Russ Perry’s creativity knows no bounds. That’s why he dressed up as a pickle and came to Keap’s Ikon user conference to promote his business.
The business he was promoting was Design Pickle, and it’s thriving today, connecting teams with creatives who can bring their ideas to life. In this episode of Conquer the Chaos, Russ and Clate discuss Design Pickle’s revolutionary approach, the importance of creativity no matter what role you’re in, and how to generate more creativity in and outside of your work.
Plus, you’ll hear the entire (hilarious) story about how and why Russ transformed into a human-size pickle.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
[00:00:23] Clate Mask: Welcome everyone to this episode of the Conquer the Chaos Podcast. I'm Clate Mask, co-founder and CEO of Keap and your host for the Conquer the Chaos Podcast. And today I've got a friend here, a local friend, someone here in Arizona who I've known for many years and who runs an amazing company that we'll talk a little bit about.
[00:00:40] Clate Mask: Russ Perry, great to have you with us. How are you doing?
[00:00:43] Russ Perry: Clate, it's been a long time coming for another conversation, but super stoked to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:49] Clate Mask: You bet. So Russ is an amazing entrepreneur. I'm going to brag on you a little bit for a second here, Russ, and then I'm going to let you tell everybody what you do.
[00:00:58] Clate Mask: Russ runs a company called Design Pickle and Russ is dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneur and is a creator and somebody who recognizes that great creative is really important to building your business. Design Pickle helps solve that problem for many businesses. And in fact, I'm going to let Russ tell a little bit about it, but we've got kind of a fun story we'll share about the intersection of our companies.
[00:01:24] Clate Mask: So Russ, why don't you just take just a second more and say what Design Pickle does and how you guys serve your customers.
[00:01:32] Russ Perry: Yeah. So Design Pickle is the leading creative services subscription company. So what that means is you can come to our website, sign up, and get a professional creative to help you with pretty much anything — visual, motion, static. We support formats of video and all tools, such as Canva, Figma … You name it. And the needle we thread are businesses that, like most, need new content all the time, whether it's for advertising, marketing, or internal. But they may not have enough resources to either go build their own team, which is a process — hiring, interviewing, and bringing that on — or they might already have some creatives or people they use. They just need more help. And that whole unit increment of a new full time employee or resource, it just doesn't make sense for where they're at, you know? So we can come in to teams of zero or to teams of 100,000. We've worked with every company size there is out there to add in that extra creative output.
[00:02:42] Russ Perry: And what's really unique about our model versus hiring a freelancer yourself is we've created an entire software experience around that. So from your requests to managing feedback to versioning to even the AI tools we've now put into our application. It's all in one spot, which makes it really efficient for creativity.
[00:03:05] Russ Perry: A lot of people don't realize, but you lose a lot of time when all of those steps are in different places and different tools. And so we've put it all together and it allows people to just focus on the work on creation and for our clients to do what they do best, which usually is not advertising, Facebook designs, etc.
[00:03:23] Clate Mask: Yeah. And you put it all together for them in a subscription model, which I think is an interesting thing. Say a little bit about that.
[00:03:31] Russ Perry: Well, this was built around me being a really naive entrepreneur back in the day. I was listening to all of these podcasts on this crazy concept called recurring revenue when I was an agency owner.
[00:03:44] Russ Perry: And I was like, “Wait, what is this? You get paid monthly, roughly the same amount. And credit cards are just charged. And you don't have to chase down people and go after bills. And you negotiate every month when you're going to get paid.” So I was in between my agencies — which I started my creative career, branding, advertising, launch campaigns — but I was doing a lot of things.
[00:04:08] Russ Perry: I was like the one-size-fits-all marketing consultant. And it just so happens that I had a lot of these design requests from my clients, about 10 freelance clients that were like, “You know, we're going to a trade show. We need all the assets, the business cards, the graphics. We're relaunching our website. We need the images, the designs. We have some new ads we're doing for promotion this holiday season,” whatever it was … And so I was like, “This is like a lot to juggle as a freelancer. How about I put it all into a tool at the time?”. It was just a standalone third-party tool. My designers can operate inside of that and get it done and send it away without a lot of me trying to be the middleman inside of it. And that ended up being really successful, like so successful. It was working without me. And then, I was like, “Hey, I might have a business here.” And then I was just thinking about a recurring revenue subscription. I was like, ‘What if you could just sign up for creativity? Like you do Netflix or Keap or whatever. You could just sign up and start.” That wasn't a thing 10 years ago or nine and a half years ago. It was like you had to meet somebody. You had to interview them. You had to review portfolios. You had to talk to them. You had to …It was like a lot of work to work with somebody.
[00:05:25] Russ Perry: So maybe I could make it easy for me for payments and easy for clients to get started. And that was a crazy idea then, but now, we see a lot of subscription services. So we started something.
[00:05:37] Clate Mask: Yeah. Well, I love it because I know a lot of our customers have used your services and I love the subscription model, obviously, because it makes it easy on both sides like you called out.
[00:05:48] Clate Mask: But I also love the fact that once an entrepreneur, the business, recognizes that they need more creative services, it really is a heavy burden to try to go figure out what they need. And so being able to try it and get something on a subscription basis like you've enabled is really cool.
[00:06:06] Clate Mask: One thing that I've found that I'm sure \our clients recognize is that you never have enough creative. There's always a need for more. There's always a need for more. Whether it's copy or video or graphics or you name it, there's always a need for more. And so I love that you guys have put that together.
[00:06:28] Clate Mask: And for all of our audience listening, Design Pickle has gone from a couple of creatives to now about 600, if I understand right. I think that's about the latest number that you guys have. So you've really grown your business and the resources that you make available to your clients.
[00:06:45] Clate Mask: It's a pretty cool story. Now tell us the beginning of it because it's a fun story for me to hear because of the way that our companies have come together. As I referenced and just shared with people, a lot of our customers have used your services over the years. But tell us the launch story.
[00:07:02] Russ Perry: Okay. So we launched in January of 2015 and everyone asks like, “Well, Russ, how did you launch? How did you get success?,” and I always tell them two things. One, I launched bootstrap, so I needed to make money from the beginning. There was no ability to run in the red.
[00:07:21] Russ Perry: So I priced it the way that I thought would make money. And thankfully, it was a success. And then, pretty much for the first two years of Design Pickle, I was the quintessential slight … I’ve got to use an appropriate word here, but I did anything and everything to market myself. I would write guest blog posts.
[00:07:42] Russ Perry: It's like, you're a women's naturopath. Cool. I could figure out a way to weave it into the message of Design Pickle. Yeah. Yeah. About three or four months in, local to Arizona as you guys, Keap was having their Ikon event, formerly Infusionsoft Ikon event. And I was like, “Well, Hey, this seems perfect for me.”
[00:08:03] Russ Perry: I want to do marketing and actually at an agency, but my agency was doing a lot of trade shows, so I kind of knew a thing or two about it. Yeah. I reach out to your team. And they're like, “Sorry, all the booths are sold out.” I was like, “Oh, darn it.” I mean, this was like a month and a half before.
[00:08:18] Russ Perry: Yeah. What can I do? What can I do? And I was like, “You know what? What if I handed out pickles? Like people are kind of into it. Maybe we'll see. And I later learned that people either love pickles or hate pickles. No one has a neutral opinion of pickles. But then your marketing team was like, “Well, here's the deal, Russ. You could do this, but you have to stay on this tiled area where we're having lunch. You can't leave and walk around and market because that's against the rules of it all, I was like,’Alright.”
[00:08:52] Clate Mask: Well, and to interject here, what you may not have known or what people may not have been aware of is that we were doing the event in a convention center that was managed by unionized labor. So everything we did at that conference was scrutinized and everything had to be done a certain way. We weren't allowed to touch a chair. We couldn't move …. It was like …
[00:09:15] Russ Perry: Which, I’ll come back to on the pickles really quick, but long story short, I was like, “Alright, well, I'm in Arizona…”. There's this very classic thing if you lived in the Southwest, it’s like these Mexican popsicle carts. There are these guys and they have little bells on them and hand them out and parks and stuff around. I grew up in Tucson. So I was like, “I'm going to get one of those.” So I went to where they sold these.
[00:09:36] Russ Perry: There's like the Costco of ice cream trucks. It's like, if you need 2,000 Sonic the Hedgehog ice creams, like that's where you buy them. And there was one of these carts. So I asked the guy, I was like, how much to rent this? And he's like, “Oh, like a hundred bucks.” I was like, “That's awesome. Great. I'll be back.” So the day of the event, I come back to get the cart and he's like, “It's a hundred bucks if you buy 2,000 worth of ice cream. I've got a truck outside. I'm going to the convention center and I'm like, “I can't, I can't. I don't need this.” So I was like, “Well, how much to buy the cart?” And he's like, “$650.”
[00:10:15] Russ Perry: And so quickly I do the math and I'm like, if Design Pickle fails, I could probably go on Craigslist and rent this for parties and make my money back. Okay. And so to the pickle, to the union, I found these pre-packaged pickles locally that were like 30 or 50 cents a thing wholesale. I couldn't bring food into the convention center.
[00:10:35] Russ Perry: And they were wanting to charge me $7 a pickle for the same thing. So this is the first time I've ever publicly confessed this. I've never admitted this publicly on record. True confessions on the podcast here. I bought like 50 with the union guys and just snuck in the rest myself, like these illegally smuggled non-unionized pickles.
[00:11:02] Clate Mask: I love this story. Contraband pickles. It’s an even better story than I thought.
[00:11:04] Russ Perry: So, the final icing on the cake was I found this random pickle costume on Amazon and I dressed up as the pickle. And so for two days, I was in the lunch area, handing out these illegal pickles from my super expensive pickle cart that had our marketing wrapped around it.
[00:11:22] Russ Perry: And one of my most iconic photos with a former team member, yours and a friend, Greg Head, and he and I took a selfie, like head of marketing at the time. It was so exciting. This whole story lines up to something for your listeners. Ridiculous creative things work because not only did we sell probably no less than 20 accounts at that single event, 10x in our ROI, but to this day, nine years later, I still get people signing up for Design Pickle who say, “I remember you dressing up as the pickle.”
[00:11:56] Russ Perry: This is my whole philosophy now with my personal brand and everything I'm doing with Design Pickle is I think creativity is one of the … like it will be the only strategic weapon you have in the years to come. When it's easy to create, the tools are faster. You know, being creative and working with creative professionals I believe is what's going to differentiate brands when it comes to marketing and competition and everything.
[00:12:23] Russ Perry: That's a legendary story. Now the pickle cart sits in our office and it's like, kind of like a little shrine to that whole event.
[00:12:33] Clate Mask: Oh my gosh, Russ, that is amazing. And I definitely want to come back to your point about how creativity is the competitive advantage that enables you to stand out.
[00:12:43] Clate Mask: Because I totally agree. And in the world that we're increasingly moving into with automation and AI and all of the capabilities, your creativity is what enables you to stand out. And so I want to come back to … I want to share with you something from my side of your story, which I've never told you.
[00:13:03] Clate Mask: So, you're confessing the contraband pickles, which is awesome. I love it. And that's the reason by the way, that we stopped going to that venue because it was too difficult to manage with the unionized labor. We just … There were so many different things that we couldn't do.
[00:13:21] Clate Mask: And we weren't able to break the rules quite the way you were. So I love that you did that. But here's the thing. I remember very distinctly going into that area and there was all of this commotion around something. I didn't know what it was. And then the crowd sort of parted at one point and I saw your pickle outfit.
[00:13:49] Clate Mask: And I was like, “What's going on over there?”. And they said, “Oh, some guy is handing out pickles, so people are going over and getting free pickles and talking to him.” And anyway, and I didn't even know exactly what it was because
[00:14:05] Russ Perry: A lot of people didn't because I was by myself and people were so crazy about the pickles. I couldn't even talk to them about Divine Pickle. They were just like, “Yeah, I hear you have pickles. I want a pickle.” But it was like I was giving away free swag at a Suns game or something.
[00:14:23] Clate Mask: Exactly. Well, that was the commotion that I saw. Exactly. And so I asked what it was and they were like free pickles. And it wasn't until a couple years later that I knew what Design Pickle was and what you guys were doing. And I put together, “Oh my gosh. That was going on at Ikon.” And then a few years later, you and I went to a Suns game together and you told me the whole story and you kind of filled in some of the cracks.
[00:14:47] Clate Mask: So just from my perspective as the CEO of the company that was putting on this event, you stood out in such a clear and obvious way. And that's not easy to do because you were in a sea of people and vendors and booths and all the stuff. And you totally stood out. And I love the fact that, as an entrepreneur, you believed in your concept. You took the plunge. You spent the extra money, and then to get the 10x ROI at the event.
[00:15:14] Clate Mask: And then nine years later to have that continue, that is an amazing testament to your creative prowess and your understanding of how to rise above the crowd because everybody out there who's running a business, who's listening to this it's like dreams of the ideas that help them go viral or that enable the launch to just explode or enable their next thing they're dropping to take out. Everybody's thinking and dreaming of how to do that.
[00:15:44] Clate Mask: I want to get into your creative process a little bit and what you do because that ability that you demonstrated that day at Ikon at our event paid off for you in spades over the years. And obviously, you've done tons of things. That was just one little part of the launch event.
[00:16:02] Clate Mask: But I think it was an important piece that got you going so that you could build a company that now has 600 creators that you're working with. So, let's go to your point that you made at the tail end of that about being effective in creating is what enables you to stand out.
[00:16:21] Clate Mask: What have you learned in your world as a creator leading creators? Are there some principles, are there some practices that people can grab onto so that they can help their brand, their business stand out more effectively?
[00:16:35] Russ Perry: Yeah. I mean, how much time do you have, Clate? Because we could do … I could do a whole three day workshop on it, but I do think it ties into your six keys of success because one of those keys is a strategy. I may be one of the first people on your show to advocate that creativity is a strategy.
[00:16:56] Russ Perry: And that, to me, is something that I see and we all see as consumers. Like whenever you're like, “Oh, what's a great business that's successful and what do they do?” and all of these things. If you dial in to what they're doing, they're being creative and it's not always about visuals.
[00:17:16] Russ Perry: It's not always about design aesthetics. Like my pickle activation at the time at Ikon was janky. It was like what is this grown man doing in a pickle with cartoon hands? But it was about being disruptive and being creative. And so I think like for me, this is one of the most underutilized parts of a full business strategy is how are we being creative? And that's because a lot of people think that creativity is just about your brand visuals or your advertising assets. So I'm always advocating. I talk a lot about on my social channels, like the more we are creative in all areas of our life, the more we use the muscle that then we can go into a room and problem solve and come up with innovations and shift and go in different directions.
[00:18:16] Russ Perry: And it's not natural for many people, but it is something that can be learned over time as with any skill or knowledge set. It just takes practice. And I love it when I see creative problem solving inside of non-designery worlds, where it's like distribution, marketing, automation, copywriting, or whatever.
[00:18:41] Russ Perry: Like that to me is like that's so awesome to see someone take a new way in a new approach. And like we talked about earlier, I think because the cost of content is dropping dramatically. Like if we think of content as like a commodity that before, like the artisan blog posts that took three weeks to write and it was like researched and done all of that, and cost you thousands of dollars …
[00:19:06] Russ Perry: Now you can get something pretty close almost immediately for zero cost. The cost of content is dropping. So what then is going to be a value? It's going to be creativity. It's going to be unique ideas. It's going to be things that aren't just generated and regurgitated. And then that's what makes me really excited about what we're doing with Design Pickle is how then can we be the team that you bring on to continue that path of creativity and stand out and be different in the ways that we can support?
[00:19:38] Clate Mask: Okay. We're going to keep this going, but first a quick message for you. Conquer the Chaos listeners, let me talk to you straight for just a minute. You're running your business, and it dominates your mind. It can be very difficult to take a step back and see what's needed to create balance in your business and your personal life, and to create great growth and development and progress in your business and personal life.
[00:20:01] Clate Mask: One of the most powerful ways to gain the perspective that you need is to get away from things and immerse yourself in an environment where you're going to be inspired, where you can see possibilities, where you can create connections, and where you can learn and grow and develop. And I know of no better place for entrepreneurs than Keap’s Let's Grow Summit. For years. We ran this conference as just an amazing mecca for entrepreneurship. And then, truth be told, for a few years, we didn't run it. We got back to it last year, and this year, we're putting it on and it is going to be awesome. I am so excited about this.
[00:20:39] Clate Mask: And I want you as our listeners to not miss out on this event. It's going to be November 20-22 in downtown Phoenix with the main days being the 21 and the 22. You can register for it by going to keap.com/lets-grow-summit. That's keap.com/lets-grow-summit. And you can take advantage of our early bird registration pricing, which expires at the end of July.
[00:21:02] Clate Mask:So if you are needing a reflection time, an opportunity to take a step back, gain greater perspective, inspiration, and most of all, see what automation — the fifth key to success — can do for your business, then make sure that you attend the Let's Grow Summit. keap.com/lets-grow-summit, November 20-22 in Phoenix. I look forward to seeing you there. Alright, now back to our chat. Alright, now back to our chat.
[00:21:19] Clate Mask: Oh man. So, so many things here to jump into, but just the first point you mentioned about creation as part of being creative as part of strategy. I love that. You're so right.
[00:21:40] Clate Mask: It's such an important part when we just kind of get into a rut. It takes away the differentiation if strategy at its core is about focusing on what you do best to differentiate from others. And if we don't apply creativity to it, we don't get that differentiation.
[00:21:57] Clate Mask: You don't stand out, right? So I love that you call out that piece of it. I think that's super important but I also want to emphasize what I've said many times on podcast episodes that when we're talking about Conquer the Chaos, we're talking about entrepreneurs who are by nature creators. We are creative. Now, yeah, maybe we're not the typical artistic creators that sometimes we think of but we do live in creation. That's what we do we are … I strongly believe we are born to do that. Everybody is born to create.
[00:22:30] Clate Mask: And, unfortunately, education and institutions sort of pounded out of us and sort of stamped out a bunch of that. But entrepreneurs discover, “Oh, we are in creation. That's what we do.” So you made another point about that that I want to grab onto, where you said, “When we're creative in all areas of our lives, then we can get creative in the strategy and in our business so that we stand out.” Say a little more about that because I'm really fascinated by that. Because as you know, when I talk about the six keys to success, I'm talking about success as defined balanced growth in your business and personal life that produces freedom.
[00:23:11] Clate Mask: And I kind of break down in the vision aspect of the keys to success to the five areas of life. You've got physical, spiritual, social, business, and financial as an entrepreneur. Those are kind of the five areas. And so I'm really fascinated by your point about when we're creative in all areas of our life, I immediately think of those five areas.
[00:23:31] Clate Mask: Anybody else might think of just general areas of life, but what have you noticed that, when you are igniting your creativity in one area of your life, it bleeds over into your strategy and into your business standing out?
[00:23:46] Russ Perry: Well, I'm going to give a quick example and then I'll come back to that because I think it's a good analogy. I think with sports and training, we mentioned we're Suns fans. Those athletes aren't just …
[00:24:00] Clate Mask: Let's just say this real quick. We are Suns die-hard fans for anybody who doesn't know. Russ has custom-made Suns shoes that when he and I went to a game together, they are like amazing custom-made Sun shoes.
[00:24:17] Russ Perry: Every season I have new ones. Shout out to Laced by Liv. Laced by Liv on Instagram. She's my homegirl. Give her a lot of love if you need custom shoes.
[00:24:27] Clate Mask: That alone is a great example of creativity in an area of your life as a passionate fan that will bleed over into your business.
[00:24:35] Russ Perry: So, real quick, athletes, they don't, don't shoot basketballs all day long. They just don't scrimmage all day long. They look at how do I become better in other areas, whether it’s weightlifting, whether it's calisthenics and mobility and mindset and all of these things that then the aggregate of that helps them be a better athlete for the games and for what matters. And I think the same is true as entrepreneurs and leaders of our businesses. If we're just in a room all day long with the whiteboard trying to come up with ideas, we're going to hit a wall at some point, right?
[00:25:05] Russ Perry: So. I personally believe that we need … It’s a lot less risk for me to run some fun dad experiments with my kids and be creative and be silly and do whatever they do at all their different ages. I mean, I have eight (almost nine), 12 and 19 year-olds — all daughters. So I have a spread of interests and tolerance for my shenanigans.
[00:25:27] Russ Perry: But that's like a safe place to be creative, which flexes the muscle. And then if we do creative projects like making custom shoes … I'm not designing them. A professional is designing them, but I'm being creative and I'm giving my inspiration that flexes the muscle. And then similarly, in our lives, you take a trip somewhere new you've never been.
[00:25:48] Russ Perry: And it forces you to get outside of your routines of the summer beach you've gone to for the last 10 years. It flexes the muscle and guess what? All of that then allows you to show up inside of your business testing and working on this creative muscle in different ways. And all of a sudden, boom, I just had this idea.
[00:26:08] Russ Perry: And the final piece, which has been well documented with many great leaders, all of those things may not be connected to business and end up being very connected. So the more you're doing these other things, the more you're like … Steve Jobs was always world renowned for his study of the arts and literature and architecture that he brought into hardware and brought into that world.
[00:26:33] Russ Perry: And so for me, it's like, what am I learning in these other areas that allow me to have more brain connections, whatever it is called, so that I'm like thinking differently literally because I've had more experiences and I've challenged myself in those other areas?
[00:26:52] Russ Perry: And so that's always my advice to, to anyone who's like, “I just am not a creative. I just am not like that.” The answer is like, “Yeah, maybe not today, but find small ways to do that outside of business and all of a sudden you're going to find that it's much more fluid and smooth to quote-unquote be creative inside of business.”
[00:27:15] Clate Mask: Man, I love this so much for us because when you said flex the muscle of creativity in other areas of your life, and then you get inspired in the business, you don't have the creator's block looking at the white board because you're inspired by what's happening in other areas of your life.
[00:27:32] Clate Mask: And you get into that creative mode. And I think everybody listening knows when, when you just feel alive because you're doing these things. And yet there's definite times where, as business owners, we kind of get in a groove, a routine that starts to turn into a rut.
[00:27:49] Clate Mask: And, you know, first it feels good because it's a groove. And then it's like, okay, there's some utility to this because it's a routine. And then it turns into a rut. And it's like, this is a drag. And I talk a lot about this when I'm talking about the rhythm key. Because of the six keys, the personal keys are mindset, life vision, and rhythm. And the life vision is about getting balanced in the five areas of life and the rhythm is about how we execute to that . But what you just described is very much what I find when people get into their rhythm.
[00:28:21] Clate Mask: They can either have it be a very inspiring, creative, fun thing that fuels them across all the areas of their lives, or it can turn into a rut. And personally, for me, it happens both ways. And I find that, it's like I said, it starts as like it's beautiful. It's almost musical.
[00:28:39] Clate Mask: You get this groove going and then it kind of turns into a routine and then it sort of loses energy and turns into a rut and pretty soon you're feeling frustrated. That's not to say that there isn't value in putting it together. It's just that we've got to inject some energy, some variations, some variety, some spice to it so that it's fun and it ignites us.
[00:29:00] Clate Mask: And that's what you've just described. In my view, you've just described how to do that in other areas of your life so that then it blossoms in creativity in your business and you stand out, you differentiate, you strategically are able to focus in a way that enables you to win in your goals.
[00:29:18] Russ Perry: Yeah, Clate, I have a question for you, because I'm super curious.
[00:29:22] Russ Perry: I love it. I mean, your role as a CEO is pretty legendary for guys like me. We've grown up in Arizona and started businesses while you guys have been such a leader and especially your leadership as a staple here.
[00:29:34] Clate Mask: Thank you
[00:29:35] Russ Perry: What do you do to inspire that positive rhythm with creativity? Is there a habit or thing that you just are like, “if I can go do this, I can get that back and feel like I'm in that groove again?
[00:29:49] Clate Mask: You know, there's so many things. I love the question. Thank you. There's so many different things I do and they energize me in a little bit different ways. Some of them are about getting out and away from everything — in nature, whether that's beaches or mountains, just getting away from everything that inspires me.
[00:30:08] Clate Mask: I get energized and creative. I get juice from that. Some of it is getting out and seeing people excel in whatever that is. What I've learned is when I see people doing incredible feats, whether it's athletic or in theater or go to a Broadway play and you get inspired in a way that you, you just see something different.
[00:30:37] Clate Mask: And you, you go to a game and you see Booker drop 45 in the first three quarters against the Chicago Bulls from the front row. And you're like, “Oh my gosh.” So seeing things like that, but then it's also being a dad, being a grandpa, being with my grandkids and just looking in their eyes and seeing my little five year old Nora say something that just cracks me up. That is inspiring. That gets me to create in different ways. Being with loved ones, you know, I think there's a lot of different things. Travel for sure. When you mentioned just seeing whether it's architecture or just seeing history and seeing what's behind the history.
[00:31:25] Clate Mask: I remember last year, it was the first time I'd gone to Versailles and just standing outside of that and looking at it. It was so inspiring, like my kids were laughing at me because I was just taking pictures. I was taking videos and pictures because I was just so moved by it.
[00:31:44] Clate Mask: It was just incredible. So, some of them are things like travel or nature or seeing people excel in all forms of entertainment. Others are friends, family, loved ones. Also, you know, for me, a big thing is my spirituality and getting in touch with my relationship with God. That does something for me.
[00:32:08] Clate Mask: Because I fundamentally believe that we were put on this earth by a God who wants us to create. So when I feel that, and I'm moved by that, inspired by that, then that gets me more creative. And then the last thing I'll say is, this might sound kind of funny, what I've learned as a leader, one of the things that inspires my creativity more than anything else is seeing one of our people do something, solve a problem that I have wanted us to solve for a long time.
[00:32:40] Clate Mask: Because as you know, as a CEO, all of us know that when you're running a business, there are certain things you're taught. You want to get fixed. You want to improve. You want to get better and you can't do it all. You can't do everything. And so it is so inspiring and it gets me into a more creative zone when an employee that I don't even really know very well, I find out this problem got solved and who did it. That is something that I just, I absolutely love seeing people make a problem their mission and solve it.
[00:33:13] Clate Mask: And it gets me excited to go do things for the company that maybe I hadn't put my mind to or my heart to in a way to create the outcomes we're after.
[00:33:25] Russ Perry: I mean, I love it. And I could just basically say ditto to everything you said. Like if you asked me that same question, it'd be almost identical answers, but with the exception of that last one. What I find is that when we're out of rhythm, what gets us back in rhythm isn't working more.
[00:33:44] Russ Perry: Everything you mentioned was outside of business about that rhythm. And I've made so many mistakes over the years when things aren't working in business and what I think I need to do is I need to double down on the business. I need to work longer, have more meetings, send more emails, dive into more data.
[00:34:05] Russ Perry: Maybe I need five more dashboards. We already have 10 dashboards. Maybe I slice it this way. And yet the biggest, most profound flow states I've ever been in have been — and directly related to business mind you — like ideas, strategies, concepts or whatever have been when I've been totally outside of that container. Traveling, like you mentioned, like art and music concerts are really important to me.
[00:34:33] Russ Perry: I love seeing live music, same thing. And I just, all of a sudden out of nowhere, this idea comes and it's like, “What if we do it this way? Yeah, hang on. Let me get Apple notes out really quick. I don't want to forget about this.” And so like that to me, and back to creativity as it pertains to rhythm is like if you're feeling stuck, I always ensure that you know what those things are and go to those things in small doses, whether it's waking up an hour earlier to just have some quiet time with God or whoever or whatever your morning routine is, or a trip even with friends or family, whatever.
[00:35:14] Russ Perry: But you're like, you know what? I'm going to go hike at night time under the stars and just feel that vibe. That to me is what kind of resets the rhythm game across the board. And it's really counterintuitive. I think in modern tone and hustle culture of work and you could do it. It's like actually not so much to get that progress.
[00:35:36] Clate Mask: I'm so glad you shared that in part because I'm personally, I'm in a bit of a grind right now and I can see right now, “Oh yes, I need to let go a little bit. I need to back up. I need to get … There are seasons of this, by the way. We all understand there's seasons in business. There's seasons in life where this happens, but I especially appreciate this conversation right now because I've been in a season of more grind, more meetings, more this, more that.
[00:36:00] Clate Mask: And those things squash creativity. I mean they're creativity killers. So I really appreciate that. And I appreciate how that applies. You're pointing out that all those things that rejuvenate us and inspire us and get us into a mode of creation, most of those things are outside of work, like you said.
[00:36:19] Clate Mask: And so I'm especially appreciative of that. Well, that's fantastic. One last question I have for you is … You've actually created a process for people to essentially tap into creativity. And so what have you learned in the creation of that process that our audience could learn from? And I am going to ask where can people learn more about you in case people want to try to tap into that process that you've established to help people hire some more creativity essentially because let's face it, sometimes we have a hard time producing enough of it within us and within our teams.
[00:36:59] Clate Mask: And sometimes we need someone to come in from the outside to help us. They have a different view, a different perspective. They can provide some value that we can't necessarily manufacture inside of us. So what is it that you've learned in that process of creating? I hate to say it this way, but in essence, there's sort of outsourced creativity, right? You're outsourcing in that way. What would you share with the audience along those lines of what you've learned?
[00:37:29] Russ Perry: Well, we've seen a lot. We've done millions and millions of design requests and next January, this is being recorded in 2024. So January 2025 is our 10 year anniversary. We’ll do a party, which you'll be invited to for sure. But you know, I think where most people get stuck is thinking that everything needs to be perfect or clear when they start creating. To me, creativity, you mentioned the word process, that's all that it is. And so what we've tried to do at Design Pickle is make it really easy to get started from finding the creative, which you don't have to do.
[00:38:09] Russ Perry: We just give you one match to your business, to your expertise, to what you need. So, communicating with them the speed in which it happens … Our designs take an average of one to two days to get a version back. Sometimes, same day, if you do it early enough in the day, and it's not like it's done in a day completely, but you get to see it and you can give feedback.
[00:38:33] Russ Perry: It's much more iterative versus hiring a freelancer or even one of your employees who are like, “Alright, in three weeks, I'm going to show you a concept.” And then three weeks later, you see it and you're like, “Oh, no, that's not at all where I'm thinking.” That's a normal part of the creative process.
[00:38:48] Russ Perry: But what I would say, not just with Design Pickle, is if you're able to shorten the iteration cycles to a day, two days, even if it's just a small little thing, those first few rounds of creativity are so essential to set you on the right trajectory to that “Ah, yes. That's what I want” moment.
[00:39:08] Russ Perry: And once you have that moment, everyone's creating and in alignment. And so I just, by nature, our process was always like iterative because I wanted people to see stuff sooner. I wanted them to feel like it’s really responsive. You're not wondering what your creative is doing.
[00:39:26] Russ Perry: But I found that it allows clients to use the work process itself to sort of develop the ideas as you go and not be afraid of any penalty too. I'm not trying to just totally plug Design Pickle, but I do love the company because it's flat rate, you don't get penalized for more revisions, for more concepts, for if you're like, “No, actually I don't like it at all. Let's go a different direction.” Cool. You're going to pay the same price every month. And most people aren't conditioned to that. There's always this cost, especially for outsourced, it's like, if I got to change it, it's going to cost me a hundred bucks or it's going to cost me this.
[00:40:12] Russ Perry: So I'm kind of stuck in this weird spot where I'm disincentivized to actually be creative and innovate and try new things. So we've flipped that on its head. I will say this too. This is just kind of like a personal beef with some of my clients. Clients, if you're listening, don't be this person. And every creative in the world will agree with me on this.
[00:40:36] Russ Perry: Be tough with feedback and don't worry about hurting feelings. Don't be a jerk to your creative. Be respectful. There's a great book, Radical Candor. I always recommend it on how to give really good feedback. But so many times I see clients who end up canceling or they're like, “Oh, this isn't working. And I look in their request history because I always am in the data looking and there's positive feedback, positive feedback, nothing. And then, “I don't like it and I'm leaving,” and what we discover is that sometimes people are worried about hurting their designer's feelings. And I'm like, “Guys, we are professionals.”
[00:41:14] Russ Perry: Like, I rarely think a designer is going to be personally offended that you don't like the color blue or whatever it is. But so many times people are afraid or hesitant to give tough, critical feedback. And I would say anyone working with creative teams, creative leaders, creative individuals, constructive, direct, and early feedback is the best gift you can give them.
[00:41:40] Russ Perry: If you avoid that, for whatever reasons — maybe family therapy issues you haven't gotten to and you need that conflict resolution. Don't worry about it. Just go for it because it also builds trust that the creative knows you better. And that's another big piece of the creative process is the better relationship you can have, the more successful you can be, which is, I think, really important as you're building teams to do anything is you want to have that trust inside of it and sometimes tough feedback builds the most trust.
[00:42:15] Clate Mask: That's right, man. There's so many great things there that you shared I the the first thing you said that really resonates is that it's the creative process is iterative and the key thing that I hope everybody heard was the way to really win in that process is to shorten the iterations and learn very quickly because it's the first two or three iterations that get you most of the way there. And if you can do that very quickly, you are able to produce so much more
[00:42:46] Russ Perry: That’s the compass on the ship, we got 20 degrees, 103 degrees. And then if it starts sailing and you're not right, like, wow, you're going to be in the wrong place.
[00:42:56] Clate Mask: Yep. So that's the first thing I want to make sure people hear because that is so powerful and getting a service like yours where you can get those very fast iterations, man, it is so powerful to get the creative juices flowing inside of your team, your company. So I love that. The second thing that you're calling out is the importance of sharing honest, candid feedback. And you're sharing how a relationship with your client falls apart, but how many relationships are there where it's good, good, nothing.
[00:43:28] Clate Mask: And you just called it out. It's not just in a design relationship. It's on teams. It's in families. It's in, you name it. And so I really appreciate the point about just having the courage to give straight, fair, caring feedback, right? Doing it in a caring way … My wife and I've been talking about this.
[00:43:50] Clate Mask: You can disagree without being disagreeable, right? There's a way to do this where you say, hey, you give the feedback, but it's not a critical, attacking approach. And so I really appreciate the point you're making there and how it applies in so many areas. But the thing that you're really sharing as an expert of creative process in how you stand out as a company by getting a resource that you can very quickly iterate on, I think is super valuable for our people. So I hope that they will hear that and take advantage of what you guys offer. There are other types of things out there, but since I've got you on the show and I care about you and your business and the awesome history we've had, where can people … If people want to get a taste of this … And by the way, what I would tell people, if you work with Design Pickle, learn the process and what it's doing for creativity, as much as you're getting a deliverable, right? People will hire someone and say, “Oh, I want this thing.” Well, notice how it's building creativity in you and your organization.
[00:44:54] Clate Mask: That, to me, is really, really valuable. So where can people learn more about your services, about you, Russ? Where can they go?
[00:45:03] Russ Perry: Okay. I actually got three things. You mentioned there's some clients probably listening and we just launched a new merch store. So I would love to give some clients some free merch.
[00:45:16] Russ Perry: So if you're listening to this and you retweet or promote Clate’s podcast, tag Design Pickle and I'll send you a $50 coupon to get some merch. Help Clate’s podcast get out there. I'm really excited about this merch store. It's super funny, super cool stuff. Then there's basically, what do you need help with?
[00:45:34] Russ Perry: If you need to expand your team in a really smart and cost effective way for creativity, DesignPickle.com is a way to go. If you want to learn more about how to be more creative in your business and life and apply creativity to all areas of your business or life, follow me on any of the social media channels. I'm just Russ Perry on everything except for TikTok, which I got in late. So I'm Russ K. Perry on TikTok. Uh, but usually Instagram or LinkedIn is the best way to go on Russ Perry. And I'm posting every day on how to apply creativity, creative thoughts, and business, family, all of that kind of stuff. So you got a professional resource for your company and then one for your personal life too.
[00:46:14] Clate Mask: I love it. So fun. Well, I'm going to do something a little different here than I normally do when we wrap up these episodes because you and I are such diehard Suns fans and literally the season is starting today as we record this. So what's your prediction this year? How many wins for the Suns?
[00:46:33] Russ Perry: Oh man. Did they change the game count this season? I'm not sure.
[00:46:38] Clate Mask: No, we got 82 games. And for everybody out there, we've been excited about the Suns for many years and they keep breaking our hearts. We haven't quite got over the hump.
[00:46:50] Russ Perry: Gosh, Clate, this is like a dive. I feel like, do I be a realist or do I be an optimist here? I think 70% with … I think they're going to be at 70% and I'm just hoping that the team just really wants to play together and there's no dramatics with the roster and everything. And I think the new ownership is doing a lot to invest, so I'm excited to see them with another year under their belt. So we'll see how that goes.
[00:47:20] Clate Mask: I'm right there with you. I'm at 55 wins this year. I think that's where we're going to be. So I think it's going to be a good season and a really tough Western conference. And you and I need to get out to a game together. We went a couple of years ago to one and that was a ton of fun. Let's go do it again this year.
[00:47:35] Russ Perry: Okay. Well, sounds like you have older kids, which might mean your nights are available a little bit better. So I might hit you up last minute. If one of my guests cancels.
[00:47:44] Clate Mask: That sounds great. I'm game. Hey, Russ, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for everything you've shared about creativity and about helping entrepreneurs get in that flow of creativity as you've called out and enabling their business to stand out, but not just creating in their business, but creating in all areas of their life. Not just creating in other areas so it helps their business, but creating in their business so it helps other areas and everything works together.
[00:48:09] Clate Mask: That's the balanced growth we look for. And you brought some great wisdom here. So, I appreciate everything you shared. For everybody who's tuned into this episode, make sure that you apply what Russ has been sharing and check out the resources he's offered and until next episode, keep growing.
[00:48:25] Russ Perry: Thank you.