082 | Hiring a team with Sarah Parrott Bianculli, Parrott Design (Part 2)

Sarah Parrott is the founder of Parrott Design Studio and this is Part 2 of her interview. If you missed Part 1 which was Episode 81, I recommend you head back and listen to that one first.

Here on Part 2, Sarah talks about hiring a team, how she started slowly delegating and fears she had around letting go of things in her business, we talked about her multiple revenue streams and the pros / cons of having multiple businesses, navigating tough seasons in life while owning a business and how Sarah’s definition of success for her business has changed over the years.

As background, Parrott Design Studio is a letterpress studio in Sebago, a lake town in Western Maine. The studio was established in 2007 by Sarah Parrott with a small Print Gocco, an inexpensive and easy to use screen printing tool that originated in Japan. That same year she took her first course in letterpress, learning to use a Vandercook press.

In 2008 she purchased her own press, an 1898 Golding Jobber platen press. At the time there were no courses to learn on that type of press, and she spent a year teaching herself how to use it. She fell in love with the centuries-old artisinal printing technique and the process of feeding the press one piece at a time, one color at a time. In 2010 she left her job as an event planner to pursue Parrott Design Studio full time. Sarah is one of our original Paper Camp alumni. She attended our very first round of Paper Camp classes in 2011 before exhibiting at the National Stationery Show in 2012.

ON TODAY’S EPISODE:

How her team has shifted during different seasons
The event space Sarah & her husband opened
How her multiple revenue streams are intertwined
The pros and cons of running three businesses at one time
How she managed her businesses through a difficult season in her personal life
Sarah’s definition of success and how it has changed over the years
Her advice for someone just starting out in a product-based business

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KEY TAKE-AWAYS

“There’s a lot of benefit to hiring people that already understand your business or have followed you for a while.” – Katie Hunt

“I always love weddings, no matter what I’m doing, and still doing wedding-related things.” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

“It’s so funny because we never set out to be in weddings or even to be entrepreneurs, and it all seemed very natural. Nothing’s been forced. It just worked.” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

“They kind of all have different times where they are busy, so I’m not depending on just one of them as my main source of income.” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

“It’s okay to say no and it’s okay if something doesn’t work or it’s okay to walk away from something because it’s your business and you can make that decision for what works the best, because if you don’t, why are you doing it?” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

“One person’s startup story is not the same as another person’s story, and neither one is right or wrong. It’s whatever works for you.” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

“When you’re first starting, you’re looking to a lot of people because they’re your inspiration, and you just have to know that how they did it might not work for you. It might, but it probably won’t.” – Sarah Parrott Bianculli

CONNECT WITH SARAH PARROTT

Website: Parrott Design Studio | Instagram: @parrottdesign | Facebook: @parrottdesignstudio | Pinterest: @parrottdesign

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct