In this episode, Terri welcomes Philip Parker, Managing Director of Holland Parker, a company that migrates businesses from fragmented corporate performance management applications to the modern, unified OneStream platform.
Philip and Terri discuss how Holland Parker has maintained a competitive edge with exceptional customer service and how they have been able to stay on top of marketing trends through brand alignment and collaborative efforts with Marketing Refresh.
Philip talks about how persistence and patience have been paramount to seeing the long-term results that have had a huge impact on his business. They also discuss the need for consistency in branding, the art of understanding his various customer personas, and the critical role of client feedback in refining marketing strategies.
For more information on Holland Parker, visit their website.
Key Topics:
- Importance of Differentiation in Marketing
- How endurance in marketing efforts creates an impact
- The goal for marketing and business development opportunities
- Creating accountability through metrics in marketing
- How to create authenticity in brand representation
- The synergy of sales and marketing
Full Episode Transcript
Terri Hoffman:
This is B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it. Embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join us as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys. Okay. Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods.
Terri Hoffman:
Today, we are really happy to have as our guest Philip Parker. Philip is the managing director of Holland Parker. And, Philip, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate you being here.
Philip Parker:
Yeah. Appreciate it, Terri. Thank you for having me on y’all’s podcast, and happy to be here.
Terri Hoffman:
Awesome. Well, why don’t we start with introductions, basic introductions? Tell me about Holland Parker and how you started the business.
Philip Parker:
So Holland Parker. I started Holland Parker in 2012. I’ve been a career consultant and working with technology for the past 25 years in various capacities, whether it was implementing CRM systems or running network cable or just always had a passion for technology and happened to be able to build a career off of implementing finance and accounting software. And so in 2012, I embarked upon starting Apollo and Parker. I’m been in business for 12 years, and hopefully, I’ll be in business for the next 20 or 30 years.
Terri Hoffman:
I definitely feel that one. So tell me what Holland Parker specializes in.
Philip Parker:
We’re known for, implementing software, for large midsize to large, companies, in the finance and accounting space. We hope that we enable finance and accounting users to not only report their financials, but to also analyze their financials and make better decisions as they’re trying to make decisions about their business.
Terri Hoffman:
You guys work with a lot of companies that even have several subsidiaries. Isn’t that right? When they have to kind of figure out how to accumulate that data.
Philip Parker:
Manufacture or whatnot, but we work with a lot of companies that you would never know what products they may manufacture or whatnot, but we work with a lot of companies that are household names or up on the billboard and whatnot. And a lot of times underneath it, you really don’t understand or you don’t see, not understand, but don’t see what the how those companies are, actually built from a corporate structure. And so they may have manufacturing facilities all over the world. They may have their corporate offices in 2 or 3 different cities. They may do heavy acquisitions where they or divestitures where they acquire companies that have, have a totally different currency, all the different accounting methods that they’re all trying to bring that data together. And, again, not just to make cut like, high-level financial reporting and understand how much money they’re making or how many how much, what their expenses may be, but also down to the transaction level when a transaction is made, when an invoice is actually generated, and how that affects the business.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. So you’re in a pretty competitive market against, really big names. Right? A lot of your top competitors are very well known, what used to be called the big six. Right? Consulting firms. So how do you look at competing in your market and, you know, how you differentiate Holland Parker in your field?
Philip Parker:
Good question. You know, typically, from a standpoint of competing with the big 6 or big 4 or very large consulting firms, a lot of it is our customer service and how we interact with our customers and build relationships with our customer. And I’m not saying that those companies don’t do that, but, you know, it’s again, they’re there to not only maybe work on, something that we’re in our similar space, but they also do a very a vast variety of things, and we specialize technology, and we’re very good at that 20%, but it’s also 80% on building that relationship and what I like to say, making our customer, experts in the technology that we’re implementing. And it’s not just with those our competitive competitive landscape, gets very competitive as software starts growing in the market. Right? The name starts building. And so, when that happens, we also look at how do we differentiate by firms that are our size or, or a little bit larger than us. And a lot of it is, again, how we build our relationships and our dedication to making sure our clients are not just successful, but that they can actually transforms how they’re, analyzing their data or working with their financials and hopefully making their lives a little bit easier.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s awesome. I mean, I think those are important differentiators. So differentiation in the context of marketing is an important, you know, an important area of marketing because it leads to your messaging and how you’re positioning yourself in the market. So maybe you could talk you know, we’ve I think we have worked with your company for probably the last 4 to 5 years, at least somewhere in that neighborhood of time. And you guys have gone through a couple of different a couple of different journeys.
Terri Hoffman:
I don’t necessarily wanna ask you, like, how that has evolved specifically, but maybe more generally, how you have approached that and viewed it and how you viewed your positioning in the market into your marketing programs.
Philip Parker:
Yeah. I mean, I think a big I like to do, from a broader sense of marketing. I like to do things differently than what my competitors are doing or what they’re thinking about doing. And sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t work. And that willingness to retry things, I think that working with Marketing Refresh yourself as well as your team has been something that has been welcomed over the past 4 or 5 years that we worked together and the different re-refreshes that we’ve done, whether it’s through our LinkedIn profiles, our LinkedIn advertising, all the way to our websites, our material, having a consistent brand message, and how that’s evolving over years, but constantly tweaking and tuning that and reacting to the market, but also doing things that maybe the market’s not saying. You know? I’m not saying, but maybe the market hasn’t, hasn’t gravitated towards, you know, and trying new avenues. And I think that, candidly, the doing podcasts like these and things like that, you know, I think seems like they’re becoming more and more business-to-business focused instead of just consumer-focused. And, that’s why I enjoy being on this podcast today.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. Yeah. I think it gives people a really great further experience in, like, understanding how you think and how you operate and how you communicate, being on a podcast. And I’ve always appreciated that you’ve been open to new ideas, you know, just because, in the context of our relationship between our businesses, you know, we don’t expect people to do every single thing that we recommend. But we love challenging the situation and just getting people to think differently so that that’s they can continue to differentiate and stay ahead.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
You know, of of the rest of the market. And I think that’s been kind of a mutually valued part of our relationship working together.
Philip Parker:
It’s all also nice well, just because it’s also nice that both of us are going we’re somewhat going to the same journey. Right? As you started up Marketing Refresh as well and have grown through that. And, so we can share ideas around that as well.
Terri Hoffman:
Right. Yeah. That’s an important part of a partnership is, you know, you have to listen to each other and try to understand how you can marry together what your level of expertise is with where that company needs to meet you. And how my team kinda gets tired of me using this analogy, because I always show, like, this is what our clients know, this is what we know, and we have to figure out how to fuse them together. And it’s not always easy. Right? Especially if you, don’t communicate using the same style.
Terri Hoffman:
You don’t communicate using the same methods. You know, it’s all about finding that fit. Right. Yep. Yeah. So what are things that you would say, you know, in building both your business development side of the business and the marketing part of the business, what are some, like, qualities or things that have been important to you as that has evolved over the years? Like, what are the things that you’re looking for out of those functions and roles? Let’s say, for example, the internal marketing role that you have and have had at different points in the company history. What are the things that have been important to you that you’re looking for in that role?
Philip Parker:
Yeah.
Terri Hoffman:
And it could be an inside position or an outside position.
Philip Parker:
I think it started off early. Like, we’re just in our starting the relationship was being more consistent with their marketing, making sure everybody internally is on the same page. And Holland Parker, as a company, when I started it, I chose the color orange, for various reasons. We don’t have to go down that rabbit hole, but I’m very particular about the orange, And they’re sayings that y’all have done for me as well as sayings on internally that, we, you know, we maybe first round didn’t get it. So, like, for instance, maybe a marketing item like a koozie or something like that where it’s not the right you know, it’s just not the right orange, and I want it you know, are very nice to oh, okay. Fill up, we’ll find one that matches something closer. But my point is is is that I get a lot of internal feedback throughout my particularness around the color used in our documents and our logos and our our branding and whatnot.
Philip Parker:
So one being consistent, but then 2 is the outreach. So as a software implementation company, it’s very important that we not only market to our customers, but we also are marketing, for the software implementation companies as well. And those messages can be totally a little or not totally different, but, quite different. Right? And how we go about it, how we market, how we, how we cobrand things and things. And so I think the outreach is I’m always looking for ways to promote it as a business, not as a consumer good would be promoted and finding those avenues. Right?
Terri Hoffman:
Right.
Philip Parker:
And what’s gonna be receptive to, clients because just putting our name up on a billboard is not the way we sell, our type of work. Right?
Terri Hoffman:
Right. Yeah. You have a very known market.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And a very specific type of company that you’re gonna work with. I think another area that I’ve seen as a challenge with Holland Parker, you touched on it a little bit, but you have various market you have various, like, target profiles.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And some of them directly influence a decision, and some of them do not directly influence the final decision, but they’re part of the overall decision-making process. You have a lot of personas who are involved. How do you find that balance of communicating between them?
Philip Parker:
I don’t know if we found a balance. I don’t know if it’s just kinda the shotgun approach. Right? And knowing that, I say that, probably, you know, we’re fine-tuning that as we grow and as we grow in our marketing space. But is, you’re right. I mean, it’s also folks that don’t necessarily are receptive to any type of marketing. Right? And so we’re trying to find those ways that, one, we can make, folks aware of Holland Parker, aware of the work we do, but also differentiate us from our competitors as well. And, I think that it’s just using different avenues and different approaches and, also soliciting feedback from the clients that we marketed to and, the events we put on or the other types of marketing that we do to see what the results may be, which is very tough to measure candidly.
Terri Hoffman:
No. It is. That’s it I think, probably inadvertently, you’re even answering an earlier question that I had is you you were looking for accountability, right, from from your marketing function. And, I wanna talk about that a little more, because I think it’s it’s important. Unfortunately, marketers have definitely built a reputation for just wanting to do fun and creative things and, have these really healthy budgets. But, when it comes to accountability, there are definitely gaps, right, that are often revealed. So, I’d love to know how you view accountability and kinda what your expectation is. Again, that could be from your internal resources, but also from external resources that you work with.
Philip Parker:
Yeah. I think the, and I can use an instance that’s happened this week with Marketing Refresh if you’d like, if that’s okay.
Terri Hoffman:
Yep. Absolutely.
Philip Parker:
So we have partnered with y’all on an as we’re going kinda through our somewhat of a rebranding, I guess, of Holland Parker, one of those refreshes or cycles that we’ve gone through many of times. And but in the near term, I wanted to be able to promote, some of the trainings and things that we do on LinkedIn and how to better promote that. And the Marketing Refresh team, or we met with them this week to talk about how we could promote those through LinkedIn and things like that. So one thing is, you know, y’all give me ideas to, like, something I could probably just go to myself candidly, you know, and because we have access to do it. But it was the accountability aspect that I candidly don’t know how to go through all the metrics, and I don’t have the time to go out through all that. So it’s kind of the time, but not time value money, but value of my time. Right? Do I really wanna learn how to do and become an expert like y’all are in advertising on LinkedIn or work with y’all.
Philip Parker:
Y’all are the experts in it. Sorry. Let me and I’ll get to the accountability aspect. So what we’re really asking for is we know the target market that we wanna go after. We know the personas. We know the companies. We know exactly who you know, target market. And what y’all did, you could come back to us and said, hey. We can do this as an ad campaign, but here’s the big thing about it. We’re gonna sit here and monitor it and tweak and tune it to make sure that it’s not just, you know, a bunch of people clicking on it, and we’re getting no results from it. Like, what are the actual metrics from it? And that type of nurturing is something none of us at Holland Parker have time to do. Right? We’ve got a million other things that we’re working on. So it’s things like that. And because, you know, as you mentioned, having, you know, as a small business, we have a marketing budget, but it’s not sky’s limit. And so we are looking for, how did that affect our company overall and affect the messaging as well as potential inbound leads or just branding in general across the market marketplace. Right? And, making sure that every dollar is used wisely.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. Yep. Exactly. I mean, do you find that reporting is a big part of how we manage a relationship and communicate? Do you find value in the reporting and the metrics that you get back? How do you view the value of that information?
Philip Parker:
Yeah. I mean, that’s what separates y’all from many other firms that don’t provide any reporting, and I’ve, in the past, used other firms as well. And being able to, have some sort of output from that and then marry it up to what we’re seeing internally, helps us decide, okay. Are we gonna spend more money there or open it up here and how are we gonna allocate those resources? So I think some sort of reporting is helpful. The more detailed probably, or the ability to get the detail if necessary is important because if it’s just a high-level number, like, well, 50,000,000 people hit your website, that’s probably a lot. Let’s we’ll shoot for 10,000 or something. I don’t know. Whatever a good number is.
Philip Parker:
100,000 people. You know, just telling us that it’s like, well, okay. What happened from that? Right? Well, we saw that they went to this page, and they read this for this long. Well, now I okay. Well, let’s make more content like that. Let’s push it in this market, things like that. So I think the ability to get the details as well, but to keep it summarized at first, but to be able to drill down into it helps us.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. Yeah. And just maybe getting some navigation on why certain pieces of that information are important.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And how it’s connecting back to your business. I think, you know, not to make this a commercial for Marketing Refresh, but it’s, I think, every agency or marketing department should be monitoring metrics because otherwise, it if you’re not keeping track or setting a goal, you’re not going to be as focused on reaching that goal
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And measuring your progress towards that goal if you don’t have that in place. That’s, what accountability is all about. So I guess thinking about, kinda going back to Holland Parker, I know that the importance of you being able to grow your consulting practice and finding the consultants who are a really great fit in your company culture is important. What are some of the things that you look for in those consultants that you think add to the value and kinda helps differentiate Holland Parker in the market?
Philip Parker:
I mean, I think, as you mentioned, a big piece of it is our culture, but that’s always something I can see once they become or who am whoever becomes a part of Holland Parker. Right? And, you know, I feel like and I’ve been doing quite a few interviews in the recently in the past 3 weeks or so. And, you know, I’m very open about the challenges around consulting. And a lot of people we get resumes that people maybe wanted to come from industry to consulting or, you know, maybe just coming straight out of of of college and wanting to get into consulting. And it’s a great field. I mean, I love it. I’ve been in it for, quite some time now, but it’s, you know, it’s it’s, at times, high stress, times, a lot of hard work and and long hours. But what I love is that the long hours tend to pay off in shorter hours in the future.
Philip Parker:
Right? So a problem that you’re facing today, especially in the technical world, it becomes easier in the future once you face it. And you could probably say that that in general with anything would happen, but it’s very apparent in the technology world. So what I look for is somebody that’s willing to jump into that knowing that it, you know, the learning curve can be quite steep. You know? Mhmm. And, so, you know, in my interviews and things when I talk to people, I’d try to be candid about my background, where I came from, and, and is that something you’re ready to jump into, and it’s not for everybody. You know? And I’m not expecting the answer to come up right off the bat. Like, nope. Not for me.
Philip Parker:
Like, I’m not gonna do this but is just to think twice about it and, you know, be ready for it when you get into it that, you know, sometimes it can have a pretty steep learning curve. Yeah. It’s kinda number 1 in my opinion. And, we do spend a lot of resources on training our folks, building having them be a part of our culture. We do all employee meetings. We have holiday parties. And these aren’t parties. I mean, when I say holiday party, I guess that price sounds like well, everybody’s having fun.
Philip Parker:
Well, it’s really to get everybody together, see everybody face to face. And I have consultants from New York all the way to California that, you know, may or may not cross paths on projects, and it’s just a time for them to learn more about Holland Parker, learn the way we implement software and, as well as some of the other initiatives that we’re doing, like strategic services, where we’re kinda setting up road maps for technology for clients or our training division and train how we train clients and get in to learn a little bit about that and just taking a little breath breather from doing everyday consulting work.
Terri Hoffman:
Right. Yeah. I mean, I know again, I’ve watched how you guys have, like, placed on greater level of importance on culture and making sure that you’re finding people who really match that. I know how picky you are. And I mean that as a compliment because I think it really strengthens the level of the rest of your overall team. Right? And it really strengthens your brand. And I think that the company culture is part of the brand. And then as a marketer, we have to think about how we communicate the value of that company culture as part of your brand, because I think it’s part of what differentiates your business is you don’t at least my experience is, like, you don’t feel like you’re talking to somebody who’s just giving you a lot of consulting speak.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
Your employees are talking in like they understand their business. They understand the technology and how it should be applied, but you feel like you’re talking to an actual person.
Philip Parker:
You’re not seeing, like, a bunch of jargon and speak.
Philip Parker:
Right. And that’s a big component of that. It’s interesting. Again, so I’ve been doing quite a few in the past couple weeks is it’s come up a couple times is the use of our website for that. So, you know, my side of mine would say, well, we built a website for potential prospects or customers to look at, which is that that’s great. But they all a lot of times, I mean, we’re in an information world. They go to the website.
Philip Parker:
They look at it. And a couple of the key places that they look at is our giving back and our because that’s a real big piece of our organization, but also that we’re experts at what we do. So when you hit that nail on the head. It’s if they see that, right, and you can and it comes off very easily from the website. You don’t have to dig 18 different levels to figure that out. You know? And I think in talking with y’all and, again, I think, as you mentioned, like, if I was talking to any other firm, it’s like, that’s what I wanted to make as prominent as possible because that’s part of our core values. Right? And so much so, actually, this year, I made it.
Philip Parker:
We did a charity event during our holiday party in the morning before it. And I was like, well, I’ll just invite the Houston people because we’re based in Houston. And then I was like, you know what? This is part of our culture. Like, why not? And I flew everybody in for it even though that meant they had to fly in the night before, and we had extra hotel costs, etcetera. But I thought it was very important to have everybody there if it’s gonna be the center of our culture. You know?
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. No. For sure. I think what you’re touching on right now is something that I see a lot, particularly in the B2B space, is that you miss opportunities in your marketing programs to emphasize things about your company that people would never know unless they had a pretty deep partnership or relationship with you. Right? I think you it’s kind of a common misstep that you make it too hard for people to find those things out about you as a brand and as a business. And you don’t, well, I just know you personally, so now you’re not doing the community stuff to, like, pat yourself on the back. You’re doing it because you actually care.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And you’re doing it for genuine, sincere reasons. But I think a lot of times people hold back from putting it out there because they want it to come across with the right tone and the right intent. But it is something that adds to your company value and your company culture, and it’s something that I think is important to potential customers that differentiates you and just humanizes everyone there. So I love that you include that.
Philip Parker:
Well, I was gonna say, it also takes some external resources, right, to tell me it’s okay to post thing or, you know, whatever market, that type of stuff, because it’s not inherent to me to wanna go and maybe put that on LinkedIn or put that on some sort of social media platform because it kinda to me, I’m like, I don’t do it for that reason, just like you said. But, you know, y’all give me the nudge or, you know, say, it’s okay. Like, it’s we’re gonna put it in the right light. Right? And, that’s a big importance of it as well.
Terri Hoffman:
It is. And that’s like that’s a, I’ll just call it a sniff test. Like, that’s kind of a sniff test we have is if, somebody came and said, I wanna put this out there because I think it’ll make us look really good to prospects. That’s like a no. You’ve you’ve got the wrong intention. Right? But if it’s we’re doing these great things because they’re important to us, then that passes the sniff test, right, because it’s it’s sincere and genuine, and then that will come through. Right. And I’m only really emphasizing this because there are, you know, in the market we’re in, there can be some a long list of things like this.
Terri Hoffman:
Right? You it can be about things about your employees that aren’t getting emphasized, because you may not realize that that’s important in an attempt to draw the next employee. Right. Or for clients to see, wow, there there’s this is great. Somebody just won an award for being there for 10 years.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
That shows me this is a great place to work because people wanna stay there. Like, these things shouldn’t be hidden when you’re a B2B brand. You should be putting them out there so that it’s very obvious and easy for people to learn about your brand. What I’d like to ask is how you view the relationship between marketing and revenue growth or sales, business development, whatever label you wanna put on that area. How do you see those two functions really working together? And how is it how has it worked for Holland Parker?
Philip Parker:
So I see it as symbiotic relationship between the 2? Right? I mean there’s the days of being able just to go and knock on somebody’s door, make a single phone call, and start a sales cycle. I’m sure there’s somebody that can do it, but it’s doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked out that great for us. I think it needs to be a combination of both, and I feel like the numbers of touchpoints are constantly going up. Like, you know, maybe last year or 10 years ago, it was 7 touchpoints. Now it’s well, you have to have 15 touchpoints. Now you have to have 30 touchpoints. It’s like, well, there’s no way a human could gonna do and spread that and scale that.
Philip Parker:
So that’s, I think, the combining that with a marketing effort, I mean, really putting sales and marketing together is kinda meshing together. So they’re 1, I think, is what we attempt to do. The, I think that, again, we’re very strategic on how we merge. I probably spend more budget on that than we do on just general brand just general branding. Like, military, we wanna, you know, show up in everybody’s airport or something like that. Like, it just doesn’t you know, I wouldn’t sales wouldn’t really be attached to that. It would be some sort of billboard or digital marketing or something like that. For at least for us, that wouldn’t work.
Philip Parker:
Right? So I think there always has to be that component. I will say that how we do differentiate or not differentiate, but kinda segregate it is there’s customer type marketing, and then there’s prospect and maybe even, you know, external hires and things like that that we’re gonna make as well type of marketing. And, you know, it doesn’t both those avenues don’t some of them overlap, but they don’t there’s different things that we do, for, to market to those folks. Right? Sometimes when you have a bill if you have a relationship with folks, there’s types of marketing that works better than if you don’t have a relationship with somebody. Right? And, now, again, I think what what you can’t measure or where it’s very difficult, it’s how you can’t measure. It’s just difficult to measure what exactly caused somebody to maybe have an inbound lead to call you, right, or to email you. Or what was that, was it through word-of-mouth? Was it because they saw something? Was it because they went to an event? Was it a phone call that they got? And even then, when we make a phone call, like, just starting a sales cycle, our sales cycles, and, again, maybe I think every industry is different. They can be from usually 12 to 18 months, and that’s you know, maybe 6 months is but that’s not the norm.
Philip Parker:
And that’s a long sales cycle. That that’s a lot of touch points and making sure that, we’re still reaching out, things like that, and do whatever effectively.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. I mean, I think that ties into a process we worked on with you guys very early in our relationship, which is the buyer’s journey. So just understanding that people are ready for different types of information at different stages of building a relationship. And there can even be the marketing portion of that journey and then the sales or business development part of that journey. And I think you guys have always, been really mindful of making sure that you’re presenting the right information at the appropriate time. Because in a long sales cycle, especially, there’s a lot of education that has to take place. So if you just go in guns blazing and say like, hey. Are you ready for us to come and meet up meet with you and do an assessment? They might be in a place where they’re like, no.
Terri Hoffman:
We’re just beginning to research if we have the right platform in place.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And there could be a 12-month process of just going through that software platform selection.
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
Right? So there’s there’s a lot to that journey that you have to think through.
Philip Parker:
Right. And that there’s also there’s a lot, in just running a business that you can get down on yourself if something doesn’t work out the way you thought it was gonna work out. Right? And I think we talk a lot about the plus sides of revenue growth, company growth, of marketing and sales, just anything in in in related to the company. But I’ll you know, I at least internally, I think about this a lot as, you know, you gotta try. You can’t succeed if you haven’t failed. Right? And I know that probably gets overused, but it’s true. I mean, if you’re not willing to take it, take failure as sometimes failure is a success. You know? And, and I think in marketing, it’s even more obscure because, I’d say obscure, but it’s easier to beat yourself up about it because it’s so difficult to tie it to a direct number. Right? And so to your point, they could be along the buyer’s journey, and you could do some sort of communication or say something to them that they say, nope.
Philip Parker:
We’re not ready. And then you take that as a like, oh, well, I just that sales over. And then they call you in 18 months and buy from you. Right? I mean so you gotta, you know, be able to kinda dust it off and get back up, you know, on the horse or whatnot. I don’t know if that’s the right analogy, but, you know No. For sure. Keep trying. Right? Mhmm.
Philip Parker:
They try different things, and that’s what I’m always open to what are the new things out there and how can we, utilize them to potentially I say grow the company, but just keep our brand awareness out there.
Terri Hoffman:
Right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. You’re even possibly considering a podcast. Correct? Is that something you’re still looking into?
Philip Parker:
Yeah. We’re so I think, you talk about internal messaging is we do what I consider, but we do very, very good consulting work, right, and implementation work and strategy work. All all the types of things that we do to generate revenue, we do a very good job at. But internally and even externally, sometimes it’s more difficult for us to get the message out there. And so we worked with y’all’s company, and as well as well as internally to build, let’s say, customer case studies. And, you know, the shift from reading text to visually saying something, has been changing in the consumer world, you know, probably 15 years ago. And I think it’s happening more and more in the business world.
Philip Parker:
We’re all trying to gravitate towards what that medium is gonna be, but I like the attractiveness of the podcast we’re doing today. I may not I just like the the how we’re recording it and and also taking note of it. Right? So a lot of these tools now, it’s not just a podcast, but it’s also giving you a written record of it that you can refer back to and you can go back. So you may not have to listen to an hour-long or 30-minute-long podcast to get clean information from it. You can kinda look at the bullet points and say, oh, this looks pretty interesting. Let me go to that section of it. And so, internally, we can train people up with that. We can talk to people about, you know, things that are going on with the company and what we’re doing internally as well as externally.
Philip Parker:
But then they can see that and refer back to it as needed, along with training folks on things. That’s how I’m working at using that medium.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. That’s that’s awesome. Information sharing and that knowledge transfer for you is huge in kinda keeping that level of quality for your consulting team. Yeah. Really strong and robust. And I know just from talking to you in the past, lessons learned on one project
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
Have to transfer over to how the next project gets implemented so that you’re constantly improving
Philip Parker:
Right.
Terri Hoffman:
And kinda building more efficiencies in. Right? So that’s that’s awesome that you’re thinking about the podcast to help in that way in that way. Okay. I’ve got some rapid fire questions to end with. I don’t know if you looked at these. Otherwise, you’re just gonna have to go with your gut.
Philip Parker:
I can go with the gut.
Terri Hoffman:
Okay. Fair. Okay.
Philip Parker:
Well, you told me not to prepare, so I scanned it. You know, I did what you told me. I’m pretty good at that. Not preparing for it. No kidding.
Terri Hoffman:
Okay. Well, then I can’t wait to hear your answers to these questions. What is your favorite trip that you’ve ever taken?
Philip Parker:
Prior to the Caymans with my wife, Steph, during our 10-year anniversary.
Terri Hoffman:
Awesome. Did you stay at a resort?
Philip Parker:
We stayed at the Western property on Seven Mile Beach that we stayed at that, and there’s something about the Cayman water that just, you know, is remarkable. It’s very, very peaceful and very quiet, which, made the perfect, you know, anniversary, but also beach vacation.
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. That’s all that sounds awesome. Okay. Next question. Is there any musical artist, past or present, or group that you wish you would have seen in concert or could still see in concert?
Philip Parker:
Led Zeppelin.
Terri Hoffman:
Led Zeppelin. That’s a good okay. My husband would go with you. He would have been there with you. That’s his favorite.
Philip Parker:
Yeah. Yep. So much so that I looked at trying to buy tickets when they did their last concert, like, I don’t know, 15 years ago or something like that. But I was able fortunate enough to see Pink Floyd, but Led Zeppelin. I couldn’t see Led Zeppelin, but I was kind of a nineties kid that loved classic rocks.
Terri Hoffman:
Awesome. How did you see Pink Floyd? Where did you see them?
Philip Parker:
Rice Stadium. Right? Rice. Yeah. During the Pulse, release of the Pulse album where it had the blinking LED that would last forever. And, so I called my dad up on a pay phone, and I said, I need to buy a ticket to Ticketmaster. So he’s like, for Pink Floyd, and he’s like, okay. You know, whatever.
Philip Parker:
I mean, you know, I don’t he went, like, whatever, but he’s like, alright. Well, don’t spend too much. And I called up, and I got 4 seats, 11 rows back. And they were like, hey. We have these seats. I was like, done. Bottom. I don’t I don’t even know how much they cost.
Philip Parker:
Like and by the back then, they were, like, $60. Like, Taylor Swift is $300 in the upper deck. You know? And, oh, it was it was it was something else. Like, it was it rained on us. There were laser lights. It was it was pretty cool.
Terri Hoffman:
Oh, that sounds really cool. Yeah. No. I’m also a classic rock fan, so I’m jealous. What is the number one book that you constantly find yourself recommending to people?
Philip Parker:
I’m horrible at book titles. I’m absolutely horrible with them, but I love reading.
Terri Hoffman:
Is it a business book or personal enjoyment type book, would you say?
Philip Parker:
Yep. So this isn’t a business book, but I’ll so one of my, books just became a movie, I believe, but it was called Empire of the Summer Moon. Okay. And, since I grew up in Texas, it’s probably about, you know, the kind of the settlers moving west and the battles with the Indians and our Native Americans. And, it’s just, it just reads, it tells you a great piece of history and kinda feels like you’re there. You know?
Terri Hoffman:
That sounds really good.
Philip Parker:
Yeah.
Terri Hoffman:
How old is that book? Is it
Philip Parker:
it was
Terri Hoffman:
I never heard of that.
Philip Parker:
Looks like it was well. I don’t this book would probably came out in 2011, but it doesn’t tell me this paperback came out in 2011, but I don’t know if that was it when it originally came out. But they did a movie well, they did a movie about it’s not Empire of the Summer Moon, but it’s, about the Osage Indians and the creation of the FBI, which is the next book after that. And so this is a precursor to that. And, just it it’s, I don’t know. It just it’s kinda like, the TV show, not 1920 not Yellowstone, but the 1880 18
Terri Hoffman:
Oh, 1883?
Philip Parker.
1883. Yeah.
Terri Hoffman:
I watch all those.
Philip Parker:
So how I mean, I was one of my I watched that series, and I was it just, I mean, we’re only you know, 4 generations out of it being a very difficult landscape in the in United States. They are 5 generations out. You know? And it’s kinda crazy how close that is. You know?
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. No. You’re right. I think it’s really we, as Americans, especially, we have, like, high expectations for how everything functions and works. And so it’s pretty easy to lose sight of how young we really are as a developed country.
Philip Parker:
Real quick. There’s a sorry. I’m breaking. But I don’t know if I need to say that or they can just cut it out. But give me one second. Do you have a do I have time to look this up real quick?
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. I only have one more question after this.
Philip Parker:
I can’t find it, but it’s about okay. It’s, like, 5 short essays on financial crisis. That’s great and very relevant. So that’s why I like telling people about it, but, sorry. We can cut that piece out. But okay.
Philip Parker:
Last question.
Terri Hoffman:
Okay. Last question. What is the best job you’ve ever had?
Philip Parker:
Well, I hope to say working for my own company. You know, I was a lifeguard at Waterworld, if anybody ever even knows what Waterworld was, but it was the Wow. Water park for AstroWorld. And, you know, I got to actually. I have, like, 3 confirmed saves there, so that was I tell my kids about that. They’re like, I can’t believe they even let you, you know, be a lifeguard or save people’s lives. So, that was, it was a fun job. I enjoy, you know, I enjoy working for myself as well and building up Hollow Parker. So that’s been, a great journey as well.
Philip Parker:
I’ve just always loved being a consultant. You know? And so it’s not really, I guess, per se, a particular place I’ve been, but it’s the type of work I’ve been doing. And I’ve been doing this since I was 19, 20 years old. And, like I said, I used to run network cable or, you know, install servers or install other pieces of software, and it’s just something I have a true passion for. And it’s something I talk to my kids that are 17 and 13 now and, you know, try to get them to kind of realize or not realize, but try to figure out what maybe they’re passionate about because I feel like if you know, that old saying, like, if you’re passionate about something, it doesn’t seem to be like it doesn’t seem to be work. You know? There’s days that are hard, but it’s something I would never give up. You know?
Terri Hoffman:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s invaluable when you can figure that out. Yeah. For sure. Well, thank you for joining us today, Philip. It’s been great, as always, to talk to you and catch up. I appreciate your generosity with everything you shared.
Terri Hoffman:
You know, my goal is that it could help other people who are kind of facing the same type of challenges with marketing that you’ve gone through. So thanks again. Thanks for joining and for being generous with your time.
Philip Parker:
Yeah. Appreciate it, Terri. Thank you for having me on the show.
Terri Hoffman:
Thanks for listening. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or visit our website at marketingrefresh.com.
