to get you to kind of get out of yourself and actually do some of this personal work.

It takes another person to hold you accountable on the hard things. Like, we just can't hold ourselves accountable. Like, it's just impossible. We can't see into our own blind spots. As much as we want to say that we're self-aware, it takes another person. And a coach is, you know, if they're a good one. I mean, they're really good at getting you to kind of get that stuff out. Put up the mirror.

They just put up the mirror. That's it. What do you see? What's your obstacle today, Russ? No, you're supposed to tell me the solution. I don't want to talk about like, But then of course, we see that mirror. And then the change is more permanent when we are generating it.

But I love that. And I vividly remember I hired this business coach. I met her in Arizona. Actually, I accidentally went to a women's business event. I didn't know it was an all women's business event. And I showed up. I was the only guy next to the husband of the event. But I was like, whatever, I'll go with it.

And I loved it. And we were like hugging and singing and doing all this stuff. together. But in that point, I hired a business coach I met there. And I'm like, great, I'm hiring a business coach. We're going to talk about all these business things. We spent six months talking about personal and family and balance. And it was just fantastic. It sounds like through that process, you crafted a strong sense of purpose that was bigger than just the bottom line. We teach in Entry leadership. Your purpose should be bigger than just making a profit. It should make a contribution. and it works really well when it aligns with your personal values.

But a lot of business owners never sit down and figure out what they actually value and what they want personally. And so it's hard to have mission and purpose come alive in your business if you haven't done that stuff at the personal level. And I would say the leap from my agency to what we do now today at Design Pickle was really to fulfill the lack of integrity and purpose that I had in my previous career. And I'll share this example. You know, creativity and design is an unregulated market. There's no pricing. There's no dynamic where you can go look up like a car what this costs. And if it's above this price, it's not a good deal.

If it's below this price, it's a great deal. It's not like pork futures. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's very subjective and artistic. Right. And so I used that to my advantage when I had an agency. We sold big expensive projects. I was a great salesperson.

And I did the opposite. I over promise underdelivered. And it wasn't ever in a deceitful like I'm going to try to get you for what it's worth. I truly believe this was the value of what we were doing. And so I stood firm in that. And when we couldn't deliver, we churned clients. It was problematic. My team was never happy.

They were always stressed. So I thought about how could I flip that value funnel to where. we under promise and over deliver and create an economy where there is known variables of price. There is known this structure in place where you can expect, I pay this, I get this. And that to me led into then the values and the purpose, which are our current vision statement, is to change lives through creativity. and I wanted to create an environment where both creatives and clients could come to design pickle. The creatives could have a career.

They could provide for them and their family and their life. And the clients could access our creatives in a way that was comfortable, consistent, and stable. And not ride this roller coaster of big agency fees, hourly billing. I'm delayed. I can't work on this. And the chaos that sometimes not all. always, because I know there's probably some creatives that listen to this, but that can sometimes come with finding and hiring creatives. I'd love to hear more just kind of at a utility or practical

level, like contrasting the agency world. I mean, for people who are not as familiar with agency world, it sounds like you're describing something that's kind of normal if you're from that world. Right. How is it different than what you guys are in the vision that you have a design pickle? Well, Daniel, let me give you a quick masterclass in the five ways to buy creativity. So this will help anyone. So there's really five ways that you can go and hire creatives. The first has been around forever and that's an employee. And I think that's what most people are familiar with.

Employee is fantastic. You get to hire them. There's all the benefits of someone that works for you, all the cost, all the process of hiring someone. That doesn't take explaining. Then, you know, sometime before the Madmin days, there was the agency. And we basically, the agencies came around and said, look, we're going to take all of that responsibility off of you to find and hire people. And we're just going to be a specialist in whatever it might be. So today there's digital agencies, there's Facebook agencies, there's design agencies, there's agencies for everything, video, whatever it might be. And the downside of agencies is you're then paying for all their overhead, all of the cost.

There's a lot of process. There's buildings and structures. So the fees are usually, if they're a decent agency, very high. And that's been, that was kind of what it was. The internet created freelancers. So now people can work from home. You can hire them wherever they need to be. And then finally in 2010s-ish, there was marketplaces, which some people may be familiar with, the fivers, the upwards.

They let me post a job and get a bunch of people. Kind of get bids. Yeah. Bit on it. And then our model is the fifth model. We call it the subscription workforce where it's kind of the Venn diagram of all the benefits of those things. But it is a new model. And there's lots of businesses now adopting this model where I hire someone, I hire Design Pickle, pay it like a software subscription.

I get that connection with my designer. But it's affordable. It's scalable. and it moves with my business. So if I have a lot of work one month, we can scale it up or down. And no solution is perfect. You know, no solution. You can't do everything with just one or the other.

But that's kind of the grand, you know, that's my, that's my educational lesson on how to buy creativity. No, I love it. You know, it's cool because it's like you're blazing a new trail. I mean, you said, hey, there's a better way. we're going to lead the charge on this for the industry. Business people are exhausted with some of these other options, especially, I'm a big fan of hiring if you can. If you have a long game and we have a whole creative suite internally, there's a lot

from a culture standpoint that we really value in having our people right here in house. But if you can't, or if you need a fragment of somebody's time, or you can't afford, you know, five specialists who are, you know, level three designers, you got to figure out how you rent before you buy at some level. And it looks like you guys are going, hey, the agency space is abusing businesses. They're not getting the best value to businesses. And this is something we're going to solve this problem. It's simply an evolution.

And I'm not allowed on social media. I'm not on it really much anymore anyway. But I also am not allowed. My team doesn't allow me to get on there because I get real fired up about what we do. And sometimes there's the haters. They like criticize, what are you doing? And yesterday I got an email from one of these guys. And I took the time to respond.

But what I made, I'm very, I'm very respectful. Who is the haters? Like other agencies or kind of the old guard in the creative space? So specifically this person said I'm devaluing the industry of creativity. Devaluing the industry. And then in the same sentence he says, one of your clients came to me to design a logo because you guys don't do branding high-end work, which we don't. And so my response was, sounds like you got business from us. first of all, that's kind of doesn't make sense.

But guess what? 20% of our clients are creatives or agencies. We fit the bill. We've had over a thousand companies work with us, leave on great terms, and grow their own businesses to hire their own full-time creative. So there is this model that we're fulfilling, just like you said, where it's the in-betweens. You know, maybe you can't get someone full-time, or maybe you have a team of 20, but you need a couple part-time folks for a busy season.

And that's that beauty. And I think what we'll find as businesses models mature is there's this like elasticity model that will emerge where it's like I need more, but I don't need it forever. Or I need, I'm just starting and I can't pay $10,000 retainer to that cool agency. But I could pay $1,000 a month and get this help in this way. So in blazing a new trail, creating a new model, I like the idea that you've got this niche and there's some novelty to it. I also imagine, as you've mentioned, there's adversaries, there's haters. But just in explaining it to like new clients who aren't familiar with the model,

it would have been some of the bigger challenges and describing this thing that hasn't existed before. I mean, you're having to birth a new baby and then tell everybody this is what it is and nobody's ever met it. What does that been like? It's actually one of the funniest parts that the biggest sales challenge that we have is that people don't believe it's true. We have a believability problem in sales. What we do is not complicated. I'm not selling some crazy bleeding edge technology of like a computer implant chip you put in your eyeball and you have to like, trust me, it's not going to make you blind. Like we offer a very common thing that most of our clients, the ones that we would like to have,

have bought before. It's the believability of our value proposition. You know, our pricing, it's, it's either $500 or $1,000 a month to get a part-time creative. It's no contract. It's, it works. Like you, you, there's no variability in pricing. And people are like, how do you do it?

I don't, I don't understand. So we're always working on building trust. And part of our brand, it's, it's, it's very simple. It's a smiling pickle. Like, it's, how do we? be friendly, which is one of our core values. How do we connect more than creative services? We have a full support team that can just help you out, like that if you just need to talk shop. And that building trust part is how we overcome the newness part that you mentioned, which again, you know,

I've listened to so much on tree leadership. That's not a new concept for, for listeners, if they're listening to this podcast, is, but it is something that I can't overstate the value of. And, and then we just let people try it out. Like, just, hey, just try it out. If it's not a good fit, we're not going to twist your arm and force you into indentured servitude. Like, you can come in, try it out. If it's not a good fit, then that's, that's okay.

So we don't take our selves too seriously and we don't try to sell it too hard because I think that comes off almost desperate and that's obviously not the best sales strategy. I have to imagine that there could be some, like when you're talking about the believability, there could be some skepticism in the pricing being lower. you know, we all have this thing like you get what you pay for or the fact that it is expensive probably means you can demand a lot, you know, okay, it's only $1,000 a month, but am I really going to get quality work? Am I really going to get the customer service, you know, that I need or the response time or being able to go back and forth on multiple iterations until we get it right? You probably

can't get that for this price. I mean, it seems like there be some skepticism if you're 10%, you know, or 10x lower than what they've been used to paying for that. Well, and so what we learn from a very tactical standpoint is we are moving 100% of our sales to conversational-based sales. So for many years, we had a self-service model. You just go to the website, you sign up. Currently, one of our plans, you can do that. But it removed all of that conversation and that expectation setting to say, look, we're not designed robots. We're not, it's not AI.

You send into 1,000 things and they're going to be done the next day. you're working with someone. This is their name. This is where they live. You get to meet them. And we actually tackle that in that consultative sales model. So come a few more months from now, 100% of any inbound inquiries to set up a conversation. We'll get on a Zoom like this.

We'll talk about it. And we'll really tell you what we're not. And we'll really make sure by the time you get into our software and you start working with your creative, you know exactly what the expect. are. And our customer success team is so stoked because because we've moved down this path and we're moving 100% down this path, they have eliminated so many issues on the back end of the sale where a client who might be a perfect fit for what we did came in with a little too high of what they expect it to be. And now that we're trying to unwind that. Well, that's diffused before they even

give us a card. I want to backtrack a second. I don't want to escape past. You're running the opposite direction of where everything else is headed in terms of sales being automated, being digital, AI, chatbots, blah, blah, blah. It's really ballsy to say we're going to go 100% conversation, human to human, no automation. I mean, that's not scalable, the critics would say, you know, that's not the age that we're in. people expect digital these days. You've got to have some really strong reasons for going this

direction. We do. And I think a lot of it just comes down to we're human and we're delivering a creative service that's human driven. So you and I, Daniel, we could have the same designer. We could have the same business. We can be competing, you know, same market, same design collateral, brochures, Facebook ads. And you come in and you have. a wonderful experience and I'll have a terrible experience. The variable is the client. It's not the creative. It's not the company. It's not the software. So we have to actually put up friction to ensure that we don't get the wrong kind of client. And I don't mean bad or mean or evil, although we've had a few of those and I've had to fire them pretty fast. I mean like,

what's your skill set? Are you willing to get on and write out what you want? Do you have the right kind of creative assets, like a logo and content that we can work with. So we put up that. Now, I will say we do have preliminary tech that we use. So we integrate with IBM Watson in our chat bot to filter out a lot of the people who may not be a good fit with various, you know, natural language. So supplemented. The core is a human to human interaction. Absolutely. The other thing I like about it, I have to imagine that some of what comes with that as a benefit is expectation management. I mean, you can pick up on the nuance or they may say a statement and you're like, oh, wait, hang on. They're thinking we're about to do something we're not going to do.

But verbally, I can coach them back into something that they're still very happy about, but now their expectations are aligned with what we're able to deliver on. Where you're trying to do that through a lead form or online transaction, it's almost impossible. Right, because the level of your trust going into our first month determines what. happens if something goes wrong. If your trust level is high in us because you and I have had a conversation, I've learned about your business, we've gotten a good match. If there's a small error on, say, a layout or a link was sent incorrectly, you're like, hey guys, fix it next time. Let's get back to work. If the level of trust is low, the second there's an error, I knew it. This was too good to be true. I'm out of here. So we try to build that trust on the front end as much

as we can and create this experience before you've even started to say, look, we're here. We have your back. We're ready to work for you and ready to support you. Well, business owners listening to this, you really need to not miss what's going on here. And what I hear in this is advocacy. You know, if you have an advocate, if you have a guy, if you have a girl, you got someone over there who you can just text. And I'm buying a new truck right now, so I'm shopping.

And I've got a guy. And he finds things on auction and he buys them and he takes care of it. everything soup to nuts. He delivers it to your driveway. If you have the old car that you're going to trade, he buys it. Like, it's just super simple. And the other day, he said, hey, I found one, but I can't do it because it's direct through the dealer. But if you want, it meets all the specs that you want. You can go directly through them. You'll just have to sit up the shipping. And I was like, no, dude, I don't. You're my guy. That's not the truck for me because I can't do it through you and you're my guy. And all I know is like, he's just going to make it happen.

He's going to take care of it. And if there's a problem, I can text him. And he's, it's, it's he's responsible for this outcome, which is I've got the truck I want in my driveway, period. I don't want a project manage the whole process. I don't want to call multiple times, and I don't want the dealer saying, well, that's the shipping company. It's their fault now. Now you've got to go deal with them. And I just want one person that's going to take care of it all.

And we're really starting to lose that in this world where you can't find a guy at a company. Most companies aren't even listing their phone number anymore. You have to go through their, you know, their client service chat thing. And you just go, okay, this is going into a black hole. I don't know if somebody's going to get back to me. Well, and here. So I got a guy like that too, and I love him. So the point that that we realized is, is so many people want to disrupt their business.

And hey, we're going to do this new crazy way and we're going to do this new thing. And this is how it's going to work. But what they fail to realize is the history of buyers and what they're familiar with and how they buy your service or product. And so inside of cars, although there have been some very successful online companies that you can kind of buy it like Amazon, people are used to buying it from people. So how do you continue to innovate but keep that core premise? With creativity, the reason you talk to someone, most people have bought it by talking to

someone. And they want to test, they want to feel, it's an emotional experience. So while we innovated in all these other ways, the technology, we innovated with the pricing model, we tried not to deviate too far from the buyer's past experiences because then we're just creating more hurdles of trust to overcome to be able to get to that level in which they're willing to say, okay, I want to work with you. Well, and I think this especially applies if you provide a service. You know, I mean, because if you're going on Amazon to buy a toothbrush, you probably

don't need a guy. You just need to get out of my way. Let me one-click order this thing. But if there's complexity, if there's multiple variables, if there's going to be some nature of back and forth talking about the work, a service that's provided that doesn't have a known, like you said before, it's not a commodity where you can just say that everybody knows exactly what this is. There's some describing that has to take place. There's some Q&A and back and forth that needs to happen through a dialogue. And I would say, too, what is your business model built around? Is it transactions or is it relationships and long-term value?

Because you're truck guy, what's his name? Truck guy's his name's Mark. Mark probably builds his business off a referrals. He wants to have a great business and get your friends and family. So for us, it's the same way. We want clients that work into place, leave a company, pick us up with your new company, tell your friends. Because I have a friend. He said, hey, I got a guy.

I said, send me his employee. That's it. I hope Mark is listening. You're doing a great job. But the point is, the point is, if your business model is built around. the transactions, and yeah, this may not be applicable. But if your business model is built on maximizing that long-term relationship, which in turn maximizes the dollars, then you really have to start there from the very beginning. Another thing that somebody's, somebody who's

skeptical or maybe a critic of this might say, okay, that sounds good, but how do you scale that? I have to have more people. I have to train more people. I have to deal with more people issues. a lot of this stuff could be automated. A lot of the stuff we could just have a technology or software that handles it. Well, that's very true. I do feel like, though, a lot of it depends on your pricing and the model in which, you know, what are you selling? If your sales team can't create enough abundance in terms of the price and what they're selling, then it may not at all penciled out to have a human-driven sales team.

You know, if you're selling Papa John's pizza for $20, you cannot, no salesperson on Earth could make a job doing sales commission selling a low price item. So the price point, I think, is another differentiating standpoint. But you have to also know your metrics. For us, we can say, hey, we're going to put humans to this and create this sticky process and slow down our sales cycle because we run so much analytics on what is the value of a client. client on average. You know, how long will a client stay with us? And then we can make these decisions, not just instinctually or because we feel like it, but we can actually say, look, the data shows this sale costs us $800, but we can make $5,000 or $6,000. So it allows us to, that data is super important in how, in what direction you decide to go. I love that you said know your metrics. I'm shocked

by how many business people don't know their numbers, not just financials, but performance metrics. There's a time I didn't, but I had to learn those hard lessons of like really getting into it and learning it's not a personality style. It doesn't matter if you're not an accountant.

Like if you're going to have the responsibility of running a business or a business unit, like you have to know your numbers. Yeah. I mean, back to pre-designed pickle Russ Perry. That was another one of those areas. Couldn't read a P&L. Ask me, how much does a customer cost

to acquire, had no idea what that meant, you know, above the line, below the line, gross margin. These things were so foreign to me. But I'll tell you a funny story. This is actually my, I had one business partner in my life and the second part of my agency career. I had a business partner. He was from Argentina. And we are getting together. We were really excited. And he's like, Russ, we're going to create a business plan. And I'm like, Federico, you know, I get it, man, but, dude, business plans, that's like what MBAs do. We're not MBAs. Like, let's just hustle.

Let's, we're not going to create this. Here's a summary and here's our marketing strategy. Because it sounds stuffy. Sounded unrelated. And I was just, you know, young and I just didn't care. But he didn't actually mean a business plan. It was a little bit of a translation error. What he meant was a financial budget and a money plan.

And that stuck with me. That translated to him. That was the business plan. It was the metrics. It was the numbers. It was everything. Because when you finally showed me the business plan, I was like, oh, this is what you mean. And for now, from then on, I was like, I got to know the numbers because you can't make the decisions to go this way or that way without that stability and confidence around how is it going to impact you financially. What have you done? I mean, it sounds like you kind of had this epiphany moment, but it's a lot of work and it's a new discipline to really stay on top of your numbers. How did you go from novice to ninja when it comes to being on top of this stuff? The real answer, and it's so low tech, is I built my own P&Ls by hand in Google Sheets for two years. I would get the bank statements.

I would categorize things manually. I would put them into the categories. I would have all my income in one box at the top. I would do it the bottom. I didn't use an app. I didn't use anything to auto aggregate and categorize. and categorize. I did it super manual. And I learned that in design school. In design school, you learned to draw by hand. You do lettering by hand. You learned the basics. You learned the basics

really, really. And like this was this was something that I got so frustrated. But later on, I was able to do the computer stuff better. So same thing with the finances. And even personally, I never really used apps to build my personal family budgets. I did the same thing. Like once a month, download the CSV file. It would take me longer, but I knew every piece, every transaction, and it built this discipline that I carried with me until we grew enough to where we could have other teams, but I knew what to expect from them at that point. It's so funny how intimate and unfamiliar you get with the numbers when you do it that way.

I had the same experience. I'm building all of our event budgets in Excel. And like when you have to build the formulas and just like, crunch the numbers over and over, and then you're trying to build graphs and things that go with it so that it can actually spit out information for you. You know, today, even in Ramsey Solutions, a lot of that stuff's automated, and I can look at a few numbers and go, now that's off, something's off, and people are like, how do you know that? I'm going, I don't know.

I just, I spent so much time with them at a granular manual, you know, kind of not digital level. I mean, I guess a digital in a spreadsheet, but a very analog type format where you're really, your spidey senses go way up when you do it that way. Totally. Well, because the numbers you're seen today are actually the result of your past actions. So how can you change your future actions unless you see those at a detailed level, which changes your spend and changes your income and whatever it is? So I look at numbers as this like, it's this historical viewpoint of everything, all the decisions

you've made. And then it's a guidepost of like, okay, where do you want to go from here? with your future decisions. And if if there's just some app that's auto categorizing everything, it's 70%, you know, and you don't know why, then you're never going to get the right data to change your behaviors moving forward. Numbers are one of those things. There's a lot of things in business you really should delegate or automate. Like they're not the best use of your time as the owner. Yeah. Finances is one of the, you could you can delegate and bring in resources, but like you've really got to stay on top of that. It's not one of the,

of those that the goal is how little can I have to do with this because I'm a creative type or it's not my personality. It's like the, I think it was Mark Cuban who said accounting is the language of business. Oh, yeah. And so imagine like walking around in a foreign country and you can't speak that language as a business owner. Right. You're going to die. And it's liberating. It's liberating. When I got done with those spreadsheets, I felt so in tune. I felt motivated. Even if there was a red scary number. I knew why. And before, if I just like, oh, I hope the bank accounts, I hope there's enough in the statement like, oh, come on. You're living on edge. You're living with stress. Which is how most businesses operate. It's crazy. Which is why most businesses fail. I mean,

I really think it comes down to that is they don't know what's going on in their business. Right, right. But yeah, I always would, I'm like feeling it right now, that feeling when I would be done and it'd be like, all right, well, we lost a lot of money, but I know exactly what to do. Well, it's empowering because you've got the clarity on how to go fix it. You know the root of where that problem is. And it was with that vendor or that check didn't come in or we've got a sales issue. Like, you're super powerful when you have that information and you can go attack the problem and have full confidence you're attacking the right problem. Like there's nothing worse than that feeling of going all in, trying to work on a problem and kind of half guessing the

whole time, like, is this really even our problem? And it, you just, you just, you just, you just, You second guess and you hesitate when you do that. And just for the listeners' context, we are in our sixth year of business now. We're just completing it headed into our seventh. I did this years one through five. I didn't make my first internal finance hire to do it. I had one part-time bookkeeping company kind of helped me out with just some taxation stuff. But I did this from years one through five all on my own.

So it was not something I got rid of quickly as we grew. You know, I'm curious where you, I'm going to guess it's something you can tell me if I'm right. You're a creative type. You come from this agency space. You got the swagger. You got the, I imagine visual and sexy brands and all that kind of stuff. You got cool hair, which I'm very jealous of. Like, you don't strike me as somebody who's nerdy and who's just like naturally.

Like, yeah, the numbers. You clearly had to develop a discipline. And to say years one through five, I did this manually, that's very arduous. It was painful. And so I did not like it. The value had to be pretty high for you to push through. Like, how did you know it was going to be that valuable? It really started personally.

So I copied this habit from my personal life and actually consuming, you know, a lot of content from your company and wanting to get a hold of my numbers. I was like, you know what? I tried to download these apps. I tried to use these things that did it all and create budgets. automatically. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do this the old-fashioned way. And it was so successful in understanding my personal finances. I said, all right, I'm going to do this. And granted, it was a lot more transactions. It was a lot bigger volume. But it was painful every time,

all five years, I never enjoyed it. I loathe the days that I would do it. It would be a grind. I would take 20 breaks and take way too long. But when it was done, the relief was so immense that it was worth it every time. It's like that really hard workout or that really challenging thing you do. And then you finally are done. You're like, I'm so glad I did that. And it just, and you're right, I never, I never, the one class, the only class that I took that it carried with me to this day at Arizona State University was an Excel class.

So my tip to anyone, if you're not, if you don't know how to use spreadsheets, go online, watch YouTube videos. That's a fundamental skill set to do this by, but once you're there, it's it's not easy but it's so powerful completely agree i had to teach myself a lot of excel but i mean there's there's so much now on youtube i mean you can do this on youtube and there's plenty of people that'll show you exactly how to use it it's a powerful tool you know uh knowing your numbers having a great team having the right business model uh emphasizing i mean we've talked about purpose i'm curious for you how you've grown as a leader i mean you clearly uh have the story of transforming who you

are going back to from where you were, the agency to today. But even with design pickle, how do you continue to level up? How do you hold yourself? Do you still work with a coach or do you have other resources that you use to make sure that you keep your sword sharp, if you will? Absolutely. I am the biggest advocate of personal development from books, coaching programs, conferences, and it is the discipline of saying, look, I don't know everything. I am going to go out there and I'm going to challenge my thinking, challenge my mind and absorb new ideas, not to just regurgitate them and copy them, but allow to be the domino that maybe 10 dominoes later, I'm thinking a different way about a certain topic or whatever. And I invite that into my

life, you know, and I choose those mediums. I don't let Facebook tell me. I don't let ads tell me. I don't let the algorithms of big data tell me. I find people I respect. I know groups, coaches. Maybe I invest with them for one phone call, which I've done. I've invested with people for five years for two months for one conference and I've never gone back. And I'm continually saying, who do I have to become to be X, Y, Z? Who do I have to become? You know, we've, we've exceeded a million in revenue since our journey in an annual basis. That was an unfathomable number for me, my whole life. And I just continued, when I started on the growth journey, I said, what kind of leader do I need to become to generate this much value in the world?

Who do I need to be? Where are my... Say that again. That's a good question. Say that again. Like, who do I need to become to generate this much value in the world? What kind of leader do I need to become? And then the doors would open. Wow, I know nothing about conflict. I mentioned that was a big challenge for me. I was the guy if I got a wrong dish at a restaurant, I'd be like, no, it's okay, babe, don't send it back. And my wife's like, I'm going to, I'll send it back for you. You're not, you know, like, it's their job. I was like, I don't like the conflict. But now, you know, I worked on that. And I did, I did, you know, that specific example, I've done a lot of hard challenging things not related to business. Big physical events, climbed a mountain, learn new skills.

and so by inviting challenge, I learned how to conquer conflict in that regards. But it's never ending. It's never ending. And I'm also a big study of biographies. Like I'm currently reading the Michael Eisner biography, the former former CEO, or actually three CEOs ago of Disney. But like learning about Disney when it was like my heyday, the 90s, the early 2000s, like late 80s, studying what were the decisions, what were the challenges, what were the

challenges they were facing totally sizes up my life in a very humble way. You know, when you're like, we made this decision and we lost a billion dollars. I'm like, wow, I'm so worrying about very, very different things. It's so funny how I just, I don't like to put people in buckets, but I've just talked to thousands of business leaders. And there's people who don't really grow themselves and invest in their personal growth. You know, they're not readers. they don't go to conferences, everything you're talking about. And then there's people who do. And like you can get to a certain level, I think, of success without it. And then you're just kind of like locked in. Like it's just your life is kind of is what it is. I'm not knocking it. Like if that's all they want out of life, fine. But there's just something about what you're saying. And I think at the core, as far as a principle, it's like teachability and hunger and staying curious and always starting with what can I change in myself.

Instead of like the problems out there. It's like it's me. What do I need to work on? I've got this deficit in your case conflict. Okay, I'm not going to just let that be true with me. Like, I'm going to do something about it. Right. I did boxing for two months and that was so rough.

But it worked, you know, like literally going in and getting punched and choosing to go do through that. And I was terrible and slow. And any time I actually hit my coach, he would just unleash on me and put me in my place. But it was like, okay, I'm going to go. invite this challenge into my life and then and then see who I become to get through that with that. Well, that's the key. I mean, it's like it takes a special mindset to say, I'm going to invite discomfort because we all want to be comfortable. But to say, no, I'm going to intentionally create discomfort in my life. Like, I'm going to proactively seek this out because I know the benefit

is I grow a muscle, I grow a skill, I develop in something that's going to pay dividends in my life over the long haul. Well, and I have to actually give credit to your program and this podcast because one of the top five business books I've ever read and I continue to recommend is thou shall prosper. And I heard it first from the Entree Leadership podcast. But that book anchored in my purpose as an entrepreneur to create more value in this world. And that's what fuels my quest of personal development. I'm not just going to do this for fun.

I wish I could, you know, I love video games. I would love to play video games all day long. It's not creating much value for me as a leader. So I choose these challenges because if I grow as a leader, that means I show up the design pickle and we can help more lives with our creative services and software. And I feel that that's, that connection of the growth of your business is reflective of the growth of the value you're creating, which I got from that book, was like game

changing for me in 2014. Like, so game changing. That's huge. I mean, when someone links that up and you understand, and you're saying the value created, I think it's fantastic, you know, it's value created that is a contribution to the world. And if we're not contributing, we're not sustainable in our efforts. Like, it's just impossible to do this really hard thing called business. Like, who would keep going if you didn't feel like you're making a contribution?

Because there's days it just sucks. There's days you're just like, I just don't want to do this. I want to just go get a job. And it's in those moments we go, no, we're contributing massive value. It's not just to increase my lifestyle or get a bigger house. Those things are fun. I'm not against those things. But if you don't have that broader sense of like we're changing people's lives, we're doing something that's noble and worthy.

We've got to, we can't let them down is kind of the sense you have. Well, and this was hammered home to me in a way I will never forget. in my first trip to Mexico last year, or two years ago now, in 2019. And I met some of our creatives down there. And a woman pulled me aside. And she said, Russ, I used to have to commute three hours on a bus every day to my job. I would sometimes get done at 9 p.m. And I would have to make a choice.

Do I take a three hour bus ride home? And friends of hers, thankfully she had never had this happen, had gotten raped, have gotten beat up, have gotten robbed. or do I just sleep at the office, shower in the bathroom at a sink and get back to work the next day. Oh, my gosh. And we were able, I mean, even pre-COVID, all of our created, our whole team is always work remote, work from home. And we were able to give her a full-time career working from home. And that story of like, I've created value in a much different way than I ever expected of safety, security.

Yeah, you changed her life. It changed life with a simple, simple. decision, and I remember deciding to be a remote company years and years ago, that came out of business development because I was like, or professional development, because I was like, wow, wouldn't it be great and kind of strategic that we can work from our computers and I, and I was studying these other businesses and learning about remote companies. Had I never kind of embraced that concept, the dominoes, you know, millions of dominoes later would have never connected to that single person in that unique way.

So you're six years into this journey, doing very well by all means. What's the biggest challenge for you at this point? It's understanding who I am as a leader for the next six years. And I can be completely honest with you. I don't know if I have that answer yet. I wrote on my whiteboard upstairs a couple hours ago, my job is line. You know, what is my role now? because I'm not on the front lines of customer success.

I'm not doing the designs. I'm not doing the ad book algorithms, which I've done all those things. And I think for me, if I'm going to attempt to answer that, it's building the world's greatest team. It's just simply focusing on the people from here on out. I got to trust in them. I have to empower them. I have to create an environment where they can thrive.

and that might be something people have heard before or it might seem obvious, but it is, it's very new to me because I've been such in the weeds for so long, like really doing and planning and, you know, just like I would be the one setting up the tech for the interview here today. And now I have a guy. I have my guy who can do that for me. So, you know, at the end of the day, I think that's, that is the biggest challenge and is answering that question and then just going all in on it. And the answer is probably going to change every year. So I can't rest on. I think it totally will. I like that you wrote on your whiteboard, my job is blank. And I think this is something we should all do consistently as leaders is like my job is blank. Like we should,

in light of where we are today, in light of where we've been and in light of where we're going, what is my job? What's my contribution? Because I think it's a misnomer that we should be looking for like this stock answer, that leadership is boom. And, you know, And that blank gets filled in with the same answer for everybody in every season. Because I don't want to suggest it's a moving target. I think there are some things that are core tenets of leadership. But how it's applied in your company, in the season you're in, and what your company needs from you today is going to be different from the guy, you know, across the street. Like, it's just, there's not a standard answer to that question.

Absolutely. And it depends on the dynamic of your business, too. We're a very people-driven company, both in the services we provide, the, experiences we've talked about, the connection we have with our clients. So with that said, I better have the best people here representing that because the end of the day, that's what people are coming to us for support with is that that interpersonal type service. If I was running a tech engine data center or whatever, maybe my answer would be just, you know, the best programmers. I don't know. Like I think that that answer will depend on the

industry and the business. It is a weird space to get to as a leader when you like, don't really do anything anymore. You know, I mean, like, you know you do a lot, but you're like, it's not as quantified as sales calls or, you know, customer service or producing the widget. You're just, you're kind of in this space where, like, you're, you're solving problems, you're talking to people. You know there's a lot of meetings. You know, you know, for sure your calendar's full, but you kind of have the sense of like, but what do I do? Like, what's my job? And as people have asked me that, I mean, as I grew Ontario leadership, I've, I've wrestled with this at several stages. And I just keep coming back to,

I'm going to do different things in different seasons, but what I always have to be thinking about is vision, results, and relationships. You know, because I can't really delegate vision. Like, the leader has to have the vision and tell people where we're going. Relationships is all about culture and making sure that we've got the right people. And we, I don't have to personally have all the relationships and foster all of those, but I have to at least be paying attention to the environment that this is going to be a place where relationships thrive and prosper. And there's a lot of trust and we move really quick as a result. and then results, I'm responsible for the outcomes, but no longer the activities. You know, and so it's like I have to pay attention. And it goes, like you talked about it earlier with your metrics. If you're not watching your metrics and your numbers, how are you going to know, this is

what winning looks like and paying attention to that stuff and holding the team accountable to doing the activities that lead to those results? And so I always just, I'm just a big believer in like simplicity. Like if I can go, there's only three things I have to think about, vision results and relationships. Tons of sub-tops inside those, right? But it's kind of like, okay, I can. get all those on one hand and still have two fingers left over.

I actually do you have three things also. There's three Cs. Culture, communication, clarity. It's good. You know, I'm driving the culture. I'm driving what it means to be here. Communicating that to everyone and making sure people are clear on the above items and just bump, bump, bump, consistent on that.

When you think about vision and communicating the vision, you guys obviously, you have a unique service and you are like we talked about before, you're blazing a trail in this space. What does vision casting sound like from you to the team? How are you, I mean, is it regular meetings and what are you saying? How are you telling people, hey, where we're going is going to work when there's not really a, like there's kind of a benefit to competition sometimes because you can go, okay, we're going to be like them, but better. And you guys have this thing that's a unicorn and you get the benefits of that. But you also, I would imagine the team, going, what are we doing again? Are you sure? How do you cast the vision in this kind of a scenario?

Right. We're going to be more customer service focused. So, from when it was by myself, business of one, I created the vision. We call it a purpose statement, but mostly commonly known as a mission statement and our values. And I was like, day one, I'm doing this. I have a blank slate. I'm going to do it. And I'm so thankful I have. To answer your question specifically, I am the broken record of the year every single time we have a big group meeting, mission purpose values. Here's what it is. We've integrated all of those components, not just the vision, but the values and the purpose

of why we're doing the work we're doing, into our hiring, into our decision making. It is the common language of accountability across design pickle. If you're a software engineer, I can't hold you accountable to your code. That's someone else's job, but I sure can hold you accountable. to the culture, which is built up by those three things. So we have it printed. We have it of core values video, which talks about our vision inside of that, that all team members see it's on a recruiting page.

We have it inside of our reviews. So you're measured on these items and actually judged. Like, are you upholding the vision? And then at a leadership level, I make decisions every day by does this match up to a vision? Two hours ago, perfect example, we are looking at how do we enable some software that promotes health and wellness across a global company? And it's, you know, people can't go to the gyms right now. How do we create this? And I found a company that they're kind of going out of business or they're not really working on their app.

And I was like, hey, maybe we could take this code, buy it, I don't know. And what I thought before I took this call was changing lives through creativity. Okay, that's our vision. If we were to successfully integrate this into our internal tools for our teams, would it change our lives through creativity? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. This is now something I'm going to look through.

So I'm like using it as like a, you know, like my kids in class with the rules of the school. Like, you know, be nice. Walking a line. Like here are the rules of decision making based off of those elements. Yeah. It's like a filter for decision making. It is. Yeah.

Yeah. If this, then that. You know, if yes, go here. If no, go here. You know, I've struggled with this. I'm curious if you have. I like your mission, changing lives through creativity. Sometimes it can be so broad.

And if we're not careful, we can talk ourselves into what are really bad ideas. And we're saying, yeah, but it kind of ties in. I mean, come on, you know, you see the connection, right? How do you make sure that it really is a filter, that you really have some guardrails and disciplines to saying no to things that are attractive, that are shining? might even make you a lot of money. They're tempting short term to solve a problem that you have. And you know in your gut, like you really should not go over there.

Right. So our vision statement, you're right, you know, changing lives through creativity. That's the catch-all one. I think a clever enough person could like, hey, you know, let's spin this into that one. The next level beneath that is our purpose statement. It's more the business decision filter. And that we haven't mentioned yet, but that's to be the most helpful creative company in the world. So we actually use that for a lot of decisions around our team, the service, metrics,

a helpful creative company. Sometimes helpful isn't nice. It's not friendly. It's giving hard truth. It's saying no to projects that aren't being helpful. And then the layer beneath that, the values we've built out definitions and specifics to really measure, will this enhance or be supported by these core values? And allowing those core values to bubble.

up through the decision process as well. Having other team members who care about this as much as I do also helps because they hold me accountable. They'll put it in my face. And I expect all the team members to do that and to challenge each other to say, Russ, this is not helpful or that wasn't friendly or, hey, you know, this is not in line with changing lives. This is actually, we actually implemented a very strict, like, hardcore strict refund policy

for about two weeks, like no refunds. And like our issues blew up. And it was like a media, like not being the most friendly company like, it was like a quick reverse despite our financial team being like, we need to do this. So, you know, we can make pivots really fast, too, based on these items. You know, a friend of mine, Pat Lanchone, he talks about core values. Yeah. One of his big things is, like, you know their core values if they are something

that you knowingly will lose money over or that put you at a competitive disadvantage. Because otherwise, you don't really, like if it's convenient to value it, or as long as it always makes us money, or as long as we always, you know, are competing more effectively in the marketplace. But when you go, you know, I don't care about the opinions of them. I don't care what the competitors say. And I'm even willing to pay a premium in the form of lost money or lost opportunity to hold to this value. And in that story, I mean, you got, you're literally bleeding out money. that maybe ethically you could hold on to. Contractually, we could.

Contractually. It's not like a, it's not like a, like you're breaking the law or something like that. Right. But from a value, you said, this isn't who we are. Exactly. And I mentioned having to fire a few clients in the past or first core value is friendly. And that's two-way street. So if we had a client, we've had a few that came in and they just think because they're

working with someone remote via email, they can treat them poorly, they can dismiss them, talk down to them. And we'll put up a friendly front first. Hey, you know, we need to do this. Let's calibrate. Let's talk. But I've personally stepped in and level set and fired these clients, two of which radically changed their behavior.

And we discovered that it wasn't actually, it was kind of a weird. Someone else was using their account. And they were not, they didn't know. and the other two we immediately fired, but we hold even our clients accountable to these core values and ensure that we can measure against it because if we have external partners, including clients, that don't match up with our core values, that creates conflict and friction. And how do we uphold them with ourselves, but we allow these other people to slide? I really love that you do this.

And we do the same thing. Life is too short to work with. even if they're great paying customers, but they make you miserable. Like, just don't do it, you know? But I can hear people saying, Russ, Tarty, you don't get it. We've got this thing that we only have a few clients. They represent this huge part of our portfolio. We just have to put up with a crap, man, because otherwise we're out of business.

How do you actually fire a client? Like, that sounds really scary if you think, well, we only have a few and it may be hard to get another one. How do you do that? Well, I think there's only a few companies out there that only have a few clients in this whole world. Maybe like if you sell security services to governments, like there's only 100 plus countries in the whole world and that's your client database. You have to believe that there is plenty of clients out there, which is very hard to do. I get it. I've been there. Like when we started, if you had a pulse and a card, come aboard. We will work with you. but I continue to refine my confidence that you only need a small fraction of a small percent of your market share to be more successful than your wildest dreams.

I'll give you a number the craziest number I can think of, craziest number I can think of, which is like, you know, a billion dollars of valuation and just like this huge insane number for us, 25,000 clients. That's it. $25,000, $25,000. there are 25,000 clients in Nashville that could use what we do. So I have to be really confident. So the listeners that are in that space, I think it comes down to confidence in sales and marketing to get your value out there and find those people because they're there. I mean, you could be the cat toenail painting expert of the world and only capture a

fraction of a fraction of a fraction of percent of cat toenail painting advocates and be a crazy big business. There's a lot of cats out there. But the point is like you have to believe in that size of the market with to get to escape that that sort of dismissive, okay, we're just going to work with whoever. Your story is really cool. I love what you're doing. And I can't think of a better poster child for everything we're preaching all the time about just like having your values, building the team, casting the vision. I want you to talk to your peers right now, several hundred thousand small business owners listening here in the early part of 2021. You're fired up, you're moving forward.

Many people are doing pretty well and many are recovering from a really rough year. But I think right now people need to hear excitement and passion and hope and a little bit of kick in the butt. Like, come on, let's go. And they hear from me a lot. So how about you as one of their peers, let them know where you're going and as a small business community. What do you guys really need to be doing right now? Taking control of what lies ahead. And it's in your control.

It's not in Daniel's control. It's not in my control. It's in your control. It's not in the government's control. It's not in viruses control. And to take control might need some really radical crazy changes, but that's what control is. It's doing what's necessary. I mean, we lost 20% of our clients in 2020.

20% gone. 30 days. 45 days gone. We took control in a massive way in many areas. And I think 2020, it's not going to be without bumps in the road. But to get down, get clear, where are you going? What do you want from this year? And then just challenging yourself, surrounding yourself with resources, you know,

just pushing yourself to get clear on that. But success or failure this year is about your willingness to take control, which is related to your willingness to make, The decisions might be hard, but they're there for your to take. So good. My favorite thing you said today, you said a lot of great stuff. What kind of leader do I need to be to create that much value? You know, we talk about I got to become this kind of leader to make that much money

or to have that big a team or to drive that kind of car. I really, really love this notion of if I'm going to create that much value, I've got to become this kind of leader. Because it takes it all off of this selfish pursuit and it puts it all back on. this is the contribution that we can make. And there's a lot of leaders that listen to this. And they're doing incredible things. And they inspire me. They get me fired up just watching what they do. And you're one of them. And so thank you for what you're doing. Thanks for your time and your wisdom today. It's just an inspiration to be around you, to hear your story. So thank you so

much. As we wrap up, any final thoughts? Well, thank you, Daniel. I mean, I grew up on Entree leadership. This is part of my advice and ideas and everything has become from your guys's work. But I just appreciate this. And I just say, stay positive. Like, there's so much challenging negative stuff. I mean, that to me has been my secret weapon. My wife describes me as the biggest optimist she knows. Like I mentioned, our logo is a smiling pickle. So that kind of just shows a little bit around what we believe. But it keeps it fun. I appreciate this time and continue to do what you guys do because you're making a big impact in the world. Oh, we will, man. Russ Perry, founder and CEO of Design Pickle. If people out there listening

need some design work, how can they find out more about Design Pickle? So two places you can go. If you just want to learn about what we do, go to DesignPickle.com. I'm also launching a CEO, I call it Under the Lid. Lots of Pickle references in our world. Kind of a once a monthish newsletter. Right. You could go on for days. I bet the dad jokes are on your place or just go on for miles. Oh, in the list. But yeah, if you go to designpickle.com slash under and want to hear more about our journey ahead,

I'd love to share it with your group. Love it, man. Thanks, Russ. You will always be welcome back on the Entry Leadership podcast, and it's been a privilege. Take care. You know, we have a lot of cool guests on this podcast. Sometimes it's cool to just talk to a business owner. You know, it's not like this multi-bazillion dollar company, but he's doing it.

And, guys, he's doing it really well. I mean, I hope you heard. I mean, we could go right down the list of everything we talked about, and we're going, entree leadership company, entree leadership company, peak performing business. This is how you build a business. This is how you scale. Personally, he's growing himself as a leader. First driver in a peak performing business.

Second driver, purpose. He's got a dialed in. In fact, he said he started with purpose. Third driver, people, building people, having values, holding people accountable to the values in their performance reviews, planning, having a vision for success, their product is unique and special, and they've got a cool angle on it, and they're trying to figure out how to create massive value. And as a result, now he's very profitable, and they're growing. He's not just a treadmill operator. He's a trailblazer. He's on his way to being a peak performing company. And so I hope you're inspired. I hope you listen

to Russ, and you go, hey, that guy's kind of like me. And that guy's doing it. And that means I can do it. And as a community of business owners, we can do this thing together called winning. But it's not just winning for you and it's not just winning for your family and it's not just money. I mean, that's one scorecard. But you guys know that's not all it's about. It's about building a team and helping people and adding more value to, well, to the world as a result of what you guys do.

That's why I love you guys. That's why you guys inspire me. It's people like you. It's people like Russ. They get the entre leadership team out of bed every day because, we love helping business owners win. Now, this is key. We talked about it with Russ, but you've got to know your numbers. Now, don't let that scare you. If you've been here and then, you go, numbers are talking about numbers. I don't want to know my numbers. I'm scared to know my numbers. I've been there.

I get it. It's hard. It's arduous. You have to get into math and accounting and Excel, and you have to embrace the discipline of paying attention to the tea leaves because they tell a story about your business. And that story, while it may be a little hard to spend the time on it, maybe a little challenging. It's not the most sexy part of your business. It's vital to your success. And to make this a little easier for you guys, our coaching team has put together a guide, a free resource on the six financial reports that can save your company. Yeah, save your company. That's not being dramatic. Like, you can actually die as an organization if you don't pay attention to the numbers. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying that's real.

And so you got to dig into this stuff. If you're only in your marketing, you're only in your ops, you're only in your sales, you're only in your product, you're only thinking about growing, and you don't look at the numbers, you could die. Don't do that. We want it to work, and I'm sure you do too. So to get the guide on the six financial reports that can save your company, you can just click on the link in the show notes.

All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. And as always, if you know somebody that would get value from this, please share this. Send them a link. We know that this thing grows because you guys are sharing it all the time, and we're very grateful. We're all in this together. We're here to help business owners win, and we've got to do it as a community. So thank you for helping us get the word out. Also, another great way to do that is on YouTube.

You can watch the entire episode and highlights from the show on YouTube, so check that out. If you're a small business owner, between about two and 200 team members, we'd like to have a live conversation with you. Quick discussion, no ask, not selling you anything. We just want your opinion. We want to learn what you're getting out of the show, how we can make it better, and just ask you a few questions on what we can do as we continue to grow and make this thing, everything that it needs to be to help you win. So if you'd like to help us out with that, just click on the link in the show notes.

You'll see a brief survey that will help you schedule a call with our producer Tim, and he will be in touch with you very soon. Also, you can follow us on social media at Entrade Leadership. You can follow me on Instagram at Daniel Tarty. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed. by Will Rudder. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of the entire Andre leadership team, thank you for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.