Imagine building a multi-million-pound business from scratch… and then choosing to walk away from it with no plan B. That’s exactly what Dawn Farrow did.
In this powerful episode of Exit Insights, Dawn shares her journey from professional dancer to founder of a thriving marketing agency, Boom Ents, which grew 20–25% annually. But despite the success, she chose to close it – not sell – just 10 days before COVID hit.
Read more: From Curtain Call to Boardroom: Knowing When to Move On with Dawn FarrowDawn reveals the emotional weight of being the driving force behind a business: the burnout, the identity crisis, and the pressure of supporting 16 employees. “Nobody is coming to save you – you’ve got to save yourself,” she says. For many founders, her story is a reality check.
She now leads Onsale Group, a business uniting the fragmented UK experience economy – worth £134 billion – and supporting industry professionals through training and events like Onsale Live and the Global Institute of Experience Marketing.
Her story is a masterclass in:
- Recognising when your business depends too much on you
- Knowing the signs that it’s time to move on
- Building purpose-driven businesses with real value and growth potential
If you’re considering succession or want to improve your business valuation, this episode is full of practical insights – and a very human story of what stepping away really looks like.
Transcript
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (00:00)
Welcome to the podcast that’s dedicated to helping business owners prepare their business for an exit or a transition in leadership one day and helping you set things up so you can do that on your terms. This is the Exit Insights podcast presented by Fabric Business Solutions. I’m Darryl Bates-Brownsword and today I’ve got a guest joining me who’s got a fascinating exit journey to share with us.
Not what you might expect caught me off guard. Dawn Farrow, thanks for joining me today.
Dawn Farrow (00:29)
Thank you so much for having me.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (00:31)
brilliant. Dawn, why don’t you start and just give us a little bit about your background. And ⁓ I think it’s an interesting business journey. So spare no details, but give us the headline because I’m really keen to dig into this and and and get behind the the get into the detail, shall we say.
Dawn Farrow (00:50)
Great. Well, as I sit here speaking to you from West London this morning, I am a consultant and I’m a founder of a business called OnSale Group. And that sounds ⁓ fairly straightforward. OnSale Group works across the experience economy. We are a group of marketers and I serve the marketing community to help them build brands and sell more tickets and grow audiences. We do that in lots of ways that I’m sure we’ll end up talking about, but…
I think that you allude to my story and my story ⁓ top line is that I was a dancer. That’s why I came to London initially. I got into marketing and I built a very successful, yes, yes, yes. So that’s a good point. So I was a dancer and ⁓ probably quite a workaholic. I think you have to be to be a great dancer.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (01:34)
as dancers do.
Dawn Farrow (01:45)
Then I got into marketing. Then I created my own marketing agency, which was very successful. And I closed it. And I walked away.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (01:57)
Hang on, hang on, hang on, going way too fast.
So you throw out there dancer now. Now that sounds like a fit. Now I love my sports, but I’m not great on the creative side of things. So what type of dancing were you doing?
Dawn Farrow (02:13)
So by the time
I moved to London, I was training in contemporary dance. And contemporary dance is best described as ballet meets modern. So if I was being a little tongue in cheek, I spent three years learning to move my body and hug a tree and be creative. ⁓ If I was really honest about the art form and the sport of it, I would tell you how incredibly difficult.
it is as an athlete to become an amazing dancer.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (02:48)
I get that it’s quite physical and it sounds like, I imagine you’re incredibly fit just like any elite athlete. But, and were you working on anything, any projects that we might be aware of or something that to give us some understanding of the type of work you were doing?
Dawn Farrow (03:03)
Yeah, great question. So the type of work I was ⁓ creating and being part of, you would see on the stage at, Sadler’s Wells. That was the sort of work, or you might see at the Royal Ballet, but not in ballet shoes.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (03:17)
Okay, so in the arts incredibly fit. So I imagine there’s always a risk of injury that’s going to affect the income. And then as with all professional type, I’m going to say sports, but that’s probably the wrong term. But physical activities, age gets in the way fairly quickly.
Dawn Farrow (03:39)
I think that’s really fair reflection, though the joy I suppose of being sort of 18 to 21 is that that was totally oblivious that one day I may not be able to dance or may not be as good as my peak moment. It is worth adding that I was also studying for a business degree at the same time as training to be a dancer. Mindful, maybe. Maybe I was, yes.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (03:49)
Yeah.
Okay.
So you’re hedging your bet all along.
Okay, so what age did you make the transition from professional dancer to hang on a sec, I’m gonna get involved in marketing and I don’t know, was that a focus on looking to generate more reliable steady income?
Dawn Farrow (04:24)
I think yes, I think that would be okay too. I think that when you are so passionate and so good at your art form and your sport, there comes a moment when you begin to realize perhaps you can no longer retain that. I was working full-time. ⁓
not as a dancer at that point, so immediately out of university I started working for somebody and I realised that actually then trying to train as a dancer wasn’t something I could do in the evening and so I went through a really emotionally awful, from the age of four all I had ever dreamt about was being a dancer, that was it, so I defined myself as being a dancer and so in my early 20s
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (05:09)
Right.
Dawn Farrow (05:17)
emotionally went through a very hard process of acknowledging that I wasn’t going to be a dancer or that I could no longer define myself as that and so how would I define myself?
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (05:30)
Okay, growing up, bit of maturity, realization is as much as I want this, it’s gonna be really hard to make it work.
Dawn Farrow (05:41)
Yeah, and I wanted to stay in London. ⁓ I grew up in rural Lincolnshire where art and culture is slightly limited, would kindness reflect. And so I wanted to be in London, I wanted to be around the people. And so I began to analyze what did I love about dance that wasn’t just being in the studio and wasn’t physically about.
me being a dancer. And actually, I realized it was the people that I really liked. And it was that sense of, ⁓ of finding my tribe, I suppose. And so what I was able to acknowledge was that if I wanted to stay in London, I needed to find a way to pay my rent, my bus fare, as it was the sandwiches that I had to make every morning because I couldn’t afford a pret.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (06:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dawn Farrow (06:33)
And what did that look like for me? Like, how was I going to be able to afford to do that?
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (06:38)
Okay. And so you ended up in a job, was that in the marketing agency? Where was his first job?
Dawn Farrow (06:45)
So my first marketing, well, actually my first job was as a production assistant in ⁓ a producing company, a huge American producing company called Live Nation. And that was an incredible opportunity for me. It was the moment that so many things came together, not only finding people that I love to be around, but also my first experience of corporate work. And I was working as a production assistant, so I got to do everything.
And a production assistant is somebody who works directly with the producers and general managers to help them coordinate putting on shows. And so I was helping put on musicals across the UK. was wonderful. But what I realized is that there was a team upstairs and they were called the marketing team. And I thought,
⁓ but I quite like what they would do. And so there wasn’t a job in the marketing team, but there was a very kind person called Richie who said, well, if you would like to learn more about marketing, you could always do it after work because I’m still here working. so every day at six o’clock, I would go upstairs into the marketing department and I would sit there for two hours and I would learn about marketing. And he was kind enough to share what he knew about sales and ticketing trends and how to create a campaign.
And that eventually I spent so much time in the marketing department that everybody realized maybe they should try and find me a job in that department rather than the team I was in.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (08:19)
So bit of initiative goes a long way.
Dawn Farrow (08:22)
100%. 100%. Yes.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (08:26)
Okay, so you’ve found your way into the marketing team. You’ve been learning it off your own back, but basically had a mentor guiding you. What was it about marketing that captured you?
Dawn Farrow (08:42)
⁓ Well, think that initially I realised as an ex-dancer, suppose I felt very visual. So I really enjoyed anything visual. So I love the photography, I love the curation of video, I love the posters, I love the discussing around which assets would appeal to which different audiences. ⁓ What I hadn’t quite realised is that
When I had started my business degree, I was meant to be doing a marketing degree and I actually swapped on the day we were meant to begin because the first module on the first day was to do with budgets and I said, no, no, no, no, don’t think you understand I’m a dancer. I won’t be doing budgets. Although the mass irony there to the businesses I now grow and how much time I spend in budgets, but…
But sales, working in sales all of a sudden and driving ticket sales was really the first time I started to enjoy numbers and really understand the relationship between what I was putting out into the world and how that then impacted what I was able to sell.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (09:58)
Okay, so keeping things moving. How long were you working in this department in the marketing team before you realized, nah, I’ve got to go and do something myself or something caught your eye. Let’s talk about the formation of your first business, your marketing business.
Dawn Farrow (10:11)
Mm.
Yes, okay, so I was actually made redundant from that role eventually and went to work at a West End marketing agency. And whilst I worked my way up in that team, I ended up heading up a division. And the division I looked after, was a sort of, there was a movement in the economy around immersive experiences and just people.
anything that wasn’t West End theatre, like there was just a real beginnings of something. And I headed up a division that said, I want, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to work on and bring the business in for. And with a huge bucket of naivety, one day I wrote down all of the fees that were being paid to this agency of business I had brought in or was very involved in securing. And I looked at that and I was like,
Hmm, but my salary is only X. I know I’ll just go do this myself and That’s what I did. I mean, you know, it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that but after about nine months of planning That’s absolutely what I went and did and set up my my marketing agency that was called boom ends
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (11:34)
Okay, so you set up this marketing agency. ⁓ How did that go? With a huge ball of naivety and energy and passion, which we all do.
Dawn Farrow (11:40)
I-
Yeah, well,
right, with all of the above, it was ⁓ both wonderful and horrendous in equal measure, to be honest. I mean, yeah, I had the highest highs and the lowest lows and I had never experienced anxiety like it. I didn’t even know that existed in my body or my brain. But equally, I
I, it was incredible and it was wonderful. And it was, you know, I was able to curate an incredible team. And the joy of working across the experience economy is that the people you hire are absolutely as passionate as you are. ⁓ and that can lead to burnout actually. So we would work all day and then there were shows to see in the evenings or there were clients to host in the evenings, but then you’d be back at the office. You know, they’re not short days. And when you are giving.
both your emotion and your time. It’s a lot to ask of yourself.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (12:48)
It’s exhausting. Let’s face it.
Dawn Farrow (12:50)
Yep.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (12:52)
So you’re building this business and you’re a lot of energy and passion and excitement. And you’ve learned that no matter how hard you work for someone else, when you run your own business, life becomes a whole lot more intense. And just because you’re living it and that comes down to the fact that survival of this business comes down to you.
Dawn Farrow (13:15)
That’s exactly it. And that moment of nobody is coming to save you was a really key moment. And I remember vividly making the decision to set up the business and that excitement. But then I have a visual reference of going into freefall, the moment I handed in my notice and I started saying it out loud, there was a real…
there was a freedom but there was also a freefall and I will often go back to that place when I think, okay well there’s only me that’s got, you know, like I have to save myself, I have to save myself and so and I love that, right, that’s not a negative for me, it’s actually a real challenge and excitement to go ahead and do it for myself.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (14:11)
It’s almost like facing the fear. Like, if it’s gonna be, it’s up to me, and I’m gonna do it anyway.
Dawn Farrow (14:17)
It’s absolutely that and I love that. Like that doesn’t worry me at all. the ability to take action because I see the fit, I walk into the fear and then I worry about it as opposed to, know, like, ⁓ I couldn’t ever do it. sort of, I get the anxiety when I’m really deep, deep in it and I’ve got no choice but to have to move forwards.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (14:41)
Yeah, well, survival is, is, you know, is up to you. Okay. So, so how long were you running this business for? This is,
Dawn Farrow (14:46)
Yes.
So I grew the
business, yeah, so I grew the business across eight years between 2012, which was an Olympic year in London, so it was incredible, and 2020, just before COVID hit.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (14:56)
Right.
And what was the growth like across those eight years? Was it just you? Did you have a team? Like, what are we talking?
Dawn Farrow (15:14)
Yeah,
yeah. So when I, when I closed the business, so I, well, actually, when I started the business, I did a deal with the agency I was working for, and we shared a client and I won a client. Then by the time we closed and it was just me, and then I hired one person and hiring your first person, that’s weird. ⁓ It doesn’t, it seems very easy now, but you know, there’s a lot to learn. When we close the agency,
when I decided to close the agency there were 16 people we were turning over a few million pounds and our growth year on year was anything between 20 and 25 percent. It was in hindsight fairly incredible.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (15:57)
Yeah, so we’re not talking about a business that was just bumping along as a self-employed person with a couple of helpers. It’s a multimillion pound business, 16 people. A lot of people, a lot of business owners would be ecstatic to achieve those sort of results because if you have a look at the stats across the UK, there’s a big water businesses that are stuck at less than a million revenue. And you burst through that in less than eight years.
And if I’m understanding correctly, Dawn, you arrived at a point where you just walked away from that business. You didn’t look at selling it or handing it on. You just shut it down, if I understand.
Dawn Farrow (16:40)
I did, I did. ⁓ Maybe a little bit of crazy, yeah. But, and we’re saying I closed it without a plan. So that’s, it’s not like there was something that came along that swept me off my feet. I had built this business and it very, I felt like it very much defined me and actually in the way that dance defined me. And so I was, you know, I was.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (16:43)
Are you crazy?
Dawn Farrow (17:09)
Boomance was Dawn and Dawn was Boomance and I lived and breathed it and it was, as we’ve spoken about, wonderful and terrible at the same time. But I also realized that whilst it was a hugely successful business and there was money that we were making, everything I made I put back into the business and actually growth for a business that size, the next step up was a huge step up. And
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (17:36)
That’s right.
Dawn Farrow (17:38)
and there was no, know, like then I would be getting into the world of board and investment and, I suddenly thought, ⁓ okay, that’s fine. But actually I, I think I’m done. I think I’ve proved whatever, whatever it was when I wrote down, when I worked for that agency and I wrote down the income, like whatever that I’ve done it, I’ve proved that I can do this. But it actually doesn’t define me. Like it doesn’t.
doesn’t make me want to get up in the morning in the same way it did. And so yeah, I called my accountant who maybe like yourself, Daryl said, you’re mad, I think I can find somebody to buy it. And I said, No, I think I’m good, actually. ⁓
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (18:27)
Yeah, so
that was, I was going to ask that like ⁓ you were aware that you could potentially sell it, but you chose not to.
Dawn Farrow (18:36)
Absolutely, absolutely. The only thing I would say in my defense is that 10… And this is not with any hindsight, but you know, occasionally there’s a piece of business luck and you’re like, ⁓ wow. 10 days after I closed, I formally closed the business and the money that I’d had had hit my account, ⁓ COVID hit. And what I am conscious of is that
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (18:42)
Thanks.
Dawn Farrow (19:06)
any business sale, I don’t think it would have had time to go through. And I think that COVID would have put the end to that anyway. And so I was able, prior to COVID hitting, to negotiate out of my rental deal, a five-year deal that I’d only signed six months before. So I was able to get out of that. I was able to fairly make my team redundant and help all of them find jobs.
again, something I couldn’t have achieved if the business had gone down in COVID. And so I actually was able to approach that kind of two year COVID period with a renewed sense of optimism when in truth, my industry had been absolutely decimated.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (19:54)
So in hindsight, a bit of luck and lucky timing, but okay. okay. While the audience is just gasping that you’ve just walked away from a multimillion pound business and in hindsight, it was okay. What happened next? What are you doing now Dawn? Because most people, if they’re stuck and stale and ⁓ it’s not an uncommon feeling to get to that point in your business where
Yeah, I’ve spoken to business owners and they go, I just hate it. It sucks the life out of me now. I, you know, facing getting up to go to work every morning is just, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s just not a pleasant experience. I’m stressed. I’m frustrated. I built this business and I, my intentions were to create a lifestyle. Now it’s taken my life from me. I don’t spend any time with my family. I’m supporting 16 other families and I’ve just got to keep going to get them through. So a lot of people feel that.
And they, you know, some try and push through it and put some systems and structures in place and they work through it and they take the business to the next level and challenge with help and support. And those steps are, you know, they’re generally in crude speaking revenue terms of one, three and 10 mil revenue marks. So that gap between two to three and up to 10 is a big step. But it’s every time we triple our size in business is where the big.
landmarks are. So you’ve made the call and said, yep, that’s not for me. I’ve done what I need to do here. I’ve got to move on to something next. Did you have a next thing in mind or did you have to get out first to find the next thing?
Dawn Farrow (21:37)
Yeah, well, so what actually happened, I went into total, I wouldn’t say panic mode, but what I had, but certainly lack of purpose and fear over lack of purpose. And because I had been so used to working at such speed and speed of decision making and speed of putting things out there. ⁓
I struggled with that. Like, why would I slow down? I didn’t close the business because I was seeking an easier life or a, like, there was nothing, this wasn’t about change of lifestyle at all. Like I was still as hungry for all of the above and for success and for, you know, things to happen. And so I actually…
probably spent two years, one doing the consultancy work for other clients, which was amazing and I still do, and picking up great clients there. then the rest of the time panicking that I didn’t have this purpose. what, because my purpose was to be a dancer, my purpose was to build an agency. Oh my gosh. You know, I was early forties and thinking, I mean, I’ve got another 30 odd years of working. Like I,
I can’t, I love consulting, but consulting isn’t my purpose. And like, what, what does that look like? So yeah, I rustled up a few little things that I played around with and tested and learn. And I did some retraining around neuro-linguistic programming and how that informs our decisions. And that was great until all you find is people, you know, it’s quite hard doing coaching and people.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (23:17)
Yeah.
Dawn Farrow (23:17)
And I thought, oh, haven’t
got, you know, it takes a lot from you. And I thought, oh, that’s not quite me then. So I played around a lot before I got back to the business that I launched earlier this year.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (23:31)
So just this year, what was it you launched? So, wait on, so we’re 2025. So we’re talking about four years bouncing around in the wilderness, so to speak.
Dawn Farrow (23:42)
Yes, and bouncing around probably more financially stable than ever before because the fees that I were making just came into me rather than buildings and people. And so of course, all of my family were like, this is great Dawn, you should just do this. Like, this seems quite straightforward. And I was like, it’s so straightforward that it’s not me, it’s too.
It’s yeah, you’re right. It’s great. And look, imagine we’ve got enough money to go on holiday. But how else could I like, how else could I be spending this money? What could I be growing? What could I be doing? And so I so I very, I was gonna say very quickly wasn’t quick, was it over time, I realized that I think it was there anyway, but partly because of COVID, the experience economy as a whole, which is
When I talk about that, mean, theatre, mean, immersive experiences, attractions, museums, galleries, music, festivals, consumer events. that is my, it’s my passion. Like I…
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (24:49)
As in
as in the product, what people buy from you is an experience. Yeah.
Dawn Farrow (24:51)
the product. That exactly that exactly
that and I love the idea that that you can buy an experience and it can it can be life changing. It can just or it can take you out of the mundane for a bit or you know like I truly believe in the power of seeing it live or going to it live. So I knew that’s where my heart was still.
⁓ But I also saw endless struggles with building ⁓ audiences, terrible retention of staff, very stressed, overworked professionals, chronic underpay, ⁓ anxiety around reaching targets. ⁓ And I wondered like, what skills do I have or what could I create that would support this industry?
At the same time as realising all of these things, I also saw that the experience industry as a whole is full of tiny niches. So together, combined, we’re worth £134 billion just in the UK. Individually, but individually, is almost deemed to be slightly insignificant. And so I created Onsale Group and a business called Onsale Live, which is a convex, which is…
a conference and festival that happens each May where the whole industry, the sales, marketing and communications professionals from across the industry come together. And it’s, did the first one this year and it is, it’s just the most exciting thing to bring everybody together and actually just see, see what comes, know, sort of throw it all on the wall and just see what happens.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (26:47)
and what happened.
Dawn Farrow (26:49)
Well,
yeah, great. So what happened was some people said people will never share. don’t dawn like you’re right. It’s a great idea, but people don’t want to share how hard it is. But of course what actually happened is that people really did share. And the joy I think of sales and marketing people is that they want to find solutions. So what we created was an environment that was very honest, but also so full of solutions.
⁓ There were four zones. So we had the main stage, case study, ⁓ health and wellbeing. We did free coaching and it was all curated to support ⁓ the industry as a whole. And one of the big themes that came out of that was that we don’t have fit for purpose training in our industry. And so I was able to create the global institute of experience marketing, which now happens periodically across the year.
People join a waitlist and we have very small one-to-one training to develop a master, we have a master class where people come and they can actually learn about how to sell tickets and how to grow audiences.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (28:03)
So your background is in selling experiences, working in agencies in selling experiences, learning from that, getting into consulting of just sort of faffing around, shall we say, getting work just come to you because clearly you’ve got a good reputation in the industry. So people were coming to you and you found consulting work easy, but my words boring by the sounds of it.
So you’ve pulled together an industry-based conference for people who are involved in in selling experiences and going, hey, look, guys, this is actually an industry. Let’s get everyone together and pulling together as an industry. And we’ve got common problems and common needs and solutions that we can figure out together if we all get our heads together.
around the sales and marketing of experiences, which is pretty unique and special, but how do we do that successfully so we can all prosper and survive in our little niches within the industry as a whole? And then off the back of that being a success after everyone said, no, it’ll never work, you’ve gone, well, maybe one of the reasons it’s not working is that because it is such a niche industry per se,
There’s no industry bodies out there delivering training and skills and boosting and elevating the capability of the industry as a whole. And that’s you. Am I reading this right?
Dawn Farrow (29:40)
I love that. That’s absolute precision, absolute precision. And what’s interesting is that by bringing everybody together, there was actually such a lack of confidence. So when you look at the individual niches, a real sense of sort of the growth almost accidentally happening, but and that people feeling like, maybe, maybe I’m not good enough, or maybe I don’t know enough, but no action being taken. And the joy is that by bringing everybody together,
Not only are we building confidence in the industry across that experience economy, but I’m able to go together. We are worth a hundred and thirty four billion pounds. Our our impact on the UK economy is huge. unless we unless we, you know, really take our our part of the economy really seriously, unless we build our skills, unless we really double down on what we’re greater.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (30:27)
Absolutely.
Dawn Farrow (30:39)
people will keep taking or keep looking at us and thinking, ⁓ it’s just theatre or it’s just immersive. But we drive, you know, we drive so much across the UK. It’s very exciting.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (30:53)
Dawn, I think it’s fascinating because as I’m on the outside looking in, one of the things I see is as industries evolve and they mature, industry bodies are created. you say, in my language, is an industry exists when there’s an industry body. And it sounds like what we’re seeing here is the formation of ⁓ an industry body and therefore industry wide training.
and therefore recognition of the industry and acceptance of the industry as a whole across the whole of society, which is just incredibly exciting and for you to be at the forefront of this evolution.
Dawn Farrow (31:33)
feel like you’ve read my business plan, Daryl. Of course I’ve written the business plan. I had four years to write it all down. think you’re, I mean, it’s exactly that. I, have amazing industry bodies within each of these niches and they are incredible. But as you absolutely say, like my passion is anybody going to
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (31:36)
Have you written the business plan?
Bye.
Dawn Farrow (32:02)
any sort of experience should, you know, deserves to have the best time ever. And you just, and I want us to market to you with the best tools and the best knowledge. And there are some, don’t get me wrong, you know, somebody might be screaming at us right now saying, but there’s loads of marketing conferences or advertising events or AI seminars you can go to. And I would say that absolutely are, but you are not talking about
the attention economy in the same way that we talk about. You’re not talking about driving ticket sales. Our funnel is so different to ⁓ if we were selling, you know, blue roll or a fizzy drink. Like it’s just different. that’s…
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (32:46)
Well, it’s a commodity
as opposed to, are we buying things where there’s a known need that we need to solve a known problem or are we buying something to escape and get out and get some entertainment and some lighthearted relief and some downtime?
Dawn Farrow (33:05)
Right, it’s exactly that. I do believe that in a world where I think many of us suffer from more anxiety, there’s less known about the world, there’s lots of unease. I do believe that any sort of experience, could be a dining experience, it could be a theatre experience, or it could just be a free afternoon in a museum, is so good for us. And I truly believe that.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (33:33)
Well, we need that balance in our lives of, you know, whether it be family time, cultural time, me time, work time, you know, stretching ourselves and personal growth and challenging time. We need all of those in balance to live a healthy and long life. you know, I see my parents who are both still alive and very healthy, both in their mid to late eighties, you know.
actively involved in all areas of life and I’m sure that’s what keeps their minds strong and their bodies strong and I think they’re going to outlive me.
Dawn Farrow (34:07)
you
for them.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (34:12)
I reckon. OK, so how do we pull this together? It sounds like that the business is in very early stages is and you’ve got a massive vision for growth and where you want to take it. Please tell me, Dawn, that this time around, you’re going to create an exit plan so that at some point there will be a transition, whether you transfer out of leadership or transition out of ownership of the business. But at some point, you’re you you’ve got a long term
⁓ life plan for the business because the industry needs it.
Dawn Farrow (34:47)
Yeah, I, the first time in my career, I very much see a path that I know I can keep pursuing. So I think the opportunity for growth with Onsail Group is just bigger than I could have ever dreamt ⁓ when I was a dancer or ever dreamt when I was an agency owner. And so that
that alone allows me to think more seriously about a shift of leadership in the future. Actually, which are the bits of this business that I’m really good at, which I don’t know yet, right? Because I’m still in that world of doing it all. And really doubling down on, I’m married, I have a young family.
How do I grow this business whilst also being those things? And then what are my biggest desires for the business globally as I move forward?
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (35:45)
Hmm.
Well, you’re playing at the industry level now rather than the business level, and it sounds like it’s all before you. So exciting times.
Dawn Farrow (35:58)
Mm.
Yes, I hope so.
Darryl Bates-Brownsword (36:05)
brilliant. Dawn Farrow, thanks for sharing your exit insights with us today.
Dawn Farrow (36:09)
Thank you so much.