There's a fine line between having things inherited from your ancestors and creating your own empire. Derrian Perry started his journey as a businessman from scratch and achieved mammoth success. He grew up in a sports family and was always different from others. While all the kids at his age were into wrestling and football, he was busy reading books. The two important entrepreneurship traits that have been constant in his journey are making faith-driven decisions and being a leader. He did several jobs and got fired from it because destiny had something major for him. The last time he worked for anyone was working in a property management firm. He initially got into it because of the money but later realized that he wanted to make people happy. Later, he got a call from BET Networks for the job of a stylist. It was the first step towards his entrepreneurial journey. From styling, he began writing for Kontrol Magazine and later started his PR firm.
Being a self-learner, he learnt many things by himself which helped him polish his entrepreneurship skills. He is the owner of 'I Am Phreshy Brand LLC'. It is a boutique PR firm that lays emphasis on augmenting audiences and creating public and media attractions for emerging brands. His company works with lifestyle, talent and business brands. It all began in 2017 and in 2019, he expanded his business by launching 'Phreshy's Closet & DIY PR'. He considers both of his works as his babies. However, he faced a lot of challenges before the creation of his brands. Lack of resources, lack of knowledge about PR and no cordial relations with clients were some of the biggest setbacks he had before starting his brands. Moreover, in October 2017, he was homeless and had hardly 3 clients. All his income went into building a company and he was so new in the business that he did not even know how to charge.
The most interesting thing is during the onset of his journey, he struggled to have a laptop and did all the work from his phone. He was on the top of the world in everyone's eye but privately he went through a lot. Later, when his friends decided to move to Georgia, he flew to Los Angeles for work. Well, that was the best decision of his life. By the grace of God, the doors of success opened for him and there was no turning back for him after that. While speaking about how he overcame all the challenges, Derian said, "Not to sound cheesy, but every challenge I've overcome has been due to my relentless drive and unwavering faith. I'm a very optimistic person. I do a lot of research. If I want it, I pray about it and figure out a way to go get it. It's been a lot of hard work, late nights and pure dedication. I've also had to learn and constantly remind myself that timing is everything. What's for me will always be for me."
Besides this, his everyday schedule keeps on changing. There are days when he works for more than 8 hours in front of a computer while the other days he has been busy in conference calls, client follow-ups, scaling his business and much more. In such a cut-throat competition, Derrian believes to not compare IAP with other PR agencies and rather focus on putting the best foot forward by giving the best work. He believes in giving quality over quantity of work. He also revealed that he has been authentic, relatable and transparent which has helped him to empower his team daily. While sharing the key ingredients behind his success, he said, "Three major factors for success, in my opinion, include research, being innovative and client fulfilment. Research keeps you knowledgeable, being innovative keeps you in the forefront and client fulfilment, keeps your business coming."
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