Steven Stroum, founder and president of Venmark International, author of Success and Self-Discovery

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor impliedes shall be extended to W four CY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helena. Thanks everyone for joining in again today. I'm Kevin Haleanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four cy I dot We're streaming live on talkfour tv dot com in addition to Facebook at Winning Business Radio, as well as available in podcasts after the live show on many other platforms. You hear them every week. It's YouTube, It's iHeartRadio. It's Spotify, it's Appleach, pretty much wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, the wish excuse me. The mission of Winning Business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, to learn best practices, the how tos, the what too's, the what not toos, to

1:32 be challenged, and certainly to be inspired by the successes of others. But you know, virtually every successful person have ever had a chance to talk to us had some form of failure in their lives and careers. So, as I say, every week, while we all have to get our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it today. My guest is Steve Strum, founder and president of Venmark International, and author of Success and Self Discovery, a business memoir with insightful tips and personal development advice that will help any entrepreneur. Here's steve'spile. Steven Mstrom is a seasoned publicist, marketer, and entrepreneur who's been featured in INC magazine, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, Marketing Magazine, Industrial Marketing Omni Magazine, BusinessWeek, Exchange, USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, It's a little bit list of a list, The Middlesex News, San Francisco Chronicle, WHDHTV, WJAARTVWKOXTV, and other media outlets. He's also appeared on numerous radio and television programs, addressed many business and civic groups. Has been a guest lecturer at the American Marketing Association, Boston College, Babson College, MIT, and ISAMA out of Northeastern University, and numerous business and civic groups.

2:47 Steve grew up in a working class family in Auburndale, a village of Newton, Massachusetts. After briefly attending Northeastern University in nineteen sixty six, he enlisted in the US Air Force and served in Thailand during the Vietnam War. In March of sixty eight, he received a medical discharge, became a disabled veteran, and in September returned to the Northeastern University. He's the youngest of three boys. He was married to Peggy Lawrence in nineteen seventy and received a bachelor's a BS in Business administration in seventy three. Steve started his business from a spare room at his parents' home in Newton, mass with only three hundred bucks and a few short months. After a few short months, excuse me, moved to nearby Wellesley. By the end of his first year in business, he had ten full time employees and hundreds of clients. In recognition of his company's contribution to the success and gross growth of numerous small companies, Steve was selected to serve on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Small Business task Force. Was later appointed one of eighteen small business Advisors by the Governor of Massachusetts. Steve was also selected by the International Rotary Foundation tour South Korea for six weeks as an ambassador. He was later appointed to the Norbert Winer Forum at Tufts University to study the impact of technology on society, and served as publicity advisor on the Smaller Business Association of New England Board of Directors. That's espan. Steve and his wife Peggy have a son, Mark and two grandkids, Avery and Ben.

4:11 They have a mini doodle Doodle mini double doodle. Steve will tell us about that, and they reside in Framingham. Steve, Welcome to Winning Business TV and Radio. Thanks for being here. It's great to be with you. Kevin. I appreciate that. I appreciate that lent the introduction, no problem. I have a reason for that. I wanted to clude a lot because that'll allow us to go a lot of different directions in the conversation. But first, you got to tell us about the mini double doodle. Fascinating breed. She's her name is Brandy, cute little pup. She's her mother was half labradoodle, half golden doodle, and a father's a miniature poodle. So she's about twenty three pounds, three and a half years old. It's terrific dog and we love her, you know, nice. He's like a member of the family. Oh for sure, do you have a dog?

4:57 We do? We do? Oh yeah, totally, totally exactly. She's almost seventeen to our dog. Oh man, So tell us about you, wife, Peggy. She's put up with you for a million years, fifty four years before coming up, so she's terrific. She actually she used to work for the chief of staff in Montsion Hospital in San Francisco, so she's very talented. And she was my first assistant at work and made it all happen with me way back in the old days. And yeah, we've had a blast. And every time, frankly, every type I've run into a problem. She's much better at selecting people than I am. Every time I ran into a problem, I'd call her into the office and she'd hire somebody.

5:42 So she did a great job. She hired my first assistant after her, and then I think she's four or five years later another one. And so in my forty some odd years of business, I only had three assistants, so last one was twenty six years. That was a really good hire. So that's a good track record for sure. Yeah, so tell us about Mark. Mark is going to be forty five in February. He's chief what's his exact title, Chief Gifts Officer at Bentley College at Bentley l University and graduated from Roger Williams University years ago. Doesn't lived too far away, which is a good thing, and has a granddaughter ate his daughter Avery and the son Benjamin. That's awesome. Yeah, we have a tight relationship.

6:33 He and I go down to we go fishing frequently down to the Keys every year and just the two of us get away for long weekend fishing. And as I mentioned I wrote in the book, he worked for me for a while back in two thousand and eight, and we had an agreement that if he didn't like it after a year, then no hard feelings and we would move on. So it was a great experience. We had a blast. That's good. But yeah, he's a great guy. So I'm in Rosendale, so I know Auburndale fairly well. Tell us tell the audience, the viewers and the listeners about Auburndale and what it was like to grow up there.

7:14 Well, growing up there was interesting because give really my when I grew up there, the Mass Turnpike ended in Weston, so our house that I grew up in on robin Hood Street and Auburndale was taken by the Mass Turnpike. Woh yeah, that was around. That was back in nineteen sixty. But Newton was a great town to grow up in. In fact, that's where I ended up starting the business. My folks moved moved from Auburndale to Newtonville. I went to Newton North High and it was a great experience, you know, a nice nice town. But again that was back in the fifties and sixties. Yeah, a lot of things. Everything has What were your early interests A question I asked every interview. What were your early interests?

8:01 Good question. Sports. We're very active in sports in the neighborhood. And I always wanted to be in business for myself. I had a paper route when I was kids. Today, I don't even know what a paper root is, but I delivered it, delivered newspapers back in the back in the early days. And uh, you know, I had a job at fourteen as soon as I could get a license to work, you know, so always, you know, always active with that sort of thing, and you know, cut grass around the neighborhood, shovel driveways around the when it would snow, we'd go out and hustle and try to shovel driveways, shovel walks, make some money. And yeah, you did the same, my presum yes, Mike. Uh. Paper out though, was when I was like twenty three, from an automobile whipping them out the window. Oh no, we were in a I was on my bicycle and they were up, but they were they were on the front carriage and then would whip them, and I was back when the Newton Wall Dam News Tribune, so sold for a nickel, you know. But uh, great memories, great memory I love it. It's funny. I learned a lot about people back in those days. I delivered papers in the wealthy part of town and then in the black section, which in those days was called the colored village, and I got bigger tips. I got bigger tips in the village than I got up on the hill. So it was fascinating at working folks took care of working folks. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah. So you started at Northeastern studying to become a teacher before the Air Force in Vietnam. But then you

9:33 chose to let's tell us about that story. Well what happened. I majored in education to begin with, right, and over the summer of sixty six, took a couple of business courses and transferred into business. But I after a few months in college. This was nineteen sixty six, right in the middle of the Vietnam War was at its height, and it was one of these you full decisions. I decided to quit Northeastern and my dad, you, dad loved the idea, right, I understand oh man. You know, my brother was in the Air Force. At the time I went to my father was the low point of my life. And I said, Dad, I you know, I've quit college and enlisted in the Air Force.

10:18 And he looked at me and said, you're stupid, just like your brothers. Oh yeah, and you're a quitter. And I swore it after that that nobody that a I would nobody would ever call me stupid and be I would never quit anything. And as far as I know, the second aspect of that is true, but the first, but yeah, it was. It turned out to be a terrific motivator. Of course, I was upset with him for a while, but I couldn't blame him because it was a youthful decision. I knew. I knew I'd screwed up. I knew I'd made the mistake. My classmates were throwing me a party. Everybody was happy. It was you know, go go go, Steve. You know, like I said, it was the height of the Vietnam War. I enlisted on a I enlisted on a Tuesday and was drafted the following Friday. Wow.

11:07 So yeah, they hit student deferments in those days and as soon as you're lost it. The military was all over you. So and then you know, I did my I went in for basic training and in February of sixty seven and ended up in August of sixty seven going over to Thailand after tech school. We're going to take a break, but before we do, there's a really interesting story about how you made it to Thailand instead of in frontline action. Potentially frontline action. Oh absolutely. I was the only one in my tech school that got an assignment over in Thailand because I took the initiative to ask for it. I befriended, I found out who the sergeant was, who who was responsible for making the assignments, and I went to them and I said, hey, listen, I my brother's station in Thailand.

11:58 If you have any assignments coming up Thailand, I'd love to have the opportunity to get a shot at it. And sure enough, there was one. Everybody else in my crew, everybody else in the flight went to Pensacola, Florida for jungle training for Vietnam. I went to Thailand, and believe me, it was not a bad experience other than coming down with a skin problem. We will get to that. We will get to that. All right, We're going to be right back everybody, just about one minute, Steve and audience with We'll be back with Steve Strump. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance. Be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free.

12:58 Yes you heard it, Free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six one five zero six four zero three to one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helena, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. We're back with Steve Strom, founder and President of Venmark International, to tell us about that in a little bit. An author of Success and Self Discovery, a business memoir with insightful tips and personal development advice that will help any entrepreneur. So tell us about your role in the Air Force in Thailand as munitions as I understand it, and pick any any story from that experience and share it. Well. The moral of the story really with respect to tech school as well where I went to become am munition specialist, was that you have to ask for something if you want it, and you have to be assertive. And so when I was in time, I was stationed in Thailand and we were working twelve hours a day, six days a week, everybody on the base and to you know full twelve hours days and I was and we worked. There were several crews in the bomb dumb and

14:31 the munition storage area was called a bomb dump. We had a build up crew, of storage crew, load crew, all these various crews and at the end of the day, we flew thirty nine missions a day over the ho Chi Min trail, day in and day up. So I had the opportunity to become a munition's controller. And if you envision a spreadsheet, but in those days, there was several grease pencil you know, glassen pages of plastic a glass with preaest pencil, and I had to as a communisian's controller to you know, keep an eye and monitor every single function. From when munitions came in, we stored them, then they got built, they got delivered to the flight line, and then signed off and so forth and so with. There were four of us, So again took the initiative to ask my sergeant in charge. I said, Sarage, do you do you care how the munition storage area is monitored? In other words, you know, you just want somebody here twenty four hours a day. You don't care what the hours are, do you? And he said, no, whatever you suggest. I said, well, we'd like to work twelve hours on twenty four hours off. He said that's fine, so we did. We were the only ones on the base. We'll go to work at you know, go to work at seven in the morning. And when I say go to work, you know, the air Force is very much like the civilian.

15:50 I mean I had a military driver's license. I'd picked the guys up in a truck. You know, we'd go into the we're going to work. At the end of the day, I'd take them home. And we weren't marching around or doing anything of that nature. We go to our jobs. So it worked out beautifully. You know, you go to work at seven in the morning, get off at seven at night. You wouldn't go to work again until seven the next night. Made time go by beautiful, and we were special. Always liked being special. Well. I read one section where I don't know if it was a sergeant or whatever, somebody said you were a Jew, right, and you said yep. He said, well, how come you not an officer? What was the answer? I didn't know if you want me to get into that. Yeah, yeah, I just looked at He said, scrom youre Jew, aren't you. I said yeah. He says, how come you're an officer? And I looked at him. I said sorry because I screwed up, just like you list, you know, and that was that was an interesting experience. Yeah, uh no, was just reading my notes here. So you you did how long were you in the Air Force? Because you were you medical discharge? You were there for how long? Yeah? I was in actually for about fourteen months. Okay, A very difficult skin condition which resulted in a medical discharge took him a while. My understanding is to even diagnose it correctly, which I eventually gave you what a thirty percent disability or so well, again being assertive and salesman. I got out of the Air Force with a ten percent

17:22 disability. Ten percent okay, yeah, well just back. Yeah, when I was in a hospital, I got air evacuated out of my base in Thailand to another base in Thailand. They couldn't do anything for me. They sent me to a base in the Philippines. Couldn't do anything for me. The meantime, all that was a gym bag, and they sent me to another base at Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan, where I was there for two weeks. They took a skin biopsy determined that I had what they called liken plants, some kind of a virus, skin virus. So they sent me back to Chelsea Naval Hospital, which is no longer in Massachusetts for the States. Yeah yeah, and then from Massachusetts down to Andrews Air Force Base Hospital. Now down there they were treating me, taking photographs. I mean, it was a I was a mess and uh and we used to have to take I used to have to take these cold tarn't baths every day.

18:12 The guys in my ward were telling me I was going to fall in love with the street. But at any rate. The treatment was tough, so I ended up. I heard from somebody that in the Air Force, if you couldn't serve in the war, you could be discharged. And they wanted to keep me. The doctors wanted to keep me and treat me for a year at Andrews Air Force Base. And I said, I don't want to waste a year in my life. First of all, I wanted to get back to college. I know I made a mistake, so I said to the doctor. I said, listen, I you know I'm a munition specialist. You know there's no job for me here in the United States. I want to go back to the war. He said, well, we can't send you to the war. I said, well, in that case, I think I should get out of the Air Force and literally put together a medical discharge. I carried around five doctors, got it signed and Mahr twenty fifth, nineteen sixty eight. I received the ten percent medical discharge. So somebody again taking initiative. Somebody else said to me, jeez, you know, Steve, you want to get in touch. And I wanted to get a twenty percent disability because twenty percent would get your books, tuition expenses, the whole deal for five years at Northeastern. So one of the guys I bumped into is, so, why don't you get the Jewish War veterans to make a case for you. So I'd called them, I made I got in touch with them, hoping to get a twenty percent disability, and I got a thirty percent disability. So there you go. I went back to school and in my middle of year, third year of college, my wife

19:45 and I got married. She had a job, I had co op jobs. I had my books. Tuition expenses paid for books. Tuition at Northeastern back then was a fortunate was three hundred and ninety five dollars a trimester. Woh tough. Thirteen hundred bucks a year was tough. You know, different time of it. So you're a little older than me, but UMass was twenty five hundred. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, my kids yikes, you know. Yeah, yeah, all right, So I love that. I love that assertiveness and everyone needs to learn that lesson. It's I mean, you weren't probably a jerk about it. You were just speaking up for yourself, and they could have said no, Well, you know, there's a people need to understand. There's a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive. Correct. You know I was assertive, you know, I asserted myself. Being aggressive is taking action against someone else, and big difference. And sales obviously we need to be assertive. So you have a bachelor's in business administration. What made you decide to go that direction? Then?

20:48 That was actually, as you mentioned, a decision you made prior to the Air Force. Yeah, you know, I I majored in education my first year of collge right, and it didn't feel right. Now. I had a buddy of mine that was going up to Renstally or Polytech, majoring in management, and we kiddssed about it and talked about it, and then I thought that would be a great idea. And I always loved behavioral science, but as I got into it more, I really really thoroughly enjoyed it. But I want to back up just one second. When I was in the hospital in the Air Force. You know, when I left Northeastern, I was told I could return. I left in good academic stands. Well, I wanted you to yes, I'm sorry, I wanted you to tell so I left him good at academic standing. And so I'm in the hospital in the in the in the service, and you know, you know, I was. I was really had to stay in bed because I was covered with this miserable gold tar. And every once in every three weeks I took a coal tar bath and went out into a bar and had a couple of pops. But so I was really, you know, tied down. Fortune.

21:48 I wasn't hurt, you know, I was ambutory, but you know, so at any rate, I wrote to the current Dane of freshman at Northeastern reapplying, and I got declined, and I, jesus, you know this is ridiculous. Now, So you had already been told when you left there'll still be a spot for you when you return, right, correct, Yeah, So I so I wrote, you know, for that spot, and he wrote back that Dean wrote back and said the academic standards had changed since you left. You no longer qualify. So I called his office and requested an interview with him. So and he granted me that nvy. I went in to see him, Dean Kennedy, nice fella, and he said, and I look at him behind him as a credenza with nine photographs of children. I said that, you know, after the chit chat and hello, and Dina, those your children? He said, yes, I said that beautiful children. I said, I want to say something. He said, what's that? I said, I just spent the last you know, year and a half of my life and the last five months and five different hospitals protecting your beautiful children. I waved my hand in front of the pictures and I said face. You know, I read his face and we went on talking. And asked me about why I want to go. I said, I was assured that I could go back to school, and all I want is the opportunity. All I want was Northeastern University to keep their word because I spent the last several months protecting your beautiful nine children. And I

23:25 saw it in his eyes that I made my sale. So I said, listen, Dan, thank you very much for your consideration. I hope that I'll have a positive response. And a week later, I was accepted to Northeastern and and it was it was again, you just can't accept no. Yeah, So you had a couple of noteworthy early jobs that, at least to me their noteworthy Fireman's Fond, American Life Insurance. Okay, but to me, the interesting part, especially because of what I do for a living. You developed a national sales training correct. Tell me about that. Tell us about that? All right? Well, what happened was I, my wife and I moved to San Francisco in nineteen seventy four, and I had bumped into before I left. My mother gave me the name of an employment agent, and so I went to see him, and a long story short, got involved. He got me an interview with Fireman's from the American Life Insurance Company, wholly owned subsidiary of American Express, and I went. I got the job as life sales representative in a Walnut Creek, California. I took over territory. There was forty ninth out of fiftieth in the company.

24:37 Inside of three months, I brought it up to third place in the company, outproduced my predecessor's entire previous year. My boss called me to his office, so I figured, this is fantastic. I'm going to get some maybe I'll get a raise. So I went in to see him and he said to me, you know, Steve, in life, some people need steak to be happy, and they need to eat steak to be happy. He said, around here, pork and beans are just fine, oh, and I misquoted the middle of he said, and other people are satisfied with pork and beans. He said, around here, pork and beans are just so. I left his office totally deflated. I mean here I was, you know, number three, huh, very proud of myself. I'll produce my predecessor's entire previous year in three months. And I go in for you know, hoping to get a stroke or two and bang. So I was just beside myself. So for the next month, next four weeks, I really didn't work. I mean, and I felt so guilty about it. I'd go to the marine and I'd make a couple of telephone calls. In the morning, I went down to the Marina Green in San Francisco. I jog around and what have you. And I didn't do much. Four weeks later, I'm in the home office. That was a meeting. The VP of charge of sales comes up to me. He puts me my hand, his hand on my shoulder. He says, Steve, congratulations, I said, for what he said, You're leading the company in sales. I said, I'm leading the company in sales. I haven't worked in four weeks. Shame on you. This is I'm twenty five years old, twenty six Yeah,

26:12 so this was the VP in charge of brokerage, obviously Kevin. At this point I didn't give it. Damn if I was fired called me into his office and said what's going on. I told him, I said, I'd like to come into the home office and write your national sales training program. You people have no clue what you're doing. And he said, well, you know what if we don't do that, I said, well, then I'll go to work for SAFECode. I'm sure they'd like to have my talent spoken like an entrepreneur, not a corporate guy. That's the damn. So at any rate they hired, they brought me into the home office. I wrote the national sales Training program. They thought it would take a year, but I've been obviously implementing it. You no territory management, how to assess prospects, the pitch though everything you know, you're involved, you know.

26:56 So I wrote it and put it on in October earlier, late mid September eighty seventy five. And I remember it well because as I was walking up to the rostrum, somebody had a TV on and Johnny Bench was catching was Cincinnati versus Boston the nineteen seventy five World Series, Right, So I get on the roster and and I'm giving my pitch and I'm explaining everything to everybody, and it was silence. I was just about boot off the rostrum, and I really learned a valuable I hadn't It was a valuable lesson. I hadn't created any allies, and I didn't understand corporate politics, and I didn't like corporate politics. So from that point on it was it was problematic.

27:40 And ironically, that night or a couple of nights later, a friend of mine was coming up to from Santa Clara up to San Francisco for dinner with us, and he had bumped into this spellicle by the name of Mike Gerber. And Mike Gerber, I don't know if you're familiar with the book called Yeah Mike was my partner in my Mike called me and told me about this company they had were standing in and Sam Matteo called Newsmaker and called me up. Long story short, I ended up partnering with them to found Newsmaker, to start Newsmaker, and Newsmaker was really the predecessor to Vemmark International, preecessor of Venmark International with Sales Development Associates, which I actually named when I was in California, and so go ahead. I was gonna say, hold that thought right there. We need another commercial right here. We'll be back everybody in one minute with Steve Strump. Perfect. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com.

28:45 Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the YP app to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area, no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP local search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene.

29:47 We are back with Steve Strom, founder and president of Venmark International and author of Success and Self Discovery. Let's talk about Venmark. Why did you decide to start the company? Well, I was I had worked like a dog with Newsmaker for six months. In fact, I was supposed to start in January of seventy six, and December of seventy five, I went to the office and started working, Mike says, and Mike g was what are you doing here? I said, well, I'm anxious to get started when we can't put you on the payroll till January, so I'm not looking for any money. I want to get started. So I took over and I created created new forms, training program, all kinds of instruments to make it successful, and broke broke my butt, and within a few months it was starting to take off and fly. So they, you know, they gave me a company car and a salary, and I signed an agreement to be a partner. I knew the agreement was bogus. I didn't have a lawyer look at it. Because I didn't care. I wanted the experience. I you know, this is exactly the marketplace I wanted to be involved with. My task was to to you know, in the insurance business, you don't have to be an underwriter to sell insurance. You need to know how to sell the benefits of insurance. But in the PR business, the salesman and the account executive has always been one and the same, and that's a very expensive proposition. So my job was to train salespeople out and develop the sales training

31:19 program the whole bit. Train salespeople how to sell publicity. The benefits of publicity, which you know, editorial exposure. It's it gives you a chance to get broad exposure and look as big as a major corporation and all these things. You know, people relate to it easiest when you talk about a book on a television program, for example, that's publicity. That's free editorial exposure. So today it's called content, but same same thing in part called content. So my job was to package up that creative service and sell it using the insurance model, and I did it very successfully. Our service hold like three hundred and ninety five bucks by by the end of June, I had seventy some odd thousand dollars in sales. I went home to came home for the bi centennial in nineteen seventy six with my wife. I came, Yeah, came home for a week. My wife was here for two.

32:16 I went back to California and Mike called me up, said, Hey, meet me at the airport. We've got a gig in La. So I went down to La with him, and on the way back he said, listen, we want you to start another company with us. I said, WHOA, that wasn't that wasn't our agreement. Now I was working from six in the morning until midnight. Literally I had gone, I wasn't eating. I went to one hundred and fifty seven pounds. Wow. When I was in the eighth grade. I played football at one seventy. So they gives you a perspective, okay. So I was just blown away. So that was that was a big, big punch in the gut because I loved Mike and aceirother partner, and it was I loved this whole aspect of building Newsmaker up. And we had ten full time people by that by you know, six months, So they I had to sign a non compete agreement in San Francisco, and at that time, I just wanted to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. So I got a book entitled Where Do I Go From Here? With My Life? By Crystal and Bowls. It was an oversized paperback, sat down in my kitchen, lit up a parliament smoked in those days, made some coffee drinking coffee smoking cigarettes. Took about six weeks to put my life plan together, and part of it also had an exercise. My wife and I had promised each other we'd live in San Francisco for two years before we came home, just to make sure you know what we were doing. So any long story, so we decided to move back home and I was going to take some interviews for a sales management job. And my first interview, you know, I took

33:50 was in Boston at a company called American Career Planning Services. Fell a named Walt Cameron. Terrific guy. He liked me a lot, but said, Steve, you lacked the experience. I said, well, I've done it at that time. You know, at that time, the annual the average annual income was like ten thousand a year I was making thirty six in a company car. I mean it was that was hot stuff, you know, he said, Steve, I'm sorry. He said, I really need to get somebody with no more experience. But he said, what are you going to do? What do you think you're going to do? I said, well, it's become clear to me a couple of things. Number One, I know what I can do because I've done. And Secondly, I think I'm going to start my own business doing what I did in California. I said, and if I do, mag call you. He said please.

34:34 So I he became my first account. Nice, it was, it was great. I made the appointment. It was December tenth, nineteen seventy six, but one in the afternoon at the Crudential Center and I had a salesman by that I hired straight commissioned by name len so Lent came with me and I told my wife, who was my first assist, I said, call me at one fifteen, and I why, I pull me out of the meeting. I want to look busy. All comes in at one fifteen. I'm on the phone. Now, now you're going to I have to tell him, all, well, I don't have to get back at me. Anyway, This was all happening in front of Walter, and it was terrific. So I'm going through my presentation, and of course you explain what publicity is public what publicity can do for them, look at their opportunities with them, and so forth. And he said to me, whoa, he says, you know, I'm I'm not general electric. I don't have all that kind of much money, and I've already spent a fortune. I said, how much have you spent? He said, I've spent forty thousand dollars.

35:36 I said, well, you can't afford not to spend another three hundred and ninety five dollars to see what we can do for you. Shut up, and he said, okay, So I learned another lesson there. I heard it. I was going to I was hoping he could bring it up. We teach it all the time. Yeah exactly. Oh yeah, no, no, I didn't say a word. Whoever talked first loses. So he said, okay, great, you know he's you fill out the order he signs. They says, what are your terms? And that's where that's where I learned a big lesson. I said, well, we get paid with our order, and he said fully, I said, yes, when you figure out how to repossess an idea, I'll gladly extend your credit. And he looked at me and I said, I know that was a stupid thing to say, Walt, I apologize. So I mean it was like I considered my foot in my mouth. Wald recognized that he was such a wonderful guy. So anyway, Blenn and I left the office with a check for three hundred ninety five bucks. We hopped on the elevator and I just boom, I hit the I hit the thirty eighth floor. I just pushed the button because we had to use a restroom, and we're so excited. We hugged and went to the restroom, came out. I looked up and I saw a sign that said Associated the Industries in Massachusetts, and you know, and it said directory of Manufacturers for sale fifteen dollars and seventy five cents.

36:59 So we bought it. I bought the directory. We went back and started cold calling, and uh love it, you know. And in the first ol first year, I think we did one hundred and sixty thousand in business. Back in those days, well, you know, it took off like a rocket you know, I had ten full time people. And so the memoir, my book, obviously is you know, the interesting thing. It took off like a rocket ship. Here, I was twenty eight years old. I started the company with three hundred dollars. I was twenty eight first year, second year, noted six figures, and I was depressed. I got depressed. Now you usually you would think, geez, you know, the average annual income was eleven ten to seven. Yeah, and I'm twenty nine years old earning six figures and I'm depressed. And a lot of the book deals with how I figured how how I figured out why I was depressed rather than elated, you know. So you know it's interesting. You know you can still you know, you can still perform, you can still be successful. It's something that that almost innate. So I had to determine why I was was depressed, and that was the whole process. And we'll give us a thumbnail. Well, I got a terrific therapist. The first couple of weeks, I was in therapy three days a week. I had twelve full time employees, so I was responsible for those twelve families. So I couldn't I couldn't fall apart, so I I you know, I was being

38:30 sustained and held up by this terrific, terrific therapist down in Providence. Yeah, and so then I ultimately, you know, I was involved in therapy for a couple of years and figuring out what what made me happy, and what and what aspects of the company made me happy. And so that's that's that's a thumbnail ve it. I went through a process. You know. One of my chapters is deals with going up to Gloucester and I rented a room for the weekend at a at an inn and I sat up in this big picture window overlooking the ocean. Back in the day you could smoke cigars. I had a cigar, bottle of Merleau, a pad of paper, and a pen, and I really figured out that weekend that I built this company. I had twelve full time people. By then, our sales were well over half a million a year. We were cooking. You know.

39:24 I was invited by the editor of Computer World to come see him. I flew out to Cleveland, met with editors ives. There's a lot of stuff going on, and you know, great things happening, but I wasn't happy you know by this time. You know, so I had to figure out and recreate and transform the business to make me happy. And that's what I was able to do. I mean, you know now I can look back on it in the book writing the book was transformed. It was something I put in my journal. You know, when I was involved in therapy, I kept the journal and I would put the day of the week. I put the date, the time, and the time of day, because you know, I wanted to know what my strong time of day was when if I was depressed it in the morning, depressed at night with what was just I wanted to control the variables. It's like any other scenario. So I did that and I figured I figured out that I could transform the business.

40:23 Oh, I was starting to say so in my journal in nineteen eighty three, I first made the note that I wanted to write this book. The working title was blue Collar Entrepreneur. I know, I love that. I'm going to comment on that too. Good because ninety nine point nine percent of businesses are small businesses, majority of which are are started by folks like you and me brought up all our families. You know, you open up a barbershop, you open up a sub shop you whatever it might be, you know, And so that was the working title. But as I got into editing the book further, it occurred to me that that was too limited and so but at any rate, that was forty years ago, so it took me forty years. So a couple of years ago, at age seventy three, I said to myself, Steve, you need to write that book and stop bsing yourself and get to it. And part of it was I was afraid, you know, you're you know, are you good enough? Can you write a good enough book? And so I laid it out there.

41:30 You sound as though you've read I laid the you know, I laid my life out. And the vulnerability of the book is what people are responding to. If you if you go to Amazon dot com and you look at the reviews, everybody that's reviewed it has really commented on the vulnerability. So that's the part of entrepreneuring I wanted to discuss in the book. You know, everybody who's an entrepreneur, says Roy rah Rah. I became a multimillionaire. I'm great. Look at me, you know, I give some of the real stuff that happens. Having to have to part ways with my own brother and all kinds of different stuff who I never should have hired. But you know, you get under the gun and you want to hire somebody you think you can trust, as opposed to sitting there and creating a job description and doing a complete analysis and coming up with what you really need. You know.

42:20 So I'm you know, despite a degree in management with honors, I made probably every mistake every entrepreneur makes. Fortunately I've been resilient enough to come around the corner. So I always say I'm proud of my mistakes because I learned a lot from them. Right, absolutely, absolutely. I was very fortunate in California to work with Mike Gerber, and he was a brilliant, brilliant guy. I mean, he's written over twenty books, best sellers. But our partner was Ace Remus, a fella, and Ace was a Buddhist, and he thought in terms of doing something and not judging it. You know, don't judge no more people, peoples. A book. Writing a book is so vast just started, you know, write it. One day.

43:07 He would say, don't think about it, Steve, do it. I'd go into his office with an idea about the sales presentation. Don't think about it, do it because don't. In other words, don't be afraid to fail. Failures just experience that you can learn from, and it's invaluable. In fact, I've made some of my best sales in life by saying to my prospect, listen, Kevin, I think you and I both know that we ought to be working together, but for some reason, you have chosen not to hire me. And I really would appreciate it if you'd be candid with me and tell me why. And they would tell me why, and then I would simply say, well, if I can repair that, Kevin, and provide you with the information you just told me about, would you hire me? And they said yes, and then I'd solve that problem and would hire me. Move ahead. You know that's my When I was in the insurance business briefly and Paul Revere Insurance in Boston, I was calling this fellow, Sam Paris and in Wellesley for months months, about nine ten months, and I finally said to him, Sam, I come and I see you, and you talk to me, and you like me, and we go back and forth and we kibbits, but you've never hired me.

44:17 What's it. What's it going to take to get your business? He told me. And then, man, I'll tell you what. The floodgates opened up. I even had a desk in that place. All of the all the agents hired me. So that's that's that's what's so the book contains a lot of those tips too. So I want to pull out a couple of things here, just in the in the short time we have left, Learning to Win, tell us about that Learning to Win is really there's not one thing in particular, is a series, a series of behaviors. I learned to win with Dave Whitney. That was the first time. Dave was a classmate mine at Northeastern. That's where I really learned how to win, and we were going to class. I met him in my sophomore year and I was a struggling student. I worked hard. I got b's and c's.

45:10 Dave was a straight A student. So one day was sitting on the quad, kids are throwing frisbees around. I said, Dave, you know you don't seem all with all due respect, I say, you don't see him that's much smarter than me. But you're getting straight a's and I'm getting b's and c's. And he looked at me and said, Steve, the fact of the matter is I am a lot smarter than you, and I'll tell you why. And he showed me his study process, and that word process is key, because that's really where I learned how to win. So Dave said, what I do is I get a syllabus from every professor. If they don't have one, I insist on one or get it verbally. I plan out my entire calendar for the trimester for the three months. And while you're, you know, studying and cramming, I'm just reviewing. Because I've had this plan, this process. I said, great, thank you.

45:59 I implement to this process and for the next four years got straight a's. So I went from a BC student with a label of a struggling student to a straight A student exceptional. So learning how to win was learning to respect the process. So when I built when I built my company, I built a sales training program. I had a sales book, we had all this data, all this information. It made my salespeople comfortable. It gave them a roadmap. And back in the day it was before GPS, man if you couldn't read a map, you had problems. So it gave them a roadmap to proceed and to move ahead. And I had them learn a sales presentation and the rationale. There was a sales process of explaining what you do how it can benefit them, and knowing the difference between open ended questions to gather information and closed end questions to get affirmation. And unless somebody understands in the first ten minutes what you're doing and you continue without affirming that understanding, you're wasting your time, and what's worse, you're wasting your customer's time.

47:07 So last one, last one optimizing, because I think this is a good tie in here. Optimizing work life balance. Well, that's interesting. Was first, very very driven, and again I majored management college organizational behavior, and I knew that a quote balanced life was was optimal. But my body and my being behaved differently. And I always really worked hard when I and so I had this drive to succeed, and that drive bothered me so much I needed to. I went to a vocational psychologist at Berkeley when I was in California because one Saturday I went to a bar. I figured, geez, i'll relax, I'll go to a bar, have a couple of beers, shoot pull, and I couldn't relax. I couldn't enjoy myself. I couldn't waste time like that in those days. So I had to find out, you know, I was driven. And ultimately, once I started my own company, and fortunately Peggy, my wife, understood I was driven, and you know, she she joined the health club just spend her time getting in, you know, because I wasn't around. I was working seven days a week. And so what I learned was ultimately what my own work pattern was, and that I needed to take four to six weeks vacation a year.

48:34 And we did that. My wife and I would take a vacation just the two of us would take two weeks, so it's two weeks, would take two weeks as a family, and then we would each take a separate week to you know, she'd go with her girlfriend. I'd go fishing in the keys or whatever. Yeah, And every time we came back, I came back from a vacation, I'd work and I'd come home at six o'clock and you know, for a week, and then the next week i'd be coming home at seven and you know, my normal time when I'd come home at eight thirty. Just I was so much, so into it, and about every twelve weeks I took a vacation because that's how I achieved the best balance and prevented burnout. And the other thing I did on vacation was I vacated. I never once called my office for two weeks. Never once.

49:16 I had a great assistant. She knew and I respected her. If she needed me, should call me. So never once. So I really vacated these people, these kids, especially today laptops and cell phones. Yep, forget about it. You're not vacating. You're not empty in and out the head and just relaxing. And I would go on vacation. I'd read seven books. I had a client say to me once, Hey, responding to me while you're on vacation doesn't impress me. Yeah? Absolutely, that must have resonated. Huh did it? Certainly? Did it? Certainly? Did? Hey? We are out of time. I have two more questions, Who in the viewing listening audiences should reach out to you and why? Well, what they should do? Is it purchased my book? Read the book.

50:00 It's available on Amazon Amazon. It's entitled Success and Self Discovery and it's my business memoir and has a lot of tips in there. I'm and I have a website for that book, which is smstrom S t r o um dot com. But again it's available on Amazon. You can go to Amazon and you can read the introduction the first couple of chapters. As far as I'm really not looking for new business myself, I've I've kept a dozen clients I'm having a I've had them for forty seven years. Forty six years the ones I'm working with. But if somebody wanted to get in touch with me, go through my website. If you have a business question, I'm happy to that's right. If I can send put somebody in the right direction, I'll be happy to because again I specialize in publicizing and promoting products. But again it's more than that. And if you have time, I'll tell you.

50:53 The best sales secret I was ever taught was by a fellow named g Magna. Jean told me, when you're asking a question, you're asking for a close it's better to say, Kevin, what do you think of the idea of purchasing this bottled water from me? As opposed to Kevin, I'd like you to purchase this bottle of water for me, because if you put it in the abstract and it's an idea, it's less threatening to him, and it really is a tremendous way of getting information. What do you think of the idea of purchasing this water for me? You know how it might help you? All Right, we are out of time. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I feel like we're just scratching the surface.

51:39 It was really fun. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, Kevin, appreciate it very much. Here Collie, welcome and thanks everybody for listening and watching. This is a show about business, business challenges, business encouragement. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio. You can drop me a note Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our companies Winning Incorporated. We're part of Sandler Training. We develop sales teams into high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. We're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you, as I say every week to producer and engineer one, thank you one for another job. Well done, be sure to join us again next week Monday, January twenty twenty second, we'll do it all over again. Until then, this is Kevin Hallanan. You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helenan. If you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media.

52:42 Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio W fourcy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Helenan and Winning Business Radio. Yeah