Excerpted from the book on conscious business management, Business Black Belt
When you know what to do and have the right tools, you can do anything.
This is my brief biography, to give you an idea of who I am, what I’ve learned, and some of the experiences that have contributed to this book.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “All you need is a good idea… sell it… and live happily ever after,” while growing up. I guess it’s the American Dream. I heard it from my grandfather who founded a tubing distribution company after World War II. His company, TubeSales, became a successful worldwide distributor of industrial tubing.
Dinner table discussions were often about the tubing distribution business.
When I was six, my grandfather imparted his wisdom to me:
“You’ll never make any money working for somebody else.”
He also advised, “Get a product (or invent one) and sell it.”
So, I scrounged around the house looking for something to sell. Because my grandmother was on a political election committee, the next day I was in business for the first time, in our driveway, selling “Ronald Reagan for Governor” buttons for 25 cents each.
Skip ahead about 15 years
I was a college junior studying electrical engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara, but “Nth dimensional equations” were driving me crazy! It was too complicated for a guy who saw the real life applications of high-technology and just wanted to put it to use. So, I switched to business economics to learn about the ebb and flow of money on the planet.
It was interesting, but still I yearned to do something on my own.
I borrowed $5,000 from my grandmother and started a do-it-yourself used car lot. You know, “Rent a Space and Sell Your Car.” I developed all the sales promotion materials, advertised in the paper, and plastered my fliers on every car with a For Sale sign in its window. I even did the radio commercials. (When I wanted to sleep-in, my clock radio would come on and I’d hear myself, telling me to come to work.
Anyway, I was a big hit at school as a result.) Despite angry car salespeople (I assume) who chopped down my sign and a telephone pole, I built the business to display an average of 20 to 30 cars, trucks and motorcycles just about every Sunday.
The business wasn’t really successful, although I did get an “A” every quarter from my professor/advisor.
I did get my BA degree in business economics from U.C. Santa Barbara. This business experience is a small,
but important part of what I learned and contributes much to Business Black Belt.
My first real job after college
With Texas Instruments in Southern California, I sold electronic components to engineers and corporate buyers.
After practically living in my car for two years (in the pre-carphone days), I created a direct-mail and telemarketing program and I was just becoming successful. Alas, my division of T.I. was sold.
During this time, I started reading books on business success and taking seminars on personal development. Although these were powerful eye-openers for me and compelled me to eventually change my ways for the better, I first believed that I could make an end-run to the top.
(There had to be a get-rich-quick scheme or a deal that would make me a millionaire before I was 25!)
I went to work for the seminar company, thinking that total immersion in the information would get me there faster.
I didn’t do well at selling seminars because I didn’t have what they sold. I wasn’t sure of the results people would get or
how they would feel about it (and me). I learned a lot about myself and human nature but made no money.
One of my better customers from my T.I. days, a distributor of HP–3000 accounting software, needed a director of marketing.
The first thing I did was set up direct mail and telemarketing. I was trying to get rich quick here too.
I sold a few software packages, but I learned that people want the assurance of functionality and support more than a discount on the software they use to run their business. One day, after a rare sale, I was reading a Sharper Image® catalog and wondered if I could get out of sales and do something more fun.
I knew that I had to go for it
I became the electronics buyer for The Sharper Image Catalog… Wow! There I was with all the toys I ever wanted and more. (By the way, I learned that having these things really doesn’t improve the quality of your life—this will make for a good philosophical talk another time.) I always wondered how a successful mail-order company worked, and how someone became as successful as Sharper Image founder Richard Thalheimer. So I watched him, studied how he operated, and I learned a lot.
It wasn’t rocket science, just the perfect execution of the basics of mail order. Many books on the subject tell you the same things—just do them and keep your foot on the gas. I also learned about karma here. As a salesman-turned-buyer,
I must have seen or been the butt of every sales ploy I had ever tried before.
Every salesperson pulled something on me! Tactics I’d used before, tried once, or read about, all came to haunt me.
(Every salesperson should be a buyer for a while to learn respect for the sales process. Likewise, buyers should try their hand at selling—I’ve known several who have become very successful.)
This was a very fast-paced organization; my problem was that although I had the gift of knowing what to buy, I lacked the experience and nerve to purchase quantities worth more than three times my salary—and do it fast enough to keep stock
on-hand for the catalog demand. However, I also showed promise as a writer, so they moved me over to the creative department to write their catalog copy. I love The Sharper Image catalog promotional copy style.
Readers feel like they know everything about a product in 50 to 100 words and are compelled to dive for the phone
with their credit cards ready.
Next, I found a low-key marketing/advertising firm in Silicon Valley where I could get in on the ground floor, help them grow, and reap big rewards as the manager of new business development. (The get-rich-quick bug still held me.) In less than a year, I established six key accounts. Although I learned much about marketing, unhealthy business practices were going on around me. This experience also contributed much to what I write about here, and is valuable to the long-term success of your business. I left being owed several paychecks.
One day I was driving up Highway 101 and passed an 18-wheeler loaded with tubing.
The mud flaps read “TubeSales—Worldwide.” A reminder of my grandfather. A message.
Whoa… I’d better get moving!
1984. I wanted to work again for a solid company that would let me apply what I’d learned so far.
Soon, I was working out of a local sales office in Santa Clara, California, for CPT Corporation, based in Minneapolis,
selling sophisticated information management systems. These were great systems to sell at the beginning of the personal computer era and I could make a lot of money fast. I was actually starting to do well, but our CEO felt that his $200-million company didn’t need to follow suit with the IBM PC and be DOS-compatible. Oops. There’s a lesson to keep in mind.
Now I’m on my own
(In a later chapter I’ll describe what happened that got me onto a new track that ultimately proved very successful.)
I was tired of all my get-rich-quick attempts. However, I knew that I could make sales materials that would help good products sell and help salespeople in the process. So, I founded Tools For Sales™ to develop sales promotion materials.
I let go of my get-rich-quick drive and decided to just make “karma payments” helping others ”
until something else clicked.
I didn’t want to call myself a marketing consultant because there are too many of those—promoting my specific service to create sales tools gave me an advantage. I produced simple, direct advertisements and brochures providing my clients’ customers with complete and clear information. And my clients’ sales consistently jumped from 140 to 300+%.
Finally, I was doing more things right than wrong. And for the right reasons.
I also worked on a variety of business plans and discovered that by applying my marketing experience to the
development of a business plan, the result was more descriptive, more concise, and easier to understand.
I wrote business plans as if they were an elaborate company brochure to win over bankers, investors, or senior corporate managers. This style of plan was more likely to be read and approved for funding. It’s still working.
My first glimpse of daylight
What if I got a hold of a product or invented something like my grandfather had advised?
I’d need the ultimate business plan myself, and I could really do it right this time.
I had enough materials to put one together, so I began to organize and refine them.
All I needed was a product. Then it happened. I was standing in the shower sometime between Christmas
and the new year in 1987, I was ranting and raving to myself about how pathetic most business plans were.
People just didn’t get it. How come the plans were so unclear, disorganized, incomplete, non-compelling?
These people understand their business, but a lot of them were in a jam trying to write their business plans.
It hit me. Maybe they could use the template I’d started for myself from all the work I’d done?!
Not long after, BizPlanBuilder® was conceived and first published.
At about the same time, I began training for my black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
This book picks up here, when I finally started to put it all together and do things right.
Now Business Power Tools (formerly JIAN) is a fast-growing company whose business development
software products help others to do the same.
