What is Parcel, and how are you different from other studios?
Parcel is a brand strategy and communication design firm.
Because we believe that a brand lives in the subtext, we challenge ourselves to ensure we are always reflecting on our own subtext—the undercurrent that influences everything we do and why we do it. At Parcel, we’ve identified our subtext as being inspired. We want work to be inspiring. We want to feel inspired by our colleagues and clients. We want inspiration to be part of every day. This is not easy, but it’s what we aim for. We do a good job of using inspiration as a filter for the projects we take on and the work we produce, and that makes us a little different that other studios in the city.
You operate the business side of things at Parcel. Is running a creative business different in any way from what most would consider a “normal” business?
I don’t think the business of creativity is different from others, and in fact I would say our business is often about locating the creative core of every business we work with. We provide a service and our success relies on how well we deliver on our clients’ needs. Like any other kind of business, our success relies on the skill of our team and ability to manage relationships.
You get involved in the creative process early on in projects. Is it something you enjoy or would like to do more often?
I personally love the idea generation phase of a project and so I’m involved in that whenever I can be. But there are others at Parcel who now take the lead in this area and I’m happy to have them do that while I focus on my role. My role these days is about ensuring we stay true to our culture, that we are thinking long term, and, that we don’t lose sight of finding the inspiration in our work, every day.
What do most creatives not realize about the business process?
Being good at your craft does not make you good at business. Managing your studio, cash flow, business development, how to lead a team—these are all skills you need to have, learn, or hire for.
Design and business are often portrayed as two opposing forces, but often good design is in harmony with good business. At Parcel, how do you find balance between them?
We try to balance being process-driven and being idea-driven. We work hard at alignment between the three partners. Gary Beelik runs design, Erin Brand leads brand strategy and content generation, and I run operations and ensure we are future-focused. We have a weekly meeting for making decisions and we work hard to find a balance between getting the job done well, and getting the job well, done. We don’t always agree but we strive for alignment with the business objectives.
At the early stages of Parcel you had to “Pivot” the idea of the company. Can you tell us about this and was it a difficult process, from both an emotional and business perspective?
When I started Parcel, I was keen to do something different. I saw a big gaping hole in the brand-product business. The premium and incentive industry is huge but no one was doing it from a design or branding perspective. Parcel enjoyed a lot of success in the early years, and developed some fun, truly unique projects, attracting amazing clients like Air Miles, Telus, Yves Saint Laurent and ING. But as we dealt with overseas suppliers, the margins were slim and the margin for error huge. Cash flow was challenging and I started to feel like I was surrounded by “stuff”. A business consultant I worked with, Paula Jubinville, opened my eyes to the reality of where the success and passion in the business was – it was in our branding expertise and not our ability to put branding on products. Two years later, we finally abandoned the branded-gift business, but we brought with us the ability to think dimensionally, as well as an amazing arsenal of suppliers and resources for getting cool things produced.
Have you ever had to fire a client? If so, why and what was the thought process that went into that difficult position.
We have walked away from clients mid-project and, through those experiences, we have learned to filter our opportunities in a much better way. There are many filtering criteria that we use to sniff out partnerships that are likely to go south. We trust our instincts more. We want to work with people we like who bring passion to their projects. We value fairness and we never treat our suppliers badly. We expect our clients to view us the same way—as trusted experts.
Parcel has a reputation for doing excellent work in Toronto. What active steps do you take to cultivate this?
Our reputation is built on the outstanding talent that we’re able to attract. We’ve created an excellent work environment where our team is inspired to bring their very best to work, every day. We encourage an entrepreneurial mind-set, we trust our team members to manage their time, help each other out when the workload is unbalanced and we value (and expect) fairness.
If there was one big business lesson you learned, what was it?
As much as you’d like to think you can do anything, it’s important to identify where you can bring the most value to your business and focus most of your time on that. Find people that you trust and who are really good at everything else, and then get out of their way.
