Inspiration
The Why Factor: What Makes You Different in Business and Life
Although I am happily retired, the one thing I do miss is the thrill of the hunt. There was nothing like having your heart racing while barely beating a deadline in submitting your final proposal. Mine was generally several pages deeper than most, as I always had a story to tell. I considered it the…
Read MoreThe People I Misjudged and The Valuable Life Lessons They Taught Me
Perhaps I had a healthy dose of arrogance when I founded BCD back in 1999. After all, my sales career literally started in a warehouse and grew from there. I certainly wasn’t “book-smart” in life, and perhaps I saw that as an advantage. I opened the company as a “selling CEO.” Having CEO on your…
Read MoreThe Art of Selling: Why Trust and Confidence Win in Business Every Time
The most important product a salesperson offers any potential customer is their word. This is where trust begins, and for that matter, where trust could end just as well. Confidence sells. Confidence is contagious. Confidence creates momentum. But where does that confidence come from? It comes from you! Sure, “winging it” works to a point,…
Read MoreHow I Built a “Business Within the Business” and Turned Partnerships into Millions
I guess it’s fortunate that the older I get, age 68 as I write this, incidents happen that cause me to reflect on both my personal and professional life. Because I am left-handed, I’ve always felt the rest of the world was backward; it certainly couldn’t have been me. Whatever the reason, it seemed that…
Read MoreWhy Old-School Business Values Beat Modern Corporate Culture Every Time
I miss the old days; old for me, anyway. As much as I was surfing that wave of technology starting in the early days of my computer career – dare I say, capitalizing on it – life was so much more honest back then. And the only thing “instant” back then may have been Minute…
Read MoreHow to Turn Painful Childhood Memories into Powerful Life Lessons
Childhood Chaos and Painful Family Dynamics Growing up, I was one of four kids, plus a stepsister twelve years older than me. The stepsister, Judy, never had a chance after her dad married my mother. Especially after my sister was born seven years after my twin brother, Jim, and me. She became my mother’s sole…
Read MoreSelling with Grit and Grace: The 99% Confidence Rule
Selling with Grit and Grace I base much of my selling success on taking the time to do my homework. For those who know me, that first sentence may raise an eyebrow or two. People always considered me impatient. After a while, it no longer bothered me, as I happened to run at a different…
Read MoreHow I Finally Got My College Education Right
Way back in the fall of 1975, after graduating from high school three months earlier, I entered college at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. This was roughly two hours, and from my family home, but it may as well have been on another planet for me. My parents and I took two trips to…
Read MoreWhy I Donate All My Book Profits to the Wounded Warrior Project
Why Donate ALL Book Profits to the WWP? Ever since the publication of It Worked For Me!, people have occasionally asked why I chose to donate all the book profits to the Wounded Warrior Project. It’s a fair question, especially considering that several excellent charitable programs exist that support our veteran heroes. A Personal Connection…
Read More10 Easy Business Rules That Apply to Everyday Life
The Power of OTFD: How Speed, Accountability, and Quality Built a $100M Brand Success A $100M company was built around a simple business mantra based upon OTFD (Out the Fucking Door). If you find that offensive, you likely worked at one of our so-called competitors. We preferred to consider them as pretenders. “Just Like BCD,”…
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