William Warren, The Sketch Effect

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

[00:00:21] On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages.

[00:00:40] of their side hustle to small business journey. These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

[00:00:56] Today's guest is William Warren, the founder and CEO of The Sketch Effect, a visual communications business based in Atlanta. Using visual communications such as whiteboard and graphic animation, William and his team help organizations make their messaging more effective and engaging. William, welcome to the show.

[00:01:12] William Warren: Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.

[00:01:16] Sanjay Parekh: I'm excited to have you on because I think what y'all do is super neat. You know, I've seen people in the past that have done this at events, and it's always so fascinating and honestly, it's something interesting to look at sometimes when the speaker's maybe not the most engaging.

[00:01:31] But before we get into what y'all do, Give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:36] William Warren: Of course. Yeah. So I love what we get to do and the way we got here is a pretty interesting journey. So I'll just come out the gate and say I didn't start out wanting to be an entrepreneur.

[00:01:47] I never consider myself destined to become a business person or run a small business. I consider myself first and foremost, a creative ever since I was a little kid, I've loved drawing. I loved illustrating. I've loved cartoons. That was what got me jazzed from a young age. And so that's really what started my journey.

[00:02:06] So all throughout my childhood, I was drawing cartoons, illustrating comics. Couldn't couldn't get enough of it. And then an interesting thing happened after college. I ended up Getting a corporate marketing job. And that's another long story, but suffice to say, I here was this ambitious young creative person and I found myself in this nine to five suit and tie job working in a cubicle where I was looking at spreadsheets and emails all day long.

[00:02:36] And I recognize that spreadsheets may really get some people fired up, you know, but for me, not so much. I basically needed some more creativity in my day to day corporate role. So what happened is I started to actually sketch and draw. During company meetings if we had a small meeting and we were in a white room with a whiteboard, I'd hop up on the floor, grab the whiteboard markers and start sketching out the content of our meeting, or if I had a presentation to give, I might doodle out some concepts, scan them in and put them into my slide deck and for me, this is just a creative outlet.

[00:03:10] But what I realized is that people around me saw value in what I was doing. They saw value in the fact that I was taking concepts, often business or marketing concepts and communicating them visually. And so that is really what started kind of lit the fire, lit the spark in my mind that, hey, this could be a business. I could create a business based on this concept of visual communication. And so that was about 11 years ago.

[00:03:37] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So do you feel like because of what you did there, did you get invited to meetings that you had nothing to do with and they were just inviting you so that you take cool notes?

[00:03:47] William Warren: That's exactly what happened.

[00:03:48] In fact, as I did this as kind of a side thing in this corporate role I had people from different departments like supply chain or IT or HR inviting me asking me saying hey William I've heard you can draw during meetings. Will you come do this during our meeting and I would say I'd love to, and yeah, oftentimes I found myself in the middle of these meetings where I was not a subject matter expert.

[00:04:12] I did not know exactly what they were talking about. Maybe I didn't know the acronyms. And so what happened was I had to really lean into this concept of active listening. Where you're listening for the big ideas and the big themes. And that's become a core skill set that our artists at The Sketch Effect embody today.

[00:04:29] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I imagine because of this now you end up learning about a lot of things that you know nothing about beforehand, right? Has there been a time where you've been doing one of these and even throughout the whole thing like you don't know what is going on or what they're talking about? And you're clueless or do you get clued in at some point?

[00:04:49] William Warren: Hopefully throughout the day at some point it will click and I will start to track with people and understand what's going on but yes there we get to learn so many interesting things at The Sketch Effect I mean we sit into we sit in hundreds of meetings a year around the country for different companies, different organizations Every, any type of company, organization you can think of, we have sketched for their events.

[00:05:12] So, yeah, I remember learning about supply chain of chicken farms, you know, and, or learning about international tax compliance. Learning about you know, healthcare, you know for different populations around the world. Any topic you can think of, we've sketched for it. So it's quite a a benefit of getting to do what we do is that we get to learn about a lot of things.

[00:05:35] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, you know, by the way, the thing that you just said probably made everybody who's listening or almost everybody who's listening skin crawl about how many meetings that you've been in a year. Like all the rest of us are trying to get out of meetings and not go to meetings. Whereas for you, your business. As being in those meetings, so.

[00:05:53] William Warren: Well, most meetings are terrible. I mean, let's just call it out. Most meetings are a waste of time. And that's why my business The Sketch Effect is so great because people hire us to join their meetings to make sure that their meetings are not terrible, that they're actually effective, that they're creative, they're engaging.

[00:06:09] People are retaining what they're learning. They're remembering it. And then they're going and taking action based on the discussion. So yes, I would like to say that The Sketch Effect is the antidote. To terrible meetings. Yeah, people need to bring us in to make their meetings less unbearable and more awesome.

[00:06:28] Sanjay Parekh: Less terrible, right?

[00:06:29] Exactly. So you mentioned cartoons and as a kid, I got to ask you, what's the first cartoon that you remember, like your favorite first cartoon you remember watching?

[00:06:41] William Warren: Without a doubt, the cartoon that you Really ignited my creative journey was Calvin and Hobbes. Are you familiar with Calvin and Hobbes?

[00:06:48] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, of course!

[00:06:50] William Warren: Yeah, so not a cartoon on the TV but a newspaper cartoon for those who are unfamiliar with it And that ran for about 10 years from the mid 80s to the mid 90s when I was a wee lad and I could not get enough of Calvin and Hobbes I credit my time reading Calvin &Hobbes to my understanding of sequence and narrative and storytelling and you know, visual visual storytelling. That alone was so instrumental in getting my creative Journey started.

[00:07:21] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. You realize about half of our listeners just were like, what's a newspaper? They still exist and they still, I'm pretty sure they still do comics in the newspaper. I don't know how often they do it nowadays. Cause honestly, I don't have a newspaper either anymore, but so was this the first, so starting The Sketch Effect, was this the first time you've done anything entrepreneurial or did you do something as a kid or somewhere before this that was entrepreneurial or any entrepreneurs in the family?

[00:07:48] William Warren: Not in the traditional sense. I had done some freelancing work some freelance cartooning work before I'd started The Sketch Effect, but it was, I would not consider it a business. I mean it was an, it was a business in a sense, but it was not a business in terms of, there was no processes, there were no other team members, there were no There was no active sales.

[00:08:10] So yeah, my, my journey with The Sketch Effect was my, I consider my first time actually running a business. And there's not any immediate business experience in my family, but my dad did start a nonprofit in the healthcare space when I was young. So I did get to watch his example of leaving his full time gig to go start something new from scratch.

[00:08:33] So although not a traditional entrepreneurial story, I do feel like I gained a lot of understanding of what it's like to leave and start a new thing and get people on board and get people excited about the mission of seeing my dad's example.

[00:08:48] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. So okay. You start getting invited to a bunch of meetings that you have nothing to do with just to be the the note taker, essentially the person that's going to keep everybody interested in what's going on.

[00:09:03] When, at what point did you decide like, okay, this is. This needs to be a business on its own. And how did you make that transition to starting this?

[00:09:12] William Warren: Sure. So this is the side hustle to small business podcast. And that was really my journey. My journey was from hobby to fun thing I did at work to side hustle to small business.

[00:09:25] And yeah, so going back to those corporate days, it really turned into the, it really began as this side thing I did. At work in the context of my nine to five job, just to have a creative outlet and then as the momentum built up and people got excited about it, they invited me to come to their meetings.

[00:09:43] This was also happening internally at that one company, then it became this side thing. And then someone whispered in my ear, you know, Hey, you know you could charge for this. You could probably make some good money doing this. And I thought, wow, that's an interesting idea. So I started using I started getting some freelance clients lined up outside of that company. These are non you know, new freelance clients and it really became a side hustle. I took PTO to go different company events. I remember I went to one in Dallas early that summer. I went to one in Orlando that fall and I had one lined up for New Orleans in January.

[00:10:23] So I had a couple of these really compelling opportunities. And so based on that momentum and the growing momentum and the excitement I felt around this idea of visual communication and bringing these visual thinking principles into the corporate space, I decided to go all in on that. So I would say it was probably a six month journey from exploring this fun side thing at work to dabbling in a couple freelance side gigs.

[00:10:51] And then going all in on starting a business.

[00:10:55] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So how did you find those early customers there? Because I mean, obviously the company you're at, that was easy because you worked there and there was word of mouth internally, but how about those new folks that. Didn't necessarily know you?

[00:11:10] William Warren: Great question. So one of my first experiences doing this sketching thing, which we call graphic recording, that's the actual product name, but you can call it visual note taking call live sketching. You can call it whatever you want. You call it doodling and meetings. I don't care what you call it, but my first time doing it was actually for a sponsor event at the company that I was working at.

[00:11:32] So they were the title sponsor of the leadership summit. And so I actually went to that to do these, the sketch notes at that event. And so that was a public event. And they were shared out after the fact and just a couple, some people saw it and they said, hey, this is cool. And they reached out and so that's how the first few opportunities came in.

[00:11:50] There was also some word of mouth people who saw what I did, but didn't work at the organization, but maybe was a vendor or a partner or an agency partner saw the work I was doing and asked me to come do it for them as well. So is this combination of just some kind of viral exposure along with some word of mouth.

[00:12:09] And it was just a few opportunities. It wasn't a lot. It was maybe, like I said, maybe one a month, one every couple of months for the first few months. And it just built from there.

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[00:12:36] Sanjay Parekh: Okay so you started building this and then at some point decided to make the leap and go kind of all in anything that made you nervous when you made that leap? Well, what was that?

[00:12:51] William Warren: Plenty of things made me nervous. I, and that's the beauty of hindsight is at the time I was nervous, but didn't really, you know, I was like, let's go, let's get, let's go. Like, I'm excited about it. Too dumb to realize maybe yeah too is too ignorant of all the pain and anguish that was coming my way. Oh, yeah. I'm just kidding it's been a great journey, but no I do think there was a little bit of like naivete like oh, I can do business. How hard can it be?

[00:13:17] And so I think that for entrepreneurs, especially those that are starting out, it's this interesting blend of you gotta be willing to take risks. You gotta be a little bit ignorant of what you're getting into, but you mostly have to be, just be passionate about the idea. And so I was super passionate about the idea.

[00:13:32] And so, yeah, there were a ton of things that made me nervous, a ton of obstacles that I faced right away, but I was fired about the idea. I was willing to work hard. My wife was fully employed, so I got on her health insurance. So that was helpful as well. Of course, getting, you know, those basic needs taken care of.

[00:13:50] But yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I was nervous about, which in hindsight is really dumb, is I was nervous about what people were going to think about me. You know, I think as entrepreneurs, we think everybody's Thinking about us all the time. And they're really not, you know, and so when I left my, when I left that company and I started my business, I wanted to come out with a splash and have a great website and have a team and hire people and grow really fast to prove that I was a great business owner.

[00:14:17] And so I think in hindsight, if I were to go back, I would be less concerned about the optics of my business and more concerned about just getting the basics right and just doing an excellent job with with the opportunities that I was provided.

[00:14:32] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that is probably one of the things that entrepreneurs think about, like, oh, you know. And honestly, most people don't think about you until you get to a certain size, right? And then they're thinking about you and talking about you and whatever. Exactly. Most of the times they're generally not. Yeah. So as you were growing this thing, so it starts out with just you, I take it. And then eventually you have a team.

[00:14:54] So how did that look for you? Because you know, now it's getting other people. Now it's not just relying on your skill, but it's relying on other people's skills. So how do you think about that and finding the right person? Because. It's a really specific skillset, right? Like we talked about active listening and like all of these things.

[00:15:12] It's not like you could just. throw a rock outside and find somebody just somebody off the street that can do this. And that is willing to go to hundreds of meetings a year, right? So how do you think about that? And how do you find those people that are a good fit for you?

[00:15:27] William Warren: Great question. So let me first begin with the decision to grow or decision to hire.

[00:15:33] And that really comes down to three things that happened. One is from the get go, I knew I wanted to create more than just a great lifestyle business for myself. I knew I wanted to build a culture and build a team. That was one thing that really inspired me was this notion of, hey, I can create my own company culture.

[00:15:52] I can grow my own team. So from day one, I never wanted to be the William Warren show. I wanted it to be The Sketch Effect. So that's one thing from a philosophical standpoint that informed my decision to grow and hire. The second thing is a very practical matter, which is that I had a client who reached out and wanted us to have multiple sketch artists in multiple breakout sessions sketching at the same time.

[00:16:14] So Although I wish I could duplicate myself like in Harry Potter it's unfortunately impossible. So I was forced to go out and find other artists and other people who could do what I was doing. And that was pretty early on. So I reached out to some creative people I knew and I said, hey, I'm doing this new thing.

[00:16:33] It's this like sketching during meetings. You seem like a smart person. You seem like a sharp person. You're creative. You want to try it out? and there was a couple misses early on but one of the very first people I reached out to was a guy named Jai who is still on our team to this day.

[00:16:49] So that was you know, 11 years ago and so that was really cool just reaching out of the blue and saying, hey, let's try this together. And then the third thing that happened was my wife informed me that we were expecting our first child and that my 80 to 90 hour work weeks was not sustainable as our family grew.

[00:17:09] So I had a nine month countdown clock to really grow our team and scale up what we were doing. So those three things really informed. My decision to grow and to scale now to go to your hiring question. How do we find these people? I'm still figuring that out to be honest with you I mean we've what's interesting about being a graphic recorder or a sketchnote artist is that There's really not one blueprint for what makes a successful Live sketch artist.

[00:17:35] We've had people that come from the world of comics, kind of like my background that are very effective at it. We've had people that have come from being industrial designers and, you know, product designers that have been effective at it. We've had people that have come from the graffiti and street art space that are exceptionally good at it.

[00:17:52] What we look for is someone who is an excellent listener. First of all, that they can understand content, they can synthesize and they can point out what the big ideas are. We look for basic creative ability. You know, we're not looking for Rembrandt's or, you know, Vincent van Gogh's. We're just looking for people that can draw a concept quickly, you know, and confidently.

[00:18:12] And then we're also looking for culture fit. That's a big thing for us, The Sketch Effect is you know, when we send an artist into a corporate meeting, that's a very intimate experience. They are joining the room, they're face to face. Sometimes these are small meetings, five, 10, 15 person meetings. So we want to make sure the person that's stepping into that space is going to represent our brand well, represent our core values well.

[00:18:34] So sometimes it feels like we're hunting for unicorns as we're recruiting more sketch artists, but they're out there and they're amazing. And but yeah, there's not one blueprint for what a perfect candidate looks like.

[00:18:48] Sanjay Parekh: How do you think about that? You touched on a little bit. How do you think about the balance while you're doing this, the balance between speed and creativity as you're capturing this stuff?

[00:18:57] Because sometimes there's very complex. Ideas that are discussed in meetings like this. And it would take a while to kind of fully draw them out. But it's not like the people talking are going to be like, oh William's still catching up. Yeah. Let's wait. Pause for a minute. Right. They keep going and you have to keep listening.

[00:19:17] So how do you balance that as you're doing this?

[00:19:20] William Warren: It's a fantastic question. So one of the benefits is that people cannot draw or write as fast as people talk. There's never, the pacing is, will never be the same. So when we are on site sketching at an event, we are forced to be choosy about what we capture because we can't literally write down everything that's said.

[00:19:41] So we're forced to, we're forced to leave stuff out. We're forced to deliberately select what's going to go on the board. And then we're forced to deliberately select what we're going to visualize. Because again, you can't draw as fast as the meeting.

[00:19:55] You can't draw the same pace at which the meeting is progressing.

[00:19:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:19:58] William Warren: So it forces us to be choosy. It forces us to leave stuff out and to be really deliberate about what gets captured. And I actually think that's a strength. Because rather than capturing the minutiae of a meeting, you know, every single word, every comment, we are forced and compelled to capture just the important, you know, just the really critical things, those big rocks, those big ahas, the main themes, and also the fact that we aren't subject matter experts with every client event is I also think a benefit in that we don't get lost in the jargon We don't get lost in the you know, all the nerdy insidery language that folks use in meetings so we're forced to view it for as a third party listener and interpret what is meaningful.

[00:20:40] What is a big takeaway? And I would say most of the time we get it right, but that's why the clients are there. They can walk over and look at our sketch and say, hey, that idea, you know, you kind of got it right, but let's change the wording or let's change that. So that's one thing that we always do in our process is we do collaborate with our clients to make sure the final deliverable is it representing what they need it to represent.

[00:21:03] Sanjay Parekh: So, okay. So obviously some companies are able to afford, you know, you guys are a firm like you guys to do this kind of work. But a lot of the people that are listening to this podcast may not be of the size and ability to be able to afford somebody to come in and listen to them, you know, talk about whatever topic it is.

[00:21:23] So is there some advice that you have or some way that you think folks like that should think about kind of implementing sketching or visual communication? In those meetings so that they can better engage their employees for, you know, success there.

[00:21:40] William Warren: Of course. So we are massive advocates of visual thinking in general, you know, we're professional visual thinkers.

[00:21:46] So yeah, for the clients that have the budget and want to hire a professional visual visualization person to join their meeting, that's great. Like let's do it. But you're right for those meetings that you know, where it doesn't make sense to bring in an artist. We encourage just introducing visual learning into that experience, whatever that looks like because you know the site the science shows that of all the main channels of human learning which is verbal auditory kinesthetic and visual is by far the most powerful when it comes to comprehension of ideas, retention of ideas, and then actionability of ideas.

[00:22:22] So yeah, we encourage people to start small, you know, use your whiteboard. When you're on the whiteboard, use multiple colors, learn the basics of visualization. You know, if you're talking about some theoretical concept. Like customers and ROI and whatever, make it visible, draw it on the board, visualize your customer, draw a picture of their face, doesn't have to be any beautiful work of art, but just a simple act of personifying someone that you're talking about, whether it's a customer or a stakeholder or investor or a teammate that helps connect your brain to the idea, makes it more tangible.

[00:22:58] And then you can do things like draw together, where you get a big flip chart out or a big, you know, sheet of paper and everyone grabs markers and you start visualizing together, you know, and seeing how things connect. There's a ton of ways to start using visualization techniques in a meeting in a corporate context.

[00:23:14] It doesn't require professional, of course, we would love to be there in a professional context to do it for you. But yeah, just grab a whiteboard marker and get started.

[00:23:24] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Do you have a favorite story of, you know, some client that where it went either really well, or it was a dumpster fire?

[00:23:33] Like, do you have a story like that, that you. Always think about when you're talking about the things that you do. Good question. I'm actually more interested in the dumpster fire. Yeah, the dumpster fire story.

[00:23:46] William Warren: I'm trying to think of it. You know the only times that it really becomes a dumpster fire is when there's a misalignment of expectations.

[00:23:55] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:23:55] William Warren: Where, either a misalignment of expectations around the agenda where the client says, hey, this is our agenda and it's going to be this and this, and then we step in and the agenda totally changes and they're not doing the panel discussion or they're not doing the. The plenary session, they're not doing the breakout, they're doing something completely different and they still expect us to do the same service, so that's a, you know, that's kind of a scope and planning matter.

[00:24:23] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:24:24] William Warren: But also when a client assumes that because or assumes that we will what's like read their minds a little bit. Right. It's kind of hard to articulate what I mean by that, but there are some clients. Very few, I'm talking like less than a percent of our clients who think that not only can we listen, not only can we draw, not only can we stand on our feet for eight hours, we can also read their minds.

[00:24:51] You know, like what we do is really amazing and almost magical, but there is a limit. And so those are just the kind of the two anecdotes of times when it starts to go off the rails.

[00:25:03] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah it's hard when you don't know the subject that you're talking about or writing about. We're drawing about to be able to make that kind of leap.

[00:25:12] And so you're really reliant on kind of what you hear.

[00:25:15] William Warren: Yeah, we're relying on what we can hear in the room, what discussions are going on. Now, I will say what's interesting, we have been in some meetings where the discussion goes, the discussion itself goes off the rails, where people get angry at each other, or, you know, tensions build, and then all of a sudden, as the artists in the room, we're what should we do?

[00:25:34] You know, Should we capture all this vitriol or all the, you know, the angst that they have towards the CEO or angst they have towards the board? And normally, of course, you know part of our, what we look for with our artists is our people skills, you know, right? Emotional intelligence.

[00:25:53] So in those situations, You know, what we do is we go up to our point of contact and say, hey, how would you like us to handle this? And sometimes they'll say, keep sketching, you know, capture this. Other times we'll say, let's just wait until it simmers down. Right.

[00:26:05] But yeah, usually we're pretty good at reading the room and discerning what is the best path forward.

[00:26:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Let's change gears a little bit. You mentioned, you know, starting this and then having a first kid. So let's talk about balancing running a business and family life and personal life. How do you think about that? How do you handle that for yourself?

[00:26:28] William Warren: I think it's incredibly important especially for entrepreneurs and I'll say the reason why it's incredibly important for entrepreneurs is that our work never ends.

[00:26:39] There's always more value we could be adding to our organizations. There's always more value we could be adding to our processes. We could always be improving our systems. We could always be investing in ourselves. We could always be tweaking our marketing, adjusting our website, literally the list. The list never ends for a business owner.

[00:26:59] There's always something we can be doing to work on the business to make it better. So it's incredibly important. Unlike, you know, a doctor who can't see patients in their house, you know, when adopt, my dad is a doctor, so I can speak about doctors, you know, when they leave the hospital. You know they're, they can no longer deliver the product.

[00:27:18] You know, they can maybe do some emails and stuff on the side, but right. But for entrepreneurs, there's always something we can be doing to to invest in our work and for creatives like myself, we can also always work on the product at home. But that's another discussion. So I think it's important for entrepreneurs to have boundaries.

[00:27:36] And then for myself, you know, I had to remind myself that I'm in, I'm running my own business ultimately because it serves me, you know, it serves me as the founder to have a business. And so I don't want a business that's going to run me into the ground. I don't want a business that's going to make me a strange for my kids or a strange for my wife.

[00:27:52] And so I've had to put deliberate. Time boundaries you know, work boundaries in place to make sure that those relationships are protected. It's not always, it's not always easy but I think it can be done, yeah, hopefully that answers the question.

[00:28:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Is there anything that you use in terms of like technology or apps or systems?

[00:28:15] That you'd recommend to others that helps you manage all of this, either, you know, manage that boundary or just manage the business itself.

[00:28:23] William Warren: Yes. The first one is a simple one that everyone has, or just the calendar app. I live and die by my calendar. Everything I do every day is on my calendar, even personal stuff.

[00:28:34] Yeah. After this podcast recording, I'm actually going to pick up my son and we're going to go get doughnuts because we do a monthly doughnuts with dad thing where we just go and get a doughnut and sit in the car and talk about life, you know, things that an eight year old wants to talk about. So that's on my calendar.

[00:28:48] My team can see it. I have my date nights on my calendar. You know those are there. And so I'm a massive believer in, in, in your calendar. Should be your calendar should be a reflection of your priorities. So if you look at your calendar and it's not reflecting what matters most in your life, then you need to do some hard work on your calendar.

[00:29:09] So that's the first one is my calendar. Make sure everything I do, the things that I value, things that I prioritize are reflected there on my calendar. But then the other tool I use is a system called OmniFocus, which is a task management. Software based on the getting things done or GTD methodology by David Allen.

[00:29:29] I'm not sure if you're familiar with that But it's basically a way of breaking up large projects into small actionable Steps and then organizing those projects and having a system To process new inputs organize them sort them into projects and then delegate them to your calendar or delegate them to yourself in the future as it, you know represented on your calendar or delegate them to someone else Or defer it or delete it.

[00:29:54] So those are kind of my two my right hand and my left hand are my calendar and my OmniFocus task management system.

[00:30:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, cool. I love it. Okay. Last couple of questions here. You've been doing this for a while now, obviously learned a lot along the way. If you could go back in time and do something differently, what is that? And why?

[00:30:18] William Warren: Amazing question. The first thing I would do is I would be, I alluded to this earlier. I would be a little bit less Concerned about the optics of my business and more concerned about just the basics, the fundamentals and the way that manifested is in one dramatic way, which is that I was, I think, a little too quick to hire.

[00:30:37] I really wanted to be that entrepreneur with my team, you know, and the website and like, look at our amazing team and all these good looking, you know, people that we work with. And aren't we so awesome and and cool. No one's going to hire us. So I think I was a little bit too quick to hire people.

[00:30:55] That's the lesson. Not that I shouldn't have brought people onto the team and to help me advance the mission, but I think in terms of offering full time positions, permanent positions, I probably would have dabbled more in, in temporary roles or contract positions first to test before you buy.

[00:31:13] So I think there were some mistakes that there in terms of bringing maybe the wrong people onto the team without enough. Enough vetting. And again, I think that goes back to a little bit of pride, you know, wanting to be seen and viewed as this entrepreneur with this really great growing company.

[00:31:31] And then the other thing I would have done earlier is I would have probably invested more in telling the story. I think I would have spent more money, more time on marketing and in video collateral and just getting out there and sharing our story.

[00:31:49] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Yeah. Great advice. Okay. Last question for you.

[00:31:53] You're, I think one of the quintessential examples of this for this podcast of somebody that had a full time job, started a side hustle and then went all in and started a business out of that. If you were talking to somebody else that was thinking about doing the same thing as you, maybe not necessarily the same industry, but the same kind of path as you, what advice would you give them?

[00:32:14] William Warren: The first thing I would do is, you know, with creative work, the work we do can be kind of vague ambiguous, amorphous, like, it's hard to pin down creative services. It's not like, you know a plumber or a dentist or something where you know exactly what you're getting. So with creative work, I think there's a big obstacle, which is that how do we communicate what we do to non creative people because most of our clients they're not creative or they're not traditional creative like like we are So I encourage creatives to spend a lot of time really thinking about how they can turn what they're doing into a product that has a process that can be understood by non creative folks and then talking about it, you know, this is our blah, blah, blah product and this is our five step process, you know, those kind of, that kind of language helps non creative people wrap their brain around what they're buying because, you know, creative services, good ones are not cheap.

[00:33:15] So it needs to be communicated in a way that communicates the value, communicates the the problems that it's going to solve, the pain points it's going to alleviate. Okay. I think a lot of creatives we know what we do. We know it's awesome and we're ready to do it for people, but we don't do a good job of communicating why it's valuable, the process you will take and why somebody needs to invest in it.

[00:33:42] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Great. I love it. William, this has been fantastic. I know you've got a book as well. So tell us about the book real quick. And then where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:33:54] William Warren: Sure thing. So last year, actually it was a year and a half ago at this point, I wrote a book, it's called the conquering creative.

[00:33:59] And it's about a lot of what we just talked about. It's a business book for creative people because If, you know, if your listener is anyone like me, they were once upon a time a creative and they decided to turn their creative passion into a profession or into a career. And that can be a tough journey going from doing something you love, something you're good at, and then all of a sudden wanting to.

[00:34:21] Make money from it and turn into a sustainable business. So I wrote a book distilling 10 years, actually I think it was more like eight or nine years of lessons learned into nine key lessons or nine shifts rather around everything from finance to sales, to self care you name it. This is sort of my my book to help creative people who are going on a business journey, do it with excellence and grow a creative career of their dreams.

[00:34:48] So it's called the conquering creative. encourage people to check it out. If people want to get in touch with me, they can find me at [email protected]. Online at theSketchEffect.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn and pretty active there as well. So just search William Warren on LinkedIn and let's connect.

[00:35:08] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for being on today.

[00:35:10] William Warren: Yeah. Enjoyed it. Thanks.

[00:35:14] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.