#storytellerjewels this episode, I interview Andy Rycroft. Listen in as he describes the benefits of creating content on the fly based on the feedback you’ve just got from your client.
Andy Rycroft The benefit of that is that you deliver much more relevant information on DH. You show a lot law vulnerability on doing so. People going on that journey with you. There’s more of a connection along with human.
#storytellerjewels Welcome to the telling of Story podcast. I’m your host, storyteller jewels. And along with my guests, it’s mind ever to explore the art and science of storytelling to attract, engage and retain a business audience and tow. Unpack why it works for some and not for the many that try today. It is my pleasure to interview Andy Rycroft. Any for many years has been a designer and creative director working in the UK, Italy in Australia, fine tuning his craft towards the business value of creative services, managing designers and outcomes and then in 2000, marking management for corporate after more than 20 years of bringing design value to business. And he is now flipped his attention to bring business thinking too. Creative artists choosing to design coaching programmes for artists and creatives who want to create income and value from their talent and experience. Andy, welcome to the show.
Andy Rycroft Many Thanks, Jules. I really appreciate it.
#storytellerjewels Andy you started as a designer. How did you end up in a suit? And where we on that journey?
Andy Rycroft Well, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a conscious decision or journey. I think you just it just evolved. But how it evolved is we start off with skill and a town with design, and you go to uni and you have a great time and you explore all the ends of where your creativity didn’t go. But once you come out in the real world, I think it’s very difficult to know where you fit in how to. Actually, I actually get along with a bigger business on work with a team on a different outcome. So it’s a lot less about itself and more about others. And on as I progressed through that, I realised that b the others needed a lot of management. So I think I moved more towards managing designers and managing design outcomes on DH by nature. You do you just that just scales when you’re in a creative business. I don’t think it matters what you applying creativity to. If if it works, it does scale, it does grow. So I ended up getting more and more responsible for outcomes and other people. And I’m a protagonist, so I tend to take on other people’s desires. The customer’s needs on look at other people. So I think it was just That was my nature at the time, and and, yes, I did end up in a suit. In the end, it quite quite maybe smile certainly made my mother proud, I think.
#storytellerjewels And after 20 years, what made you sort of flick the switch and decide Tio go out on your own? Was there an event or played a part in that process? Is that a natural progression?
Andy Rycroft You, take everything that you’ve learnt, and then a player craft to yourself the value that I found in and really marketing and selling what creative people couldn’t conducive for business in really tangible terms. It takes quite live wrapping your head around. How can you position that babbling on something you’re not sure about the creative processes and unsure process? You’re not entirely visible. What the outcome is going to be any time in project. So e. I think the challenge was just to really stayed conscious with that on grow into that area of looking at what the behaviours of the team were on, what the outcome needed to be from a customer. And I think flipping it back now was, I just realised how much value there was in business for designers and going on further illustrate boners and artists. So you know, they’re polar opposites, you would think, but they both have considerable overlap. Designers really think of things very holistically a lot of the time. They also serving a customer for a need to promote one thing or another. So they have a lot of empathy on DH that empathy drives, drives a different kind of behaviour over time. I think, really look at the people around you, the environment, what kind of studio? How do we bring people into this environment? How do we translate? What is business too creative and back again? And, it always fascinated me, so I got to working with a lot more designers over the last 45 years, and it really lit my I mean my fire for really reaching out and getting them going, because but the end of the day, nine times outta 10 a designer is paid either a salary or by the hour to do the work that they’re doing, and that’s how they sustain themselves. So I wanted to see if there was something more, because this you probably know a designer that’s been in a role for 10, 15, 20 years really struggles. To turn on the creativity and really allow enough time for themselves to be truly creative. It tends to dwindle unless it’s continuously moving. So I started helping designers, and then I started helping my wife, who’s ah. Published illustrator Done a dozen or more books on DH, applying some of the thinking about how you formulate an idea how you planned for it, how you look, a TTE what return from you need and the support that you need around it on. We started working together on Dove course when we did that on DH launch that side of her career online. A lot more people wanted to know how we did that, so I just felt it was the opportunity. To give people an insight into the journey. We were happy having being only one or two steps ahead of it.
#storytellerjewels And so you’re almost learning on the fly and then using that as part of your process. To help others to do that as well.
Andy Rycroft Yeah, 100%. 100%. The the experience I had a university was to spend a lot of protected time learning about something and enjoying. But then, as you’re doing a project, means very often now you’re testing and you’re you’re finding out on the feedback means to drive the design, and that means to drive the project as well. So there’s an enormous amount of compromise on DH change that happens while you’re moving. And you can embrace that. Or you could, you know, hire a very rigid project manager to keep you right on track. But, I mean, I’ve been immersed in that kind of agile methodology for us for five years in business. And why wouldn’t you apply that to other areas? So Yes, we very much lay the track as we as the train goes along, and sometimes it gets a little bit scary. Wallace and Gromit images coming into my mind, but its little bit like that. But the benefit of that is that you deliver much more relevant information on DH. You show a lot laws, vulnerability on doing so. People going on that journey with you there there’s more of a connection along with human. So what?
#storytellerjewels I want to come back to that human element in a second. But can you describe for me either the differences or the similarities in a lot of the learnings that you had over the 20 year corporate career versus some of the things that you’re trying to do now, Is there an overlap? Are they completely polar opposites? Or is there some learnings that you’ve taken from the corporate world into into the creative space?
Andy Rycroft Corporate world moves a lot slower, you know, so time to realise what is going on, and there’s a lot more moving parts of a lot more people. It’s a lot more risk contingency. So, yes, there’s a lot I’ve learned, but a lot of it is quite damaging to a creative some of it I’ve really needed to hang on to on DSO not so much, but I’m specifically talking about design, thinking and the tools within that allow visualisation to occur in the business world. Mind maps, journey maps, things like this allow you to connect back to a more visual making a market a whiteboard kind of experience. So I definitely used a lot of those things because when you put a mind map in front of a creative who is overwhelmed and they’ve got 1000 ideas, but they don’t know the right path, they don’t know the first one. They don’t know why that one’s better than that one. Then things like my maps and connectivity and building outs and plans and actually working out personas and characters. They’re just like, you know, actors on a stage, so it does translate really well. It’s just that it is a literal translation of language. So we use Lean Canvas and on that sort of thing to express a creative idea, because you could get to that ideal real quick, try it out real quick and not feel precious about it. On DH, Start again on DH. Artist is very capable of showing up every day on DH, drawing on a piece of paper, not knowing that it’s going to work out on being quite happy to throw it in the bin afterwards, too. So I think I tried to leverage a bit of both sides to make that happen. A lot of it was translation.
#storytellerjewels So from a creative perspective, was a matter of enabling them with the structure that perhaps they didn’t have to get that creative process out. So it’s the art again, kind of the art and the science mixed in together and getting that balance right, so that they’re able to produce at the high quality level from a creative perspective. But do with the diligence of a corporate structure if they make sense.
Andy Rycroft Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what the but the structure is exactly. You know, if you’re structured about doing a piece of art, that it’s very inhibits the creativity in front of you. So the structure isn’t also about creating the environment that they conducted in the time on DH having the support of the people around them. I understand the value of this highest level value of why they’re doing it on what it could do for other people. So yet the structure that we’ve really focused in on is to not plan creatives life within an inch of their life because they will run a mile real fast. But it’s more like just recognising something’s on DH, creating some space to allow for it to happen. Thinking about time rather than disappearing on DH. Having a secret project having a public project on DH, not disappearing. Look just going away for a period of time to allow something to to happen in that space. And preparing for that something to happen, too. So, yes, that this there’s a lot of things that could really work for creative but the structure, word and the money word of two words that we tend to tend to not avoid but just look at differently.
#storytellerjewels So you mentioned the human element. So coming back to that comment that you had, how big a part does that play when you’re telling your Story or telling the story of building a practise. And you know, putting some structure around things that perhaps they’re not used to putting structure around but leaving that space so they can be creative? Tell me a bit about that human side and how that plays a part in the story of how it all comes together.
Andy Rycroft Yeah, well, I think a lot of associate creativity or fun or play with on earlier time in her life. Many of the habits that we’ve got to come from playing the experience is often so. I think, try Teo is just celebrate that the human side, you know you got you got 34 core problems of creative that wants to actually be an entrepreneur, wants to actually do their own thing and just say, Look, I’m an artist. This is me on my own right? Valuable. The few things they get very overwhelmed, a lot of ideas. They are often struggle for time on DH struggle for self confidence as well. Am I good enough? Right now is with so much imagery available tours in such official media, such as instagram and everything. It’s very difficult for people look at on DH, see their value in their place in that and see what’s different about what they have to offer. So I think with all of those things, there’s a you’ve got to celebrate back human and that vulnerability, and that not knowing quite what to do about those things. So we tend to. We tend to look at the hero with those great moments. Was really, really call things where you found out something. Oh, are you really enjoyed something or you were terrified and it was great And I’m thinking about you jumping off the pier. Jewels, we’ve had this conversation a couple of times, but it’s that excitement is a child of not knowing and feeling pressure on DH. Then they’re enjoying the experience and just moving up a level changing, witnessing change within yourself, then doing it again. So that’s that’s really the human side of it. It’s what is really that moment for you as a younger person, as a child or maybe even last week. That really defines you, the most devout defining. But I think really showed you that what you’re capable off what your possible off. So we try to, celebrate that human side of it, the vulnerability of all those things that I mentioned, plus the kind of super strength that you’ve got. We encourage you to just work with that. The humanity of it is that we live only to find a place within this world where we’ve well balanced on Biff. You’re creative and you’re stuck in a desk job. You’re not gonna have that. So there’s a kind of a bigger there’s a bigger balancing that way really wanted to focus in on that human side, which is you are creative. You have value. You have a super power strength of some kind. It’s normally because you found joy and doing something else on DH. That’s what we’re going to work with and apply that with your creative capability and go out there on get it done. So that was quite when we when we figure a couple of these things out, all we wanted to do is try it out and see if the idea was even viable. Is they like, what? What on earth will be talking about? What we were thinking about anyway, we really knew was to. Capture it and of course, that that’s where things like million campus comes in and wait did that real quick, and we decided to try it out, see what happened and how people would respond to that kind of thinking.
#storytellerjewels So having made the leap and forming your own business is a quite scary for a lot of people, and one of the beer struggles always is the first bunch of clients attracting an audience holding that audience. Retain that audience for any period of time, engaging that audience. Describe for me the early part of the process when you first ventured into this direction, what that sort of looked like on DH, the first bit of tribe that you were gathering. And then, you know, more later did that change. Has that developed? What does that look like Now, if it’s different, describe for us.
Andy Rycroft If you’re venturing in this direction, how do you get those first few players to come along and join for me? It’s fundamentally the other way around. With business you tend to have. This is our business divisions Target. This is what we’re going to do. You get us that you know, you people that know marketing and sales and you get us there. That’s your job, right? So I knew how to do that. But going on DH starting this business, I didn’t have any metrics to work with. It all didn’t even really have a target in mind. I was just thinking, What are the measures here. What is important to know once I can fix down on one or two of these, then surely the scale there because there’s enough people on DH. You know, I’ve read about knishes or letters as they call them in the US on DH micro natures and this idea that there are enough specialist people. If you get it that time and you find the right people, then they will be coming to you for that one thing. And that’s that very loyal. That’s that. That’s the holy grail of it all on, that’s what. Wow, that’s a That’s a really interesting contrast, so I could do anything I want rather than serving the audience with a product that I think we’ll sell Onda Target that I need to hit on DH. I flipped to the other way around. Think well, are there enough people interested in this one thing? And the only way you can find out is to actually put it out there. So we off the back of off the back of a summit at the end of last year, where way invited a lot of artists and credits talk about productivity in how they managed that time in life. It really sparked a bunch of questions for Nina and I. We put together a five date challenge during the summit, which is the laying the tracks of the train, very much so. So we invited people to this challenge that we had an outline off. When you bring 4, 500 people into a room and you say we’ve got a challenge and we just made it up and we’ve made it up because that’s what you guys have been talking about on. We recognise these things then then that all of a sudden for me, the analyst is going mad, thinking this wonderful on. Did you get this information on? The promoter in me is thinking there’s 400 people here. What if they both something a products? I think so. This was an extremely warm set of Leeds because they were giving a narrow day of their time over a week to something that we had just literally made up well cobbled together for them. Specifically, I thought, Wow, this is incredible. Connexion with a bunch of customers. Now flip that back to corporate world. Imagine you go to a conference and you took and you have a great thing. And during that talk, you realise that the audience is responding in a way and you bring they belong to an idea. Do you think out of a pact Sky City Conference centre, for instance, which can’t even happen right now. Do you think 400 people will come along toe on idea on DH, then be receptive to spending their own time doing it, to discover something about themselves, to then go to invest in a programme that you create on the fly during the challenge as well. And that’s when it really hit me. How different it was on how engage the audience, where on how fundamentally a part of the creation of it they were. And Fats Really, what did it for? May I really enjoyed the whole process? Scary. Is it was?
#storytellerjewels How important was it, or is it to be as transparent as you’ve just described it? Or was there a little bit of smoke and mirrors that it appeared like he knew what you’re doing? Or you totally transparent and vulnerable in that process?
Andy Rycroft How important you can try and be slick because you can imagine at that point, I’m transitioning from wearing the suit, Teo wearing not the suit and going through this journey with creatives and thinking, You know, I’m in control here. So the comptroller of me takes over an idea with Here’s the programme is really good. There’s a good workbook. It will provide you that these results isn’t it fantastic and the typical sells thing kicks in. Are you really doing that? When you’ve got an interactive audience on DH, you soon come on down its hub or if you don’t, it’s incredibly hard work. I found really early that it’s much better to be totally authentic on DH, not edit or not. No worry about the controlling the environment as much as I had done in corporate past, when you’ve got a team and as a picture, and it’s important for the well being of the company and bunch of other people. So for us this time around, it was remarkably different in that regard. Yeah, I mean, you’ve described it beautifully when you said that you were, you had an audience in mind and type of person that you wanted to help and then built the right product for them to solve a problem that they had, as opposed to many corporate CE who will build a product and then go look for a person who wants to buy meant yes, it’s a very different process, right, so very fortunate that we’re not manufacturing anything we don’t have toe. Wait, don’t have to go through all of that. But asking audience, what do you want? Is also fraught with problems, too. But we took a lot of stairs and I’m asking asking for a lot of feedback all the time is really beneficial, I guess. Our home, your message. We didn’t even know our correct audience demographic to start with. Of course you wouldn’t. If you haven’t had a single customer, you can only guess So you make a couple of assumptions on those things and you start asking questions and you stop putting out questionnaires of feeding the information back in it. It was quite obvious who the timing audiences were. Andi, we’re very transparent with them because we want to know more about the Mr. It’s not like we know who you are, and it’s a secret and we don’t want to know any more about you. We just wanted Teo sell you something. It sze not at all like that. It’s There’s a common set of problems for a common type person on DH. We have we have to clear personas that overlap really well in their behaviour on DH, that’s come out of feedback as well.
#storytellerjewels There’s a come a couple of famous quotes that come to mind. One was from Henry Ford, who said, If I asked the audience what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. There was one that came to mind, and the other one that comes to mind is, if you’re trying to design a a unicorn with a committee, you end up with a donkey with stripes and pink ears, right? So what? How dangerous is it to ask too many questions of the audience? Do they really know what they want? Or is there a bit of direction that you need to maintain in a bit of strength?
Andy Rycroft When it comes to, the design and the delivery of something that’s valuable to the majority, I guess, rather than individuals guesses, it’s different depending on what you’re offering right. If you’re offering a skill, we’ll have people sign up for to learn something, Come and go on DH, that’s that. That’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. But I think finding out why people need to learn that skill on what fundamental challenge that they’ve got on, why they think that’s going to solve it and where they want to be on then, looking at the audience that is achieved, that result on DH then, looking at the difference between the two on bears your programme in the middle somewhere, Andi product What? It would never where you wantto describe it. But we we really found that that it was important for us tow the journey they wanted to go on and what it meant to them on maybe how long they’ve been in that place. Typical kind of sales enrollment kind of stuff. What is your biggest challenge and why is that a challenge? And why is that a challenge? And what does that mean? And what does it do to you and what does it do to the people around you and then build it back up again into that vision of what you’re trying to achieve? What is possible for your for your aunt. And if you don’t know that, tell us about the feeling that it gives you And what, that what that potential might be. Wouldn’t you like to spend more time in that when you’d like to be sustainable or wealthy from that? Or wouldn’t you like to impact other people? So I think he was just It was just really going into the challenge that they had law on DH then, looking at people that have overcome those challenges on DH seeing what the difference was and what their behaviours were on a day to day basis or what? Their first kind of moments of this is worth it that this investment are making this idea that I’m pushing this. Yes, I think that’s going to take up a lot of time, maybe even start a job. Or maybe I have to, you know, enrol my partner to support this and maybe some friends and stuff like that. Whatever it is, I’ve got to now ask all these people of that. So even articulation of that idea for many creative is nearly impossible. Why you doing it? You know that sort of thing. So you’ve talked a lot about authenticity. You’ve talked a lot about getting feedback and using that feedback as your fuel to then sort of get to the next stage of what other things other. Any other factors at a super important when you’re when you’re building an audience, you know such a CZ, you know, the frequency of the contact, for example, or the quality of the content or your attitude, Or is there something else? They plays a big part in building that audience and that trust wear. So learning this as we go right? But we’re on, we’re on. Lots of learning courses were reading a lot. We’re experiencing a lot because we’re signing up for everything as well. I don’t know. I think there is. You have to have an authenticity about it. And if you have a difference in the way that you communicate on DH, that’s just another point of difference which could actually work in your favour or against you. So don’t think there’s any right or wrong, but there are. There are lots of pipeline kind of methods, formulas, ideas you can use to go to the audience, and of course, there’s loads of channels. Some are more effective than others. Some worm or engaging in other. Some have Maura transaction about them. But wait, we chose to build in our channel. It’s a really high converting a place where we can have a regular conversation. But we can also break out of that regular conversation with things that were doing or things that were involved with that relate to it. So we find email channel really good on DH on the messaging and frequency of that is fairly regular. Ondas we built towards events were doing an online event at the moment on DH ahs we built towards these things. It crescendos into this activity and questionnaires and mohr for feedback. And then we’ll spill out onto other media like we’ll do, Ah, Facebook Group or something like that, Public or private will try Teo. Generate more feedback so that we know when we do the event that it’s something that is going toe. He’s going to hit the mark and maybe maybe have a conversation that’s a little different from other ones that are out there, which are typically teaching you a skill in art or craft or design. We’re really trying to answer you know why? Why Creatives investment In what Maiden break out into that Wendy, could they stop their day job? How do they think about productive with that kind of stuff? So you were trying to we’re trying to feed that information back into the community and grow that email base. Onda frequency of it is, you know, it’s reasonably regular. Has to say tone, absolutely authentic. It’s too hard to do anything else. Video. Definitely my first ever video straight to camera without anyone else interviews or other. I didn’t get past the first five seconds, and it really this is genuine number 97 takes of doing it, so I just can’t do it. I just cannot go in front of camera, but I can took an interview. So I think I think finding that style sort of defines your frequency, and you might want to find a new frequency of communication or a new tone. If you want to finish down your audience. Ahs well, so a new plan out content and the delivery off such do you actually sit down, have a process do created ahead of time and then, you know, put the effort into the technology and all the bits and pieces and then distributed. Or is it a lot? Mohr, Just in time kind of content where you’re learning and listening from your audience and then on the back of that, producing a piece of content in getting it straight out there? What’s your thought process around? Around that way, the moment or content fits under the same kind of category. It’s kind of required needed. Is it a question mark on DH? It’s also broke, breaking down into what we can automate, which is really valuable to a customer because it’s relevant quick and straight way on. What is something of a something that we respond to, or something that we actually need to regularly keep people involved with the programme of work. So, yeah, I think it’s becoming much more refined all the time for us. I’d like to focus as much as possible on what is what is currently what is the, actual discussion and trying to achieve the feedback because within that that will give us an idea of what the next event product will be on. Then we’ll we’ll really dive and mine into those areas to see, you know whether there’s a real value in that, then we’ll try and make be choice. But the programme of of communications is so much more and so much more possible than life within corporate and an email on a phone s Oh, it’s much more dynamic than we could do so much more with it and there’s certainly more platforms that we can play with. And of course as there’s only two of us in this directing this company, we could make decisions really quickly. So yet programme exists way work. We worked together on Trillo in time planning and planning away and things like that. Just make sure that we’re not overloading people on that. We have two businesses, right, so they’re overlap, so we don’t want to overlap too much in the wrong way. We want to also find our own rhythm with our family and our own downed time too. So all considerations are on the table on DH. You know, we go through periods of stepping back from this and looking at all the things on, then reassembling it, getting tight and then breathing again. So it’s probably a cycle of I guess it’s fundamentally changed. Three or four times in the last year. So that seems to be a cycle every quarter where we really look. ATT. How are laying it out? What could be automated? What’s the bigger message that we’re trying to put out? How do we actually react to engage? Rather just market. So, yeah, that people want a lot of time. So wait very generous with my calendar’s open, too. A few 100 people at any given moment to book a time with me to talk through Ah ah, block or an issue on idea that then possibly will need into the programmes that we offer. So I’m open. I’m open for that And that’s three very different corporate world working in sales or marketing. Of course you’re open your telephone’s there, but no one ever calls you the. Traffic’s always the other way around. Is there a danger? You know, with a all the platforms available with a all this openness with a all this transparency Is there a danger of complete overwhelmed on No, no balance between life and work on DH, you know, just getting the stress of it all, getting too much. What’s how you place totally tonally was talking, talking with the north of this morning about exactly that on DH, then going into a book for a couple of years. Process, big process, a lot of isolation, lot of Internalisation a lot of working on their own thing, without really getting reward or feedback through the way really hard thing. I wouldn’t dream of doing it myself, but you know, To have to have on every you go into that isolated I think it’s a different area, too, a cz moving forwards and trying to communicate with it with our audience and try and build product as we as we move into that. So I think I think they were just looking forward to a way of suiting our customer and changing our product to adapt to that. And by that I mean keeping to the one thing the one core idea and the biggest change for me. Wass window announced this. How do I say this? I’m on linked in over here as a professional. I’m over here as a creative coach working within brand the audience. So what stage do I tell each other about the police? New personality types and how do I communicate? I think that’s one of the biggest and strangest transitions. Like, what time are you that new thing? And you’ve left that other thing behind, Or can they co exist? Or how does it work? And what do you say to people? So it was very, very difficult in the early time to really get the message clear about what that was and two ask for help essentially and tow have people involved in that process of transitioning from one totally different career space and language of head space and everything else into another, more difficult transition.
#storytellerjewels Where did you land on that? If you were to describe, Are you still having those two juxtapositions of personality? If you like their corporate Andy and the creative Andy, or is it now blended into one? You call yourself a four letter in this process. What’s the personal brand now look like?
Andy Rycroft Yes, personal brand now is I’m really I value in any space. I can offer it to the corporate. I can offer it to the creatives, and that’s exactly what I’ve I’ve learned. I can do either or both, potentially at the same time, it’s really about providing value around creatives and allowing them to actually be productive and provide value to corporate to the public to themselves. So I think it it plays well. I think it plays well together. I would describe myself as just someone that’s that is a creative, but it’s not as a graphic designer as I used to be. A it’s on. I wouldn’t say bigger things, but it’s on different things. It’s still applying design, thinking to different things in different situations, So I think it’s very transferrable, so to unlock that incorporates tohave. Corporate people think creatively on DH, allow for unknown on allows of vulnerability, Laufer sharing and mess to jean and feedback to occur, and quick decisions and choices to be made. Yeah, there’s a tonne of values there for them. Andi, you know, being pushing that for 20 something years now, I’m taking some of that back to the creatives, and I know that they’re responding really well, so I don’t see why either of them it’s still just putting a fire under creativity and making that grow. That’s still the same task. So I think I’m defined by what I do on what I do is both, So I’m not prepared to put a label on it right now. It’s joyous. Teo, here the cycle that you’ve just described there, where you started off with a label 20 odd years ago. Creative. And then you probably worked your butt off. To, gain some new labels, you know, team leader, manager, director CEO. You know you wanted all these. You know, we’ve all strive for those extra labels and you’ve come full circle. And now you describe yourself as creative once more. Which is we’re gonna shore for sure, because the labels actually, they’re definitely a goal or a trophy on me, but they don’t actually mean anything. Ah, nde. You know, that same label in another company committed a completely different thing. That’s the thing. I mean, it’s just like the Corporates need the the name tags and the corporate structure to exist on the modern. More faster moving ones have a much flatter structure on DH, broken out into squads, bods and all kinds of situations air agile, but are now apply to all areas of corporate. And it is it’s like it’s like they’ve opened the creative box and not really known What what to expect, and it’s a time of incredible turmoil. But that’s not design. That’s just that’s just a means of moving forwards faster without the same. A construct of a company. But it allows for a tonne of chaos and allows for a lot of inefficiency. Loads perceived that it will be more efficient. It’s allows for more inefficiency if it’s not managed correctly. So for me, there’s still a tonne of work to be done and to allow creativity to survive within bigger corporate and actually help it drive the way forwards with the customer. And I’ll never stop on that journey, No way. But for creators of the moment I’m seeing I’m seeing credits that make well over a million dollars, you know, And then, unless selling a talent own mass as a digital product that has 98% margin on DH, they’re able to do it, and they’ve got a 10,000 email list, and there are growing on. They’ve got a team of people you think hang on. This is this is someone that makes pottery, then making as much as a CEO. They’re behaving like a CEO on DH. They’ve really figured out and what’s Maura’s? They absolutely love it because they get to create business that they then gives them a job doing exactly what they are designed to be a human being. So if the ones that have sent it out really well we’re talking people that have been trying to do this for five, some of them 10 years. But they’re really rare. So it’s really a I just thought there’s more growth in that than there is in creativity and growth incorporates right now. And I’m or interested in that. I’m more interested in that sort of post covert revolution of creatives and creators getting out there on the audience that is wanting and missing something in their life. They want to get on a journey with these people.
#storytellerjewels Fabulous, Andy. My final question for the day. If someone paid you a million dollars to pick your brain, but you only had a few minutes, what would you say to them?
Andy Rycroft I’d say go for a cz Many things that give you that there’s that feeling on of unsure unknown on DH know that they’re not going toe kill you. You’re going to learn a lot from doing that I think be creative and everything you do Think about what it is tied to you as a person. What do you stand for? Not just his failures and stuff like that, because they’re the same values that everyone’s gonna happen, really are your values and why they are about is because of what and what what’s underneath it all. When you have that, then you’re going to get Teo authentic self. When you going to do then is find out how many people actually like that on DH. That goes for whether you’re within a corporate or whether your outside of a corporate your creative entrepreneur. I think the most important thing is tio. No, that, yes, you can follow the script and read a book on Be very intelligent and you could be the smartest developer in the room, etcetera. All these things a really awesome. However, it doesn’t mean really anything if if there’s no bigger purpose there and you don’t know why it doesn’t fit with anything else, you could be smart, but I think it’s much more powerful to be vulnerable.
#storytellerjewels Andy. It’s been an absolute pleasure to interview you today. Where can people find out a little bit more about you.
Andy Rycroft https://www.creativeproductivity.online is our website where we do the start of this journey started this work that we’re trying to put out too creative to get them involved, We’re doing events and we’re doing some It’s all the time. So go there and sign up and have a read and have a look at what other people have being experiencing and the effect that would trying to make you get on board.
#storytellerjewels Thanks, Andy.
Andy Rycroft It’s an absolute pleasure, Jewels. Thanks, mate.
#storytellerjewels I’ve been following in his progress for some time. What I’ve learned from watching his business grow is that you must be okay with and even celebrate the little advances you make early on as building a following is a compounding effect. One turns into 10 10 turns into 101 102,000 and so on. Been a joy to watch is growth. If you’d like to find out, Mohr, head over to the telling of storey dot com for the show notes. Make sure you are subscribed and please leave a comment or writing. I really do appreciate it. Much Love chat Soon