Dr. Joseph Michelli, author of the bestselling book “The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary,” is an international speaker, an organizational psychologist by training, and a business consultant. While his newest book, The New Gold Standard, was released in July 2008, Michelli took some time out of his busy schedule recently to talk to Chris about the lessons that can be learned from Starbucks and how those lessons can be applied to any business. Kennedy’s is another “experience-based” business selling “affordable luxuries” all while being another “third place.” Keep reading to see the parallels.

CH: I don’t think a lot of folks understand the magnitude of Starbucks, as odd as that may sound. Let’s start by going through some of the statistics. As you talk about in the book, approximately 35 million customers go to Starbucks every week, and I think you said that the average customer goes there 18 times a month, right?

JM: That’s right.

CH: There’s a lot to be learned from Starbucks when you think about it – – who DOESN’T want repeat customers that come to you 18 times a month? And the customer evangelism about Starbucks – – it seems like it’s second to none out there. I don’t think they have anybody that’s a close second in their marketplace.

JM: No, there really isn’t a market competitor. The point about customer evangelism is that people either love it or hate it. I think when you find great businesses that have a lot of emotional connection with people, those people are going to have either a strong positive emotional connection or a strong negative one. You’ll find blogs out there like ihatestarbucks.com. You won’t find that for Subway sandwiches, for example.

CH: Before we get into the five key principles noted in the book, you spent about 18 months and had a lot of access to the Starbucks leadership when you wrote the book. You want to tell us a little more about that?

JM: Sure. The Starbucks experience at the bottom line is this: it’s the creation of a place that its founder Howard Schultz called the third place – – it’s between work and home that people go to. The next best place besides work and home.

He wanted that place to have single detail from beginning to end all fit with creating the living room of the community. So this is going to be a third place that’s functioning as a living room in the community, and it’s going to be staged in an environment of affordable luxury. That’s what the goal is. So having said that, then these five principles come into play.

The first principle, “make it your own,” is this belief that in order for people to really have their living room in the community, you need to make sure they can participate in the experience that’s happening for them at the store. It’s customized around your tastes, wants, desires and preferences. So that’s one of the elements.

To really leverage that and to get customers who are connected to that living room of the community, you need to have people working for you who really take an ownership position. The concept was to create in Starbucks an ownership. So Howard, at the very beginning of this journey, offered them health benefits if they worked 20 hours a week. He also offered them Bean Stock and stock options in the company. Because of that, he really got a different kind of ownership behavior.

CH: A lot of the innovative products that they’ve come up with have come through the employee channel, has it not?

JM: Absolutely. I think you’re probably hinting about the Frappucino, which is their blended beverage. That came directly from an employee named Nina Campin who was working at a Santa Monica store. When they went to L.A., it was the first time they’d been in a warm weather environment and their product wasn’t selling all that well. Well, Nina, who had an ownership stake, because she had the 20-hour-a-week health benefits and stock and all that, she basically brought a blender in from home and started mixing coffee in with ice, but all she had was watered down coffee.

Then, she threw an emulsifier in the form of cream and that made it better and then she put some vanilla syrup in there and it was just awesome. She passed the idea up the food chain and people listened, and the Vanilla Frappucino was born.

CH: The second big principle you talk about in the book is this notion of “everything matters.”

JM: Right. Every business owner has to decide what details are essential to create the experience. I mean, if we’re going to say it’s the living room community, which is Starbucks, then when can we still cut back in tough economic times and not impact the customer’s experience of the living room in the community?

I’ll give you a classic example of the struggles of Starbucks. They used double-ply toilet paper in their bathrooms, and they do this – – it’s all part of the experience of affordable luxury.

Now, the bean counters – – which is my view of the accountants at Starbucks said, “Well, we could save tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of dollars if we went to single-ply toilet paper in the bathrooms of these operating units.” And so they have this moment of, “Okay, can we make this choice?”

The answer, obviously, is no. Because if you’re going to stage the experience around affordable luxury, and you have affordable luxury in the cup and you have affordable luxury in the way the couch feels, then you go into the bathroom and the toilet paper does not give you an affordable luxury experience, you have just negated one of the details that delivers on your brand. So they couldn’t save money in that particular way.

I think we always have to ask ourselves what is the impact on the customer in those times? If it’s negligible, you can certainly do it. If it’s substantial, you might have to find another way to cut back.

CH: The book was written a couple years ago and talks about the growth up to that point. But obviously, since the book’s come out, there are some critics out there, and certainly the stock market seems to indicate that they maybe haven’t paid as close attention to some things – – they’ve sort of given in a little bit on this “everything matters” notion in order to continue some of the growth.

JM: Yeah. That’s a challenge they’re facing right now, and it’s where they’ve made the compromises. Probably the biggest compromise has been on the training.

CH: Let’s talk about training – a couple of months ago they actually got a lot of press about shutting down for three and a half hours…

JM: Right. So, they locked down around 4:00 p.m., during their prime time, and retrained on the basics of the product. Going back to that principle of “everything matters,” they made sure that people knew how to transact the product successfully.

Schultz wanted, first off operationally, to make sure the employees could make a cup of coffee and draw a good espresso shot. But he also used those three hours in time to explain the goal experience. When people come in the door, they need to be welcomed – really welcomed.

It was also a great publicity stunt with an amazing amount of free PR that they would not have gotten had they stayed open those three hours.

CH: No question. The next key principle you talk about in the book is the notion of “surprise and delight.” You want to elaborate on that for us?

JM: Sure. Let’s go back to the key point that in order to have satisfied customers, you have to deliver what they want. If every time they come to you they can get what they expect, that’s pretty delightful.

But consistency isn’t enough. When you’re in business, you have to think about how to engage customers, and non-customers for that matter, in predictable and consistent experiences. But then, how do you put a little wrinkle in there to surprise them, and then how do you make sure that the same surprise isn’t used over and over again? Because then all of a sudden it just becomes a service delivery expectation. So it’s a challenge.

My favorite example of Starbucks’ advertising is a “surprise and delight” example. If you were in New York City or Boston and you saw a cab riding around with a Starbucks cup on top of the cab, and if you ran up to the cab driver to let them know their fare probably left their Starbucks there, that cab driver is authorized to give you a $25 Starbucks gift card, (the cup on the top of the cab is magnetic so it’s not going to fall off the cab).

What it has done is drawn the good Samaritan-ship out of you. So if you’re a customer or non-customer, you’ve just been rewarded for being a good person with the product itself. That’s a pretty cool surprise.

CH: Yes, it is. The next principle you talk about in the book is an “embraced resistance.” You want to elaborate on this?

JM: I’d love to. This is probably the most counterintuitive of all, and the one that businesses do the worst. I’m pretty good at listening to my loyal customers and talking to them and finding out what they like about the business and all that stuff. That’s kind of easy. What I’m not so good at is when somebody really doesn’t like me, for me to say to them, “Help me understand what I could be doing to help this business meet your needs more.”

I think there’s this message of listening for the voice of resistance and learning how to always entertain the possibility that there’s something good in there. Not that there always is, because some people are just flat out mean and not very constructive in their criticism. However, you have to listen to every piece of criticism as if there is a possible peaceful lesson.

CH: The next principle you talked about in the book is “leave your mark.”

JM: Right. And I think that this principle is about when you create experiences for your customers, you can’t just do it because you want them to pay you. You have to really think about experiences that truly have an impact on people’s lives.

Starbucks wanted to show that they can do good both in the community and financially. One of the classic programs they have is that if you’re a Starbucks employee and you want to go read at your kid’s school, assuming the school is a legitimate entity, Starbucks will make a cash contribution to the school for every hour you volunteer, up to a certain dollar amount, obviously.

The point is that instead of just handing the check to them, they’re saying, if you, as an employee, want to get involved in the community, Starbucks will support your philanthropy. It doesn’t disincentive somebody from volunteering, but it leverages their volunteering to have even greater impact.

CH: Starbucks had their annual shareholder meeting recently, and Howard Schultz said they’re going to be doing a bunch of different things. It seems like they’re moving in the right direction again. What do you think?

JM: I think they’re on the right track; you have to teach your people to have folks only want to come to your store. You must have your people so connected with the customers who walk in, making even a momentary, powerful connection, or else I’m going to go to a place that sends me a coupon for $3 and see if it’s a better cup of coffee.

But watch McDonald’s – – it’s going to be fun. They’re actually going to open up their own coffee kiosks in select McDonald’s store. It’s going to be a separate coffee bar away from the counter that serves patrons. They’re going to have baristas drawing espresso shots at McDonald’s. This is war.

CH: It will be interesting. I appreciate you taking the time to be with me today.

Dr. Joseph Michelli’s books “The Starbucks Experience” and “The New Gold Standard” are available at all major bookstores.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

Welcome back to The Guidebook for the Successful Gentleman™! I hope you had a wonderful Independence Day and that your Summer activities with loved ones are keeping you busy and happy. As a Kennedy’s man, whatever you do, make sure you’re In Motion. Don’t be like so many in the “Mediocre Majority” with their heads buried in the sand like ostriches, hoping a piece of the sky won’t hit them. Hope is a terrible business strategy, as they say, and it’s damn difficult to make money while making excuses at the same time.

Summertime has a tendency to lull people into a slower state of being — probably all that humidity bearing down on us — which in this economy can be deadly. Push Forward. Keep taking action… adjust on the fly, if need be, but TAKE ACTION to keep your business afloat in these challenging times. Smart, hard work and self-reliance are some of the key virtues that have made America great – please join us in helping keep it so.

You hold another terrific issue in your hands, and I’d encourage you, after you thoroughly read everything in here, to pass it along to others you think might enjoy it, too. They’ll be glad you thought of them… and they’ll probably learn a thing or two from this lifestyle publication.

In this edition, you’ll read Tony’s restaurant review of Hannibal’s on the Square (owned by the much-celebrated chef, Vincent Gagliano); learn about our largest Club, Baldwin Park in our monthly Club Feature; be moved by a Tribute to a fallen airman; investigate one of the most interesting tech gadgets I’ve read about in a LONG time (Trapcall); look over Nick’s shoulder as he goes one-on-one with Tony Hsieh, the award-winning CEO of the online juggernaut, Zappos; get money saving ideas for your business from Jack; review the newest book on the Twitter phenomenon; learn from Inc. magazine Editor-at-Large, Bo Burlingham and Inc. magazine columnist, Norm Brodsky (yes, that Norm) in my interview with them on their newest book, The Knack: How Street Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up; meet five more of our Club Members; and we mustn’t forget Bryan’s latest college football piece – he’s penciled in the Biggest games of the upcoming season, so you don’t have to do any research on it. Whew!!! That’s a TON of information!

Oh, and by the way… we’ve launched our first-ever “Member-Get-A-Member” Contest for our Clubs (more details on page 27). THIS is something you’ll want to get involved with and actively participate in. Not only do you have the opportunity to help us grow our Club memberships and help make your friends look better, but you have the opportunity to reduce your Club dues, win great prizes, help your local Club win a fabulous party, and even compete for some very valuable Grand Prizes (worth thousands of dollars type prizes!). If you’re already a Member, you should have received a letter about this Contest from me or from your Club Owner/Director, but you might just want to turn to page 27 NOW to see what we’ve got in store for you. We’ll report the first several weeks’ worth of progress in these pages in the next issue. And if you’re not yet a Member… we can fix that too.

Our Clubs are phenomenal, not just because of our services, our Barbers, and the amazing value we deliver, but primarily because of our Members. A great Club deserves to have other great men become Members, too… so pass the word along and reap the rewards!

Until next time…be a Kennedy’s man and take the world by storm!

Chris

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

This time of year, three of my favorite things come along: the Masters golf tournament, the arrival of spring, and the Easter holiday. Each of these is wonderful in its own way, and believe it or not, all three give a lesson in why you should tell your friends to join our men’s grooming club, Kennedy’s.

Spring and Easter are about renewal and about things not quite being what they, at first, appear to be. Just when you think your crapemyrtle tree will never flower again is about the time little pink shoots begin to appear. Up north, where I’m originally from, as the last snow melts, smidgens of green start to slowly show beneath the last stubborn pieces of ice. This season is about going from seemingly certain death to life again.

These occurrences remind us to throw out those outdated notions and make room for the new and improved. And this is where Kennedy’s comes in. See, I still regularly run into people who have never heard of our clubs that you and I enjoy. So many men and their boys are stuck in a rut of just accepting the strip-mall “chop-shop” haircutteries, the over-priced and overly feminine salons, or the independent barbershop where you worry if the aging barber will cut you because of his diminishing eyesight. None of these are acceptable, even in these “interesting” economic times. Spring is as good a time as any for your friends to learn about all the incredible offerings at Kennedy’s and for them to try something new and improved.

As you know, we’ve reinvented the nostalgic barbershop of our youth. And Kennedy’s isn’t just a barbershop… it’s something much more — definitely NOT just a place to get a haircut. Kennedy’s is a men’s grooming club, and one you can be proud to belong to – with all of the awards and accolades that demonstrate our exceptionalism. It’s a club to bring your sons and grandsons to, in that very storied tradition. A place to relax and enjoy a little pampering, before rushing back to reality. A sanctuary, really – something that doesn’t at first glace appear to be what it really is. Giving unlimited haircuts, a complimentary beverage (even beer!), this lifestyle magazine, unlimited straight-razor shaves, shoeshines, and much, much more, are just some of the ways we’ve improved what men should expect in their personal grooming services. Kennedy’s is a real gentlemen’s club, in the true definition of the term, and it’s one you should immediately invite your buddies to join.

Things renew for the better every spring, so this year, tell those you know about Kennedy’s. You’ll be doing them a small favor. And to show our appreciation for your referrals, ask your Kennedy’s proprietor to help you “bribe” your friends to come in: they’ll give you a card, which you can give to your non-member friends, that gives them one free haircut and shave. They’ll be indebted to you for this. And if that won’t encourage them to join our club after their first Kennedy’s experience, then they might just be hopeless… maybe even victims, rather than victors of the annual rite of spring.

And Since I Mentioned the Masters . . .

A few months ago, I mentioned that I’d save my intriguing Masters story for another time. Well, with the 72nd Masters upon us, now is the perfect time to share it.

When a former sports agent and friend of mine shot me an email asking if I liked golf the morning of the opening round of the 2007 Masters, I was all ears . . . err eyes, as it were. To make a long story short, my friend had a seat open up on a private jet to Augusta the next afternoon and tickets to a special, small dinner party with Jim Nantz, the “Voice of the Masters.” Since we’d planned to work only half a day on Good Friday anyway, and I’d be flying back later that night, it wasn’t a problem even on such short notice to go. Besides, how could any red-blooded American male say, “No” to an offer like that? Twist my arm . . . I’ll GO already to the Masters… on a private jet even! Jeesh!!!

My friend’s buddies work for Marquis Jets by NetJets and were happy to have us attend their hospitality tent and dinner party that night. But before the evening got started, we negotiated with a hospitality tent “neighbor” at the 1018 Club for two hours of event badge “usage” for only $100 per badge (week badges were getting $6,000 on the “street” and $2,500 per day), making it a tremendous deal for us. We rushed around the hallowed grounds of Augusta National in just less than two hours.

Naturally, we were awed by Amen Corner as well as the course’s remarkable “hilliness” (tip: never wear dress shoes to the Masters, even IF you’re going to a dinner party in a sports coat later that night). The grass seemed SO green! The azaleas SO pink! Television just doesn’t do it justice. The course was AMAZING! What a place! Only on a high-def screen can the beauty of Augusta be approximated. As the first major of the PGA season every year and the only one to remain on just one course year after year, the Masters is clearly golf’s version of Heaven on Earth. “Get the Life Goals List out and check another one off,” I said to myself.

We then headed over to the merchandise “mall” within the gates of the National — the only place to buy exclusive Masters clothing and other items — and promptly picked up the plastic baskets (like at the grocery store) to be filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of souvenirs. It was an absolute madhouse with people packed in everywhere – many buying gifts for friends who could only dream of being there. After leaving quite a bit lighter in the wallet, we walked by the front of the clubhouse and glanced down famous Magnolia Lane. Must be magical to drive down it! “Maybe add that to the Life Goal List too,” I muttered.

Our last stop was at the practice range to see if any familiar faces were readying for Saturday’s round. Our host saw an old friend signing a few flags and programs as he approached us. He introduced me and told us that we’re neighbors (this guy apparently lived near me in Lake Mary, totally unbeknownst to me). He also mentioned that he was a Midwestern guy like me, so with that many things in common, we proceeded to chat for a couple minutes before he had to rush off. If it weren’t for him almost being my neighbor, I might have even forgotten about him.

That night, after negotiating various backroads in an attempt to avoid the ridiculous traffic, we arrived at our dinner party a few minutes late. We were ushered to a backyard where only about 50 people sat at tables and chairs listening to Jim Nantz tell stories and answer questions for what seemed like mere minutes, but lasted nearly 90 minutes. He and his friends (Butch Harmon, Jim Grey and Bonnie Bernstein) were about the most down-to-earth celebrities I’ve ever been around. It isn’t every night that a guy gets to joke around with Bonnie, argue a technicality with Jim Grey (about whether Tiger really had forward momentum and should have been penalized a stroke when he stopped his swing cold again because of some bird’s shadow), or gets asked by Butch Harmon (Tiger’s ex-swing coach and probably the most famous golf coach in the world) if I minded him sitting next to me for dinner.

No, I didn’t mind… and no, I didn’t ask him how to fix my slice. But Butch and I had a rather lively conversation that night. He’s quite full of “colorful” jokes, but since this is a “PG” publication, none of them are quite fit to print here. As we left, Scott Van Pelt, the ESPN anchor, apparently had nothing better to do than to crash the party — maybe he was “friends” with Bonnie or maybe he was getting ready to report from Augusta for the late-edition of SportsCenter. Who knows? But what a gathering we had!

And if anyone reading this publication ever wants to invite me to the Masters again, I’ll be all ears and eyes again, anytime! Oh, and the guy we met at the practice range . . . it was none other than Zach Johnson, who would become the 2007 Masters champion. I’ve since offered to be his good-luck charm again at other tour events, but he’s yet to take me up on it. He only has two wins on the tour since, and I’ve heard he moved away from Lake Mary to Sea Island, Ga., where we don’t have a Kennedy’s, yet. Maybe he really should call me, again (he left a message on my voicemail about a year ago after we tried to have him be our Celebrity King of Mercantile Commercial Capital’s annual Mardi Gras celebration – unfortunately, he had West Coast PGA Tour obligations, but again was extremely nice on my voicemail.).

In the future, we will organize exclusive and phenomenal outings, similar to the one above, for Kennedy’s members and friends – another reason your buddies ought to join our club. If these “guys weekend fishing trips or golf outings on steroids” are of interest to you, please tell your local club’s proprietor and we’ll start planning shortly. Enjoy the 72nd Masters!

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

Co-authors Bo Burlingham and Norm Brodsky first teamed up in 1995 to collaborate for the Inc. magazine column Street Smarts. Success of that monthly column led to the duo writing their book The Knack: How Street Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up. Burlingham and Brodsky joined me to talk about their tips for entrepreneurs and how they can weather the current recession.

CH: One of the things I appreciate in the book, that you really seem to focus on, is that having a sales mentality is important for all small companies, but on the other hand it really helps to have salespeople that understand the business model and how the business actually makes money. That’s not something that you typically read about in most business books.

NB: Yeah, the problem is that most people, salespeople in particular, and I can talk from experience because I am a salesperson, think about one thing and that’s making the sale. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, and that’s a great thing to think about when you’re going out and making sales but there’s another part. One of the parts is that you have to make a profit to make a sale and as silly as that may seem, people say, “Oh, that’s impossible.”

I’ll give you an example that happened just a week ago. A young man came to me. His dad had died, and he took over the business and they couldn’t understand their cash flow. As I looked at it I said, “Well you know you’re in a service business. This is a cleaning business. What are your gross margins?” He looked at me like I had a third eye and he didn’t understand the question because he didn’t understand gross margins.

I said, “Why don’t you go home and for your two top customers,” – – I had taken a quick look at what they presented me with – – “figure out exactly what your costs are, your direct costs.” Low and behold he called me and said, “I can’t believe it. We’re spinning our wheels to two large customers. We’re losing money on every sale. The more we do in business the more we lose with them.”

So even though sales are sales, there’s a big difference between good sales and not-so-good sales. So what I say is that people who have that sales mentality don’t look at anything else, and that’s a bad thing. They should understand that not only do you have to make a profit when you make a sale, but also that when you make a sale, it’s not complete until you collect the money from the sale.

CH: A lot of business owners though, Norm, I think they tend to be hesitant to show how the business makes money to their salespeople, which I think is kind of silly.

NB: Yeah. I think that’s exactly right and what they should do is not disclose every single thing to them, but they should show them what the costs are that are involved. Salespeople tend to sell to the lowest common denominator. In our business, the document storage business, we have different prices for different customers depending on how many boxes you give us. So somebody who gives us 10,000 boxes pays a lot less than somebody that gives us, oh, let’s say 50 or 100 boxes and that’s in our association. That’s a normal type of thing.

If I told a salesman they could sell as low as $0.16 a box per month for rent then every sale would be that way. So, I had to explain to them what our costs were. They think you just put a box on a shelf and you have no cost. By explaining how we made money, not necessarily going into excruciating detail, but giving them the basics, they understand why they have to sell at a higher price.

BB: We’re not dumping on the sales mentality, but just saying that it has to be balanced with a business mentality. I think Norm would be the first to agree with the old message that nothing happens without a sale.

CH: In the book, you talk about the mistake some people get themselves into in business. They get too relaxed. They think that things are sort of safe… that they’re in the clear. Do you want to extrapolate on that a little bit?

NB: Yeah, that’s the point. The point is that first you have to understand that I treat a business like a living, growing thing. In other words, it’s an entity unto itself. So if you think of business like a human being growing up, well, as you grow up, you change. The only thing constant in business is change. If you don’t believe that or don’t adhere to that, you’re going to die.

CH: You’re right. I think that sometimes people get so relaxed that they get passed by the change in their industry.

NB: I agree with you 100%. You have to be on top of it. You need current information, and by that, I mean weekly. I get critical numbers every week. The series of numbers that tell me how our business is doing. I can track the changes. I can track what’s going to happen and before anybody else can see it, and that’s as the entrepreneur or the CEO, or whatever you want to call yourself, that’s one of the four or five jobs that you have to not delegate and you have to do yourself. Another one, of course, that we talk about in the book is the culture of the company which I think is also very important, and I think that that has to start at the top and work its way through.

CH: Let’s talk about that a little bit. I know you guys talk a lot about that, and I look around the last couple of years at the other Inc. 500 companies and what I’ve noticed is usually the leader of the company really has gone that extra mile to develop a corporate culture that fits for them.

BB: The problem is that often the culture of a company is totally unplanned, and a lot of the culture that you find in a company is really sort of dysfunctional and there are a lot of problems that result from that. I think that what both you, Chris and Norm, are talking about here is having the person at the top consciously say, “Okay, this is the type of culture I want. This is the type of culture that I think is going to be best for my business,” and then doing what’s necessary, whether it’s turning responsibility over to your wife or actually sort of going forward and taking the initiative yourself. That’s what the high performance companies have.

NB: Exactly. It’s a conscious decision. It might have started as an unconscious decision, but it has to become a conscious decision for it to be sustainable and backed up by management for it to continue. And culture does other things besides help people stay for long periods of time. People gravitate to the culture so it makes it easy to attract people, keep people for a long time, keep people motivated, and keep people wanting to do their best. So, there are a lot of benefits from it and the downside is very little.

CH: Exactly. Another point related to this that you mention in the book is to be a good boss. You guys talk about maintaining a certain level of distance from your employees. Do you want to explain a little bit what you mean?

NB: I like a lot of the people, or most of the people around me, but the thing is, I have to be separate with them because there’s going to come a time that I’m going to make a decision that, number one, they won’t agree with and, number two, may not be in their interest. If I was really friendly and best friends with somebody, it makes it more difficult for me to do that.

CH: It’s kind of like parenting in some respects.

NB: It is.

BB: I think that this point about the company having certain needs that you need – – that’s basically the CEO’s responsibility to make sure that those needs are met. You have to go back and look at it and make sure that everybody understands that you can be close to your employees but ultimately if you’re the boss, if you’re the CEO, your job is to look out for the needs of that company and that company has needs that need to be met. If you’re not aware of that it’s going to spell trouble for your business.

NB: Let’s talk about new entrepreneurs, people who want to start their businesses now. You know, they always look for an excuse. “Well, the timing isn’t right;” “The economy isn’t good;” “Well, we’re in a recession.” Personally, I think the best time to start a business is in a recession.

BB: Absolutely.

NB: I say that because the last two businesses that I just sold in December were both started, coincidentally, in a recession. That’s number one. People say, “Why? How can you say that? It’s tough to raise money.” Yes, it’s tough to raise money.

In new start-ups it’s always tough to raise money. But you have such an advantage now because when you start a business, your overhead tends to be lower than your competitors that you’re going against. You can offer more services for the same dollar. Notice, I didn’t say offer the services cheaper, because I’m a big believer that if you sell a product, price shouldn’t be the reason you went into business. So you can give more services for that thing. You can move quicker. You can change directions quicker when you’re starting out. You’re more nimble.

The second thing that happens is you have to think differently than you competitors. I’ll give you an example. Gas went to about $4.50 a gallon not long ago and most of my competitors passed it along to the customer. We made a company decision not to do that, but used that to our advantage.

We sent a letter out to our customers saying, “We’re not going to increase your gas prices. We know that it’s impacting us somewhat, but we’re able to hold the line.” Now we took a beating on it, but we went to the prospects that were thinking about becoming our customers and showed them the letter that we sent our current customers. They, on the other hand, had letters from their suppliers increasing their prices. We profited greatly from a tough time by just looking at things in a different manner.

CH: Right. Another concept you guys talked about in the book is not to turn a revolutionary new concept into a business. Go find an old, great concept instead. You want to talk a little bit about that?

NB: I have three criteria for starting a business. The first criterion is the business idea or concept has to be over 100 years old. For example, I’m in the box storage business. Storage has been around for over 100 years. I’m in the shredding of paper business. Well, the garbage business has been around for over 100 years.

Why? Because, like most first time entrepreneurs, I don’t have a lot of money. I can’t educate the public. So people who want to store things know where to look. People who want to destroy things or shred things know where to look. So the customer base is always there.

The second criterion is that the business model has to be antiquated. So in the box storage business, for instance, it was run by a bunch of moving and storage guys who did it as an adjunct business and didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. So they had old racking, old buildings. It was antiquated.

The third thing that I look for to start a business is the niche within the business itself. By the way, I just want to tell you that even though the business concept is 100 years old, when I start them, I sit on the edge of technology. I get the most modern, up-to-date technology I can.

CH: You’d love my latest business which is upscale, membership-based men’s barber club, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club, which brings back the straight razor shaves.

NB: There you go.

BB: This is really what it means to be a street smart entrepreneur. The common wisdom about entrepreneurship really amounts to bad advice. People are constantly being told, “If you really want to start a business you’ve got to come up with something that’s new so that you don’t have a lot of competitors and you know you have the market to yourself.” In fact that’s actually the absolute the worst way to go.

CH: What advice do you have on planning for next year for entrepreneurs, business owners and their advisors?

NB: There are two things that you should not do during a recession. Number one, don’t stop going out and selling. Your selling should increase in these particular times because there’s going to be more opportunity.

Second, continue the same level of services. That’s important because your competitors are not going to do that. They’re going to look to cut back in the wrong places which are sales and services. This year we plan on doing extra sales, keeping our service levels where we’ve kept them before, which means that keeping our customer service people happy and at the same staffing levels as we did before, even though our sales may be flat or down a little bit.

BB: Obviously everybody’s aware that we’re in tough economic times. There are two possible responses to that. One is to be afraid and the other is to see it as an opportunity. A recession is a period of lots of change. If you can get your people to understand that, in fact, you’re in an environment where there’s going to be lots of opportunity and the mindset you have to be in is to spot those opportunities and take advantage of them, you’ll be a lot better off.

CH: All right. Thanks for your time today guys. I want to remind everyone that your book is available at any major bookstore, and they can also learn more about your book at www.TheKnack.info.

NB: Thanks. Bye, Chris.

BB: Thank you, Chris. Bye.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

The Ultimate Kennedy’s Movie List

I’ve never had any particular vices that I’m aware of, with one exception: movies. Before children, my wife and I would go out nearly every Friday and Saturday evening to watch the latest flicks. When we can get a “date night” now, we still usually see a movie. It was and is about the only thing that completely captures and keeps my attention. Movies effectively shut-off my rather active brain. I become absorbed in movies, so they’re a “release” from my day-to-day, busy world.

Watching sports can be a release as well, but so many of the regular season games are just so inconsequential — it’s hard to imagine game number 18 of your favorite NBA team sticking in your brain longer than a truly great movie. Game number 112 of your favorite MLB team also starts to pale in comparison. The World Series, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Olympics, and so on… I’m with you – they’re worth watching and do stick with you. But, for everyday, ordinary sporting events, I’d rather go to the theater or pop-in a DVD any time.

While I’m a voracious reader of books, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and so forth, movies bring stories to life like no other medium. And because movies have the ability to “take me away,” I’m willing to forget about some of the ridiculous opinions from actors and actresses. Yes, I’m contributing to their incomes, I suppose, when I could be voting with my wallet, but if I stopped watched all movies or listening to all songs by people I disagreed with politically, there wouldn’t be much left. As I’ve mentioned in previous Kennedy’s magazines, gentlemen set aside their differences and conduct themselves civilly. Just because Sean Penn’s a raging politically maniac, in my opinion, doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s a talented actor, nor does it mean I won’t occasionally appreciate his movies. But when he opens his yap about wealth redistribution or “negotiating” with terrorists, I simply turn him off.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed with movies over the years is how guys tend to remember movie lines so well. My 5-½-year-old son already does this with such ease it’s a little frightening, but my 7-½-year-old daughter… not so much. I’m not sure if it’s gender-based or genetic, but I know that getting a group of guys together for any extended period of time, often leads to movie line recitation. Why? I have no earthly idea. “We all go a little mad sometimes” – Norman Bates in Psycho. So just… “Fuh-get about it!” – Donnie Brasco.

With that in mind, I thought I would compile the 100 Greatest Movies Any Guy Must See in His Lifetime. I’ve listed below my top 40 favorites of all-time and why, plus the “Second 60,” but we’ll also post this list online at our Kennedy’s Blog at www.KennedysBarberClub.com/GreatestMoviesAnyGuyMustSeeInHisLifetime and encourage you to add to it (Note: we’re looking for serious submissions, so explain your movie’s inclusion when you submit it). This is a deeply subjective process, so I’m hoping with your input we’ll be able to create the Ultimate Kennedy’s Movie List. Now, don’t worry if you haven’t seen every movie below. The point is to have a handy list of movies you ought to see and start checking off your list as you go.

There are clearly movies to “take your mind off of things,” and there are movies that do that AND teach us lessons about life. The ones worth re-watching are the latter. Below, in alphabetical order, are ones I enjoy, own and reach for every now and then:

Braveheart – because fighting for what’s right is worth more than any one of us.
Caddy Shack – because it’s the funniest sports movie of all time.
Dead Poet’s Society – because as funny as Robin Williams is, his most serious roles are the most memorable, and this one’s a gem.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – one of the greatest political satires ever… on second thought, it IS the greatest.
Field of Dreams – because playing catch (spending time) with dad is something to cherish, and we romanticize hope, even if it does make for bad business strategy.
Glory – because another classic war film of epic proportions isn’t enough.
Godfather I and Godfather II – because business lessons abound in these epic tales and every man secretly thinks the Mafia (assuming it exists, that is) is pretty cool on some level… you also get Robert De Nero in the second one.
Goldfinger and Dr. No – because these are the best Bond movies ever, and every guy secretly wishes he were James for at least one day. Common… admit it. No one’s listening right now.
Good Will Hunting – because this is a terrific tale of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks showing others up with his intelligence, plus Robin Williams, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck make for a great cast.
Goodfellas – because mob movies simply resonate with guys.
Grumpy Old Men – because when we’re old and lonely some day, only having a buddy will do and this is the best, senior “buddy” film.
Heat – because Robert De Nero, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer in this plot would have been brilliant, whether or not Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame) directed them.
Hoosiers – because it’s the most inspirational basketball movie of all time.
It’s a Wonderful Life – because honor and loyalty get validated in the end, and Jimmy Stewart is an American icon.
Jerry Maguire – because having faith in one man to make a difference is how it’s always done, even in the world of professional sports… and we can’t make a great movie list without including something from Tom Cruise’s repertoire… but only one, for that’s about all we can take.
Life is Beautiful – because any Kennedy’s man would do the same thing, and Roberto Benigni’s Oscar celebration is a classic.
Love Actually – because ensemble casts with multiple plots all about different types of love, wrapped around the Christmas season, is pretty damn terrific… even IF at first glance it appears to be a chick-flick (fear not, it isn’t).
Monty Python and the Holy Grail – because it’s still hysterical after dozens of watching and has the added benefit of annoying most wives.
My Dog Skip – because dogs are man’s best friend for a good reason, and this film is the closest one to ever capture why.
North by Northwest – because it’s Hitchcock’s best and Jimmy Stewart showed us his range.
Saving Private Ryan – because honor and duty are precious, and every Kennedy’s man aspires to live a “worthy life.”
Scarface – because it’s the ultimate rags-to-riches story, albeit without too many morals.
Scent of a Woman – because another underdog tale isn’t too many for this list.
Schindler’s List – because only through learning what must not happen again, do we have a chance for it not to repeat.
Shawshank Redemption – because a good buddy movie is worth admiring.
Star Wars (episode IV) – because in a galaxy far, far away, creative storytelling was thrust upon us like never before.
Swingers – because Vince Vaughn is a comic genius and good banter movies are hard to find.
The Fountainhead – because it’s one of the most powerful films ever for Entrepreneurs… you’re not the only one with a “me-against-the-world” attitude.
The Gladiator – because honor, truth and courage need to be shown more often –but why couldn’t Russell Crowe be an American actor instead of an Aussie?
The Hunt for Red October – because this is perhaps Sean Connery’s finest performance… we just wish Harrison Ford could have played “Jack Ryan” in this one, too.
The Incredibles – because it’s perfectly acceptable to be exceptional in a world where so many try to knock us down to the lowest common denominator… and it’s brilliantly animated.
The Passion – because nothing else has ever come close to capturing how events must have occurred over 2,000 years ago.
The Patriot – because we shouldn’t forget men like this once existed – of course, they still do, but we need to tell their heroic tales more.
The Terminator and Terminator II – because these are two of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
The Untouchables – because prohibition might have been bad public policy, but Robert De Nero (as Capone) and Kevin Costner (as Ness) make for great acting… oh, and Sean Connery’s thrown in there, too.
We Were Soldiers – because it’s a true story and it’s like watching William Wallace fight for us in the early days of Vietnam.
Wedding Crashers – because Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are the modern-day Laurel and Hardy. Hollywood: cast them together more often if you know what’s good.

Other truly quality movies that don’t quite make our top 40 all-time list include the following (in alphabetical order): A Bridge Too Far; Blade Runner; Blazing Saddles; Boiler Room; Bull Durham; Casino; Children of Men; Christmas Story; Cinderella Man; Clerks; Cool Hand Luke; Die Hard; Dirty Harry; Enter the Dragon; Escape from New York; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; First Blood: Glengarry Glen Ross; Grosse Pointe Blank; Happy Gilmore; Lethal Weapon; Mad Max; National Lampoon’s Animal House and Vacation; Ocean’s Eleven (the original one); Office Space; Old School; Patton; Raging Bull; Raiders of the Lost Ark; Raising Arizona; Rambo; Rocky; Rudy; Something About Mary; Spartacus; Stripes; Talladega Nights; The Bank Job; The Blues Brothers; The Bourne Identity; The Bridge on the River Kwai; The Dirty Dozen; The Empire Strikes Back; The Fugitive; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; The Guns of Navarone; The Kingdom; The Man Who Would Be King; The Matador; The Right Stuff; The Sting; The Usual Suspects; This is Spinal Tap; Three Kings; Tombstone; True Lies; Unforgiven; Wall Street; and Young Frankenstein.

War movies, gangster movies, fantasies, and raunchy comedies, as my wife likes to put it. That’s what guys tend to like. Probably, no surprise to you. There’s a bit more range in my “Second 60,” but she comes pretty close to summarizing The 100 Greatest Movies Any Guy Must See in His Lifetime: The Ultimate Kennedy’s Movie List. While this is by no means a definitive list, it occurs to me that several actors appear multiple times in the lists above. They represent some of the best at their craft of all-time. Kennedy’s men, for sure.

“I think… it’s not all bad.” – Grand Canyon.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

Bill Rancic, winner of season one of The Apprentice, has been an entrepreneur since he was young, but nothing could have prepared him for the journey has taken since winning The Apprentice. In addition to working side-by-side with Donald Trump, Rancic is a renowned speaker and bestselling author. Rancic joined Chris Hurn to talk about his book, “You’re Hired,” and life on The Apprentice.

Chris: So why – in your words, do you think you got hired by Trump in Season 1 of The Apprentice?

Bill: Well, I think there were a number of reasons. One, I had a good work ethic.

Two, I was able to deliver results. But one of the things I always talk about in my speeches is that I think there are three reasons why people are successful, and why they’re able to stand out from the pack.

The first one is a term called “practical execution.” I firmly believe in this. I think a lot of people talk a great game and they claim that they’re going to accomplish so much. I find that most of those people, who talk such a big game, are just talkers and that’s it.

In actuality, I didn’t do a lot of talking on The Apprentice. I kept my mouth shut. I put my head down, and I worked hard and delivered results. So, I think that’s critical. I think you have to also be agile. You’ve got to be willing to change up your game plan.

Given the current economic conditions, we’re finding this ever so important. Those who are able to adapt and have agility are the ones that are going to survive this economic crisis. Those that don’t, won’t. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to be willing to take the blinders off and almost be on a swivel and see what’s happening and be able to adjust as it’s happening.

Chris: I always call that the business world equivalent of Darwinism. It’s not the strong or the swift; it’s the most adaptive that survive.

Bill: That’s exactly it. Lastly, it’s about risk. You’ve got to be willing to take risks. As you probably know, you talk to a lot of people who claim they’re entrepreneurs, and they think they’re big risk takers. But they don’t know how to manage the risk. You’ve got to manage the risk and many times you’ve got to micromanage that risk. In the end, you’ve got to convert it into success. Otherwise, it’s wasted risk.

Chris: Right. I think that’s a good point. Let’s talk about what you think your single greatest lesson was that you learned from Trump, whether on the show or since?

Bill: Well, I learned a lot from Trump. I’m very grateful for the opportunity he gave me and how he opened up his world to me, which is incredible. But I think a couple things really stand out. One thing about Donald Trump: he’s not afraid to think big.

Chris: He seems to have blurred the distinction a little bit between work and play. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, that’s what we strive to get to. Would you say that’s a fair characterization?

Bill: Well, he loves what he does. I think anyone who loves what they’re doing will be successful at it. My dad, when I was a kid, always used to say, “Find something that you really love to do, and the money will follow.” I never wanted to believe him. I was like, “I want the money. I want the money. I want the money.”

But there’s a lot of truth to that. I see that now with friends of mine who are doing these jobs that they hate, and they’re never able to get to the level of success that they should, because they can’t wait to get out of the office at 5:01 and in the morning they’re miserable. They have to hit their alarm clock snooze button ten times in order to muscle themselves out of bed.

When you love what you’re doing, which I’ve been fortunate enough to always love what I’ve been doing, you pop out of bed before the alarm clock goes off.

Chris: What do you think you did quickly to get noticed by Trump on The Apprentice?

Bill: Well, I delivered victories. Every time I was a project manager, I brought in big wins, not just wins, but big wins — where I annihilated the other team. I was creative in how I did it. I thought that was critical. I didn’t lie back. I was taking the temperature of the room and trying to size up the competition and see what I needed to do. Obviously, my strategy was effective because I won.

Chris: Right. Well, I think from a viewer’s perspective, it’s tough for us. Through the magic of television editing, we have no idea what your day was like.

Bill: Every episode was about four days. It was tough. There were no days off. We operated on very little sleep every night. The conditions were stressful.

Chris: Yet at the same time, you did what a lot of people in business wish they could probably do more of, which is you had such concentrated actions in what you were doing. You were so focused on the task at hand without virtually any distractions.

Bill: Yeah, definitely. You were eating it, breathing it, and sleeping it. Not really sleeping it ‘cause you didn’t get much sleep. But yeah, it was around the clock. It would be four or five in the morning, coming back to get an hour or two of sleep, before we had to go out and do it all over again.

Chris: All right, let’s talk about the book. The book came out about six months after you won, didn’t it? What was your motivation to write the book?

Bill: Yeah, somewhere around there. I’d always read books along the way or skimmed them along the way, and you would always get these books and they were written for people, who had Harvard MBAs, in these esoteric terms.

I thought, “You know what? I’m a guy who was an entrepreneur ever since I was a little kid.” I wanted to come out with a book to kind of speak to every man and not just a guy who’s got an Ivy League MBA.

So if you’ll notice, the book’s written in terms that everyone can understand. I wanted to – I’m a believer in entrepreneurs and I want to fuel that spirit. I think it’s what made our country as great as it is. I thought this was a book that would hopefully inspire and motivate people to go out and follow their dreams.

Chris: What do you think was your strongest message you relayed to people in You’re Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life?

Bill: Ah, the strongest message. I think when you think about my road and my journey, there had been failures along the way. I think one of the things that I’ve noticed is that the kids today are not allowed to fail. Let me explain.

When you see these parents and they are – when the kid is born, the kids are automatically put on these waiting lists to get into the right preschool so they can get into the right kindergarten, so they can get into the right grade school, so on and so on.

These parents are putting so much pressure on these kids at such a young age. Kids are afraid to make mistakes. They’re afraid to fail. Therefore, they don’t even try.

When I go and speak at universities around the country, I always tell these kids, “Go out there. It’s okay to start a small business when you’re in college. It may work. It may not. Get internships. You’ve to go out and experience things and find out what you like and what you don’t like. Otherwise, you’re gonna be 25 years old and you’re not gonna have any clue of what you really want out of life.”

Chris: I’m with you. So okay. You said a second ago, you’ve been an entrepreneur since you were young. How far back do you go, and what did you do?

Bill: Yeah. My first business was when I was ten. I had to spend the weekend at my grandmother’s, and I learned how to make pancakes. The next morning, I got up and I called all the old ladies, and I invited them over for a pancake breakfast. We had a great time.

When they left, I was clearing their plates away from the table, and I noticed that each and every one of these women had left a five-dollar bill underneath the plate. I was stunned. I thought, “Wow. I’m on to something here.” For the next five weeks, I kept going to my grandmother’s for the weekends. My parents were wondering what was going on, and they soon figured out I was running a makeshift restaurant out of my grandmother’s house.

That was kind of my start as an entrepreneur.

Chris: That’s great. Tell us about the cigar company. What’s the genesis of that?

Bill: Just out of an idea. Had an idea and no one was doing it. I think we were the first-ever cigar of the month club to come out and experienced a favorable response right out of the gate.

I never really smoked cigars until I started the company. It wasn’t like I was a cigar aficionado and I needed to get a cigar business. It was just seizing an opportunity.

There was a time when Demi Moore was smoking cigars and Schwarzenegger, and it was like the hottest thing going. We started this company right about when that started to take off. So the timing was – well, it couldn’t have been better.

Chris: What did you base it off of? Were there beers of the month back then?

Bill: Yeah. I’d known the guys that had done the beer of the month. I read about the guy doing wine. I thought, “Hmm,” and I decided to do this. One of the people I actually called up was the guy who started Vermont Teddy Bear.

: A guy named John Sortino. I’ll never forget this man. I called him and I said, “I’m thinking about starting this cigar of the month club. Can you give me some advice?” The guy took my call, and he gave me advice. I was shocked because I wouldn’t have wanted to convolute the space [if I were him]. I would have thought, “Why create another competitor?”

But he gave me some tips and some guidance on how to buy radio advertising, and I’d never done that before. That was it. We let it rip.

Chris: Now, there’s an interesting story in the book, I remember, about how you got a break, and, in classic fashion, you created it with what I would refer to as a “shock-and-awe box.” That’s how you got on the radio, wasn’t it?

Bill: Yeah, I was resigning from my job that I had taken right out of college selling commodity metal, and the owners of the company laughed at me. I was explaining how I was going to become a millionaire with the cigar business and I was gonna be leaving. They sat across the table, and they laughed at me. It made me mad.

As I was driving back to the office where the cigar company was run out of, I was so determined to prove these guys wrong. I got back and I wrote a letter asking for help. I put the letter in a box, and I put some cigars in there and went and got these little Coke bottle glasses that you wear on Halloween, the nerd glasses. I put a little note on the glasses. The note read, “Please take a closer look at my business idea.”

I sent them out to the top ten morning radio stations in Chicago. About a week later, I got a call from the No. 1 morning radio show and she said, “Scott’ll have you on the air to talk about cigars of the month.” Sure enough, I went in there and the guy hammed it up, and we went on the air for about 40 minutes just talking about this product. He was continually giving out the 1-800 number and the website.

When I got back to the apartment where our office was, every phone we had in there was ringing off the hook with people wanting to place orders. So that was kind of my lucky break.

Chris: Did you ever dream that your book would make the The New York Times Bestseller List?

Bill: No. Come on. That was – it was – everything over the last seven years has been just a whirlwind, an amazing experience for me. I’ve been able to learn and grow from it. I’ve been able to do some pretty neat things. Writing two books. I also wrote a kids’ book called Beyond the Lemonade Stand and it was for kids between the ages of eight and thirteen to bring out their entrepreneurial spirit.

Chris: Well, let’s talk about what you’re doing these days because I think when you came down here in June, for a YPO speech, you were just about to launch a new television show.

Bill: Yeah, when I was down there, we were in the middle of filming. The show is called We Mean Business. It’s a show where I go in to small businesses that are having difficulty and try to give them a complete turnaround from a physical standpoint and try to readjust the way they think and their mindset, because we can go in and make physical changes and update their technology and help them with marketing, but if their mindset doesn’t change, then they’re not going to succeed.

Chris: Yeah. It’s all about mindset.

Bill: We’ve been – we faced some challenges. Some companies we’ve been able to help. Others, we haven’t. But it’s a show that airs on A&E on Saturday mornings.

It’s been a lot of fun to do and very rewarding, especially given the current economic conditions, because we were able to make changes in these people’s lives that could potentially affect generations to come because this business could be passed on to their kids and their kids’ kids. That’s powerful when you think about it.

Chris: How many episodes did you guys do?

Bill: We did eight episodes. I’m sure they’ll be more to come.

Chris: So you’re kind of like Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen, just without the four-letter words, I take it.

Bill: Without the foul mouth, yeah. Exactly.

Chris: (Laughter) That’s good. Well, hey, Bill, I’ll let you go. I appreciate your time.

Bill: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you.

To learn more about Bill Rancic or to purchase his books, visit www.BillRancic.com.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

Bill: Hey, guys. It’s Bill Rancic.

Chris: Hey, Bill. It’s Chris. How ya doing?

Bill: Good. How are you?

Chris: Good.

Bill: Well, you read to get going?

Chris: Sure. I think we got – this is recording, right?

Male: Yeah.

Chris: All right. Good. I’m just gonna keep you on speaker. We normally – I do these every month with bestselling authors and normally I have a crowd of people and do Q&A at the end, but we’re just gonna do just you and I this time ‘cause it’s kind of short notice.

Bill: Okay.

Chris: First of all, do you know much about me? I don’t know what the relationship is with Nick and you.

Bill: What do you mean?

Chris: Are you a client of Nick’s now, _____?

Bill: Well, Nick does some stuff for me, yeah.

Chris: Oh, okay. All right. Do you know – maybe you don’t even know what we’re talking about. Do you know about Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club?

Bill: No.

Chris: All right. Let me give you some feedback and _____ this stuff. We do a 32-page monthly magazine that we publish. I run a company called “Mercantile Commercial Capital.” We were on the Inc 500 last year as one of America’s fastest growing companies. We got awards as long as your arm. Done a lot of stuff. Financed a lot of franchises around the country.

Nick, myself, and two other guys actually bought a membership-based barbershop franchise and we are actually franchising it around the country so much so that we actually even have our own magazine.

Bill: Wow. That’s great.

Chris: So that’s _____.

(Crosstalk)

Bill: _____.

Chris: What’s that?

Bill: How many stores do you have around the country?

Chris: We’ve already – we only did this – we bought the franchise, the predecessor franchise, in August, mid-August, converted it to the name of “Kennedy’s,” made some tweaks with some of the offerings that they’ve got. We’ve already got six done. We’ve just signed a super-master deal, which will take care of all the rest of the territories in Florida and Michigan. It’s about 130 to 195 units.

We’ve got about another dozen coming online in the next 60 days or so. Then we’ve got a couple more masters that we’re selling as well. So it’s – we’ll probably have 2 to 330 units here by this time next year _____.

Bill: People need to get their hair cut. It’s pretty much recession proof, I would imagine.

Chris: Well, that’s just it. It’s a necessity-based business and it’s – you guys, you’re probably familiar. You live in Chicago now, right, or are you out in LA?

Bill: I’m in LA right now. We go back and forth. So I leave for Chicago on Saturday.

Chris: Right. Well, either way, you’re probably familiar with things that are like us that are independent. There’s a place in Beverly Hills – I can’t remember what it’s called – but it’s a place where you can go and get a straight razor shave and a haircut.

There’s John Allan’s salons in Manhattan. They just opened one in Chicago. Similar type concept. Our is a little bit different in that we do all those services, but it’s a little less expensive and it’s sort of a democratized upscale barbershop. It’s a club. It’s membership-based, so people pay us a monthly fee to be a part of it. It’s unlimited haircuts and shaves and all sorts of stuff. It’s pretty cool. We’re having a lot of fun with it.

So that’s one of the relationships that I have with Nick and then and I also teach business success strategies in marketing to groups of entrepreneurs and business owners every month as well. So that’s our connection.

You met me at – here in Orlando at the YPO group last summer actually.

Bill: That’s right. That’s right.

Chris: _____, right. Yeah. We graduated –

Bill: That was a great spot they had that at.

Chris: – yeah. Oh, it was a beautiful place. Yeah. Actually, I financed a number of the office condos in that building. But yeah, you and I, we went to Loyola together, but I know – I don’t think I ever met you.

Bill: That’s right. That’s right. Now I remember you.

Chris: Yeah. I was up at Lakeshore most of the time. I think you were at Watertower most of the time.

Bill: I was at Watertower, yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Exactly.

Bill: Oh, that’s funny.

Chris: All right. So that’s the background. So that’s who I am. Okay.

Bill: Oh, that’s perfect.

Chris: We’ll talk a little bit about the book. Obviously, a lot of people – your tie-in and connection with Trump is still pretty powerful. A lot of people want to know stuff about that. So let’s – you want to start with the book, or you want to kind of – you want to tell me what –?

(Crosstalk)

Bill: Whatever works _____. You run the interview.

Chris: All right.

Bill: So however you want to do it, I’m easy.

Chris: All right. Let’s start with some of The Apprentice stuff and then let’s move forward from there, okay?

Bill: Okay. Sure.

Chris: So why – in your words, why do you think you got hired by Trump in Season 1 of The Apprentice?

Bill: Well, I think there were a number of reasons. One, I had a good work ethic.

Chris: Right.

Bill: Two, I was able to deliver results But one of the things I always talk about in my speeches is that I think there are three reasons why people are successful and why they’re able to stand out from the pack.

The first one is a term called “practical execution.” I firmly believe in this. I think a lot of people talk a great game and they claim that they’re gonna accomplish so much. I find that most of those people that talk such a big game are just talkers and that’s it.

In actuality, I didn’t do a lot of talking on The Apprentice. I kept my mouth shut. I put my head down and I worked hard and delivered results. So I think that’s critical. I think you have to also be agile. You’ve got to be willing to change up your game plan.

Given the current economic conditions, we’re finding this ever so important. Those people who are able to adapt and have agility are the ones that are gonna survive this economic crisis. Those that don’t, won’t. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to be willing to take the blinders off and almost be on a swivel and see what’s happening and be able to adjust as it’s happening.

Chris: I always call that as the business world equivalent of Darwinism. It’s not the strong or the swift. It’s the most adaptive that survive.

Bill: That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. Lastly, it’s about risk. You’ve got to be willing to take risks. As you probably know, you talk to a lot of people who claim they’re entrepreneurs and they think they’re big risk takers. They don’t know how to manage the risk. You’ve got to manage the risk and many times you got to micromanage that risk. In the end, you’ve got to convert it into success. Otherwise, it’s wasted risk.

Chris: Right. I think that’s a good point. Let’s talk about what do you think your single greatest lesson you learned from Trump was, whether on the show or since?

Bill: Well, I learned a lot from Trump. I’m very grateful for the opportunity that he gave me and how he opened up his world to me, which is incredible. But I think a couple things really stand out. One, one thing about Donald Trump, he’s not afraid to think big. I’ve been guilty of it where I haven’t taken the net and thrown it out far enough or wide enough when I should have.

So I think you’ve got to be willing to think big. You’ve got to believe in yourself, which is critical. He certainly believes in his abilities and he never quits. I think people give up too easily. I think we’re seeing that now with the young people. If they don’t hit a home run the first time at bat, the give up the sport, so to speak. I don’t think that’s a healthy way to be brought up.

You’ve got be willing to go at it four, five, ten, thirty times until you get it.

Chris: Well, it strikes me – you obviously know him much more than I do. But he seems to have blurred the distinction a little bit between work and play too. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, that’s what a lot of us strive to get to. Would you say that’s a fair characterization?

Bill: Well, he loves what he does. I think anyone who loves what they’re doing will be successful at it. My dad, when I was a kid, he always used to say, “Find something that you really love to do and the money will follow.” I never wanted to believe him. I was like, “I want the money. I want the money. I want the money.”

But there’s a lot of truth to that. I see that now with friends of mine who are doing these jobs that they hate and they’re never able to get to the level of success that they should because they can’t wait to get out of the office at 5:01 and in the morning they’re miserable. They have to hit their alarm clock snooze button ten times in order to muscle themselves out of bed.

When you love what you’re doing, which I’ve been fortunate enough to always love what I’ve been doing, you pop out of bed before the alarm clock goes off.

Chris: Then you don’t go to bed until midnight or later a lot of times.

Bill: That’s right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Chris: So all right. On the project that you had in Chicago, that you won, how much control did you really have over that? What was your day like when you were working there? __________, right.

Bill: I’m sorry. Yeah. It’s the old Sun Times building.

Chris: Right.

Bill: They put the Trump International Tower up there, which is a beautiful building. There was no typical day. It was – every day was different. I was fortunate because Donald was very involved in that project. It was his baby. I also spent a lot of time with a gentleman by the name Greg Cuneo, who’s the chairman of a major construction company called “HRH.”

They both kind of mentored me. At the end of the day, I was learning. I’ve never built a 90-story high-rise before. Not many people in this world have. So these guys showed me how these things are built. It was a multimillion-dollar education that I received.

Chris: Now, it was a – I know it started as a – I think it was a six-month apprenticeship, but you stayed on past that, correct?

Bill: That’s right. Yeah. It was initially gonna be a one-year deal. The one-year turned into two and I wound up staying for several years.

Chris: Okay. Are they – I believe the building is done now. But they’re still selling condos in there, aren’t they?

Bill: That’s right. The building’s up. They’ve topped the building off.

Chris: It’s CO’d now?

Bill: They’re just trimming out – well, the hotel is fully functioning, fully operational. The condos, they’re just trimming them out. But many of the condos are occupied. You go floor by floor by floor.

Chris: Sure. Sure. Exactly. All right. So I’ll ask a couple more questions on The Apprentice and we’ll get off that. But what do you think you did quickly to get noticed by Trump on The Apprentice?

‘Cause I think some people actually – your critics would say you kind of hung back and you just submitted that – you just kept your mouth shut and you did what you were supposed to do the best you could. What do you think you did that really took his nose?

Bill: Well, I delivered victories. Every time I was a project manager, I brought in big wins, not just wins, big wins, where I annihilated the other team. I was creative in how I did it. I thought that was critical. But lying back, I didn’t lie back. I was taking the temperature of the room and trying to size up the competition and see what I needed to do. Obviously, my strategy was effective because I won.

Chris: Right. Exactly. Well, I think from a viewer’s perspective, it’s tough for us. Through the magic of television editing, I’m sure – I have no idea what your day was like. I don’t know how – was that two weeks the entire season? I don’t know.

Maybe you can enlighten us on that. But that’s probably why some of the critics felt like you were kind of hanging back ‘cause probably don’t know that you guys are cramming in projects like every day or maybe twice a day or maybe twice a day. I don’t know.

Bill: Every episode was about four days.

Chris: Oh, was it really? Okay.

Bill: Yeah. It was tough. There were no days off. We operated on very little sleep every night. The conditions were stressful. You’re living with 15 other people as a grown adult. That’s not the easiest thing to do. I had a roommate. It was very difficult to run on three, four, hours of sleep, sometimes two a night, for weeks. This went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. So your body breaks down mentally and physically. You’re at the end of the line.

Chris: Yet at the same time, you did what a lot of people in business wish they could probably do more of, which is you had such concentrated actions in what you were doing. You were so focused on the task at hand without virtually no distractions.

I think it’s a – I can’t remember what episode it was. Maybe it wasn’t even your season, but writing a children’s book in two days or something like, you can’t really do that in the real word. But because of the atmosphere and the environment that you’re in, I think that enabled some of that to happen.

Bill: Yeah, definitely. I think you’ve – that was it. You were eating it, breathing it, and sleeping it. Not really sleeping it ‘cause you didn’t get much sleep. But yeah, it was around the clock. I’d be four or five morning coming back to get an hour or two of sleep before we had to go out and do it all over again.

So it was exciting. It was fun to be in that environment with great people who were very smart and like-minded. So you kind of were able to feed off each other. You elevate your game when you’re around people who bringing their A game. Everyone brought their A game.

Chris: Right. Right. All right. Now, let me ask you a difficult question. If you don’t answer, that’s fine. But this is – everybody wants to know, and it’s gonna go out to thousands of our members and our non-members as well. Everybody wants to know, what’s Trump’s biggest failure in your opinion?

Bill: I don’t know.

Chris: You probably share my philosophy about failure, which is if you’re a true entrepreneur, you love what you do, as long as you learn from failures, there’s never really any failure per se.

Bill: Yeah. I guess a failure is when you do it multiple times.

Chris: Right. Exactly.

Bill: You make the mistake multiple times. The guy, he’s won. I don’t think he’s had – everything happens for a reason. _____ a couple _____.

Chris: _____ when you came back.

Bill: Yeah, but everyone has. You come back stronger and bigger.

Chris: Right.

Bill: I don’t know. I can’t – only he can answer that question. But in my opinion, he’s a winner. He’s done everything he’s said he was gonna do.

Chris: All right. Well, let’s talk about the book. The book came out – I think it came out right after – like six months after you won, didn’t it, or was it longer?

Bill: It did. I think about six or eight months after, yeah, somewhere around there.

Chris: What was your motivation to write the book? What _____ sort of the capsulation of your business philosophy? Candidly, I listened to it. I bought the audio book two, three, four years ago and listened to it. We didn’t have time with this interview today for me to re-listen to it.

Bill: No, no. Yeah.

Chris: Is that kind of what you were thinking?

Bill: Well, you know what? I’d always read books along the way or skimmed them along the way and you would always get these books and they were written for people who had Harvard MBAs in these esoteric terms.

I thought, “You know what? I’m a guy who was an entrepreneur ever since I was a little kid.” I wanted to come out with a book to, one, kind of speak to every man and not just a guy who’s got an Ivy League MBA.

So if you’ll notice, the book’s written in terms that everyone can understand. I wanted to – I’m a believer in entrepreneurs and I want to fuel that spirit. I think it’s what made our country as great as it is. I thought this was a book that hopefully inspired and motivate people to go out and follow their dreams. If they have a dream of opening up barbershops around the country, then God bless them. I think they’ve got to believe in it.

It’s been great getting emails from people and years later saying, “Hey, thanks for writing that book because I realized if you can do it, I can do it.” That’s true. I’m not a genius. I don’t have an Ivy League education. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Chris: But you keep saying the “Ivy League.” Fortunately and unfortunately, I went to Wharton after Loyola. But you and I both went to Loyala. But that’s _____.

Bill: That’s right. That’s right.

Chris: What do you think your strongest message that you want to relay to people is in the You’re Hired book? Then I should probably the book, of course, is called You’re Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life.

Bill: Ah, the strongest message. I think when you think about my road and kind of my journey, there had been failures along the way. I think one of the things that I’ve noticed is that the kids today are not allowed to fail. Let me explain.

Chris: No, I agree. Yeah, you’re right.

Bill: When you see these parents and they are – when the kid is born, the kids are automatically put on these waiting lists to get into the right preschool so they can get into the right kindergarten, so they can get into the right grade school, so on and so on.

These parents are putting so much pressure on these kids at such a young age, kids are afraid to make mistakes. They’re afraid to fail. Therefore, they don’t even try. That’s the biggest failure of them all. You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to try everything.

When I go and speak at universities around the country, I always tell these kids, “Go out there. It’s okay to start a small business when you’re in college. It may work. It may not. Get internships. You’ve to go out and experience things and find out what you like and what you don’t like. Otherwise, you’re gonna be 25 years old and you’re not gonna have any clue on what you really want out of life.”

Chris: That’s right. Well, we’ve ruined it, even the competitive spirit. When you play little league and every single person gets the trophy these days, gee, _____.

Bill: Yeah, or they don’t keep score.

Chris: Right. Yeah. It seems asinine to me.

Bill: _____. It’s not healthy.

Chris: We’re creating a generation of, I don’t know, mediocre, I guess.

Bill: Yeah. It’s not – I don’t think it’s healthy. Maybe I’m wrong.

Chris: I’m with you. I think it’s not healthy either. So okay. You said a second ago, you’ve been an entrepreneur since you were young. That was my experience too. I actually started with the lawn/snow shovel removal business when I was about eight. How far back do you go, and what did you do? Give us sort of some of the stuff. I know about the Tagar Company and we should probably talk a little bit about that.

Bill: Yeah. My first business was when I was ten years old. I had to spend the weekend at my grandmother’s and I learned how to make pancakes. The next morning, I got up and I called all the old ladies over and I invited them over for a pancake breakfast. We had a great time.

When they left, I was clearing their plates away from the table and I noticed that each and every one of these women had left a five-dollar bill underneath the plate. I was stunned. I thought, “Wow. I’m on to something here.” For the next five weeks, I kept going to my grandmother’s for the weekends. My parents were wondering what was going on and they figured out I was running a makeshift restaurant out of my grandmother’s house.

That was kind of my start as an entrepreneur.

Chris: Well, hey, you were avoiding the health regulations, I guess, right.

Bill: What’s that?

Chris: I said you were avoiding the health regulators.

Bill: Yeah. Well, at ten, I don’t think the 80-year-old women were –

Chris: Yeah. No. I think you talk about that in the book actually. I remember that.

Bill: – I do.

Chris: Talk about the cigar company. You were – you started at, what, right out of college?

Bill: Well, about eight or nine – I guess eight or nine months after I graduated, I suppose. It was pretty soon after I graduated.
Chris: What’s the genesis of that?

Bill: Just out of an idea. Had an idea and no one was doing it. I think we were the first ever cigar of the month club to come out and experienced a favorable response right out of the gate. We had a tremendous amount of momentum going. That was it.

I never really smoked cigars until I started the company. It wasn’t like I was cigar aficionado and I needed to get a cigar business. It was just seizing an opportunity. That is what I had done. It was right before the cigar bloom was about to explode. I don’t know if you remember.

Chris: I do, yeah.

Bill: There was a time when Demi Moore was smoking cigars and Schwarzenegger and it was like the hottest thing going. We started this company right about when that started to take off. So the timing was – it couldn’t have been better.

Chris: All right. But what was – there had to have been a model. I don’t think anybody just comes up with an idea off the top of their head. It was –

Bill: Well –

Chris: – so it was a burgeoning industry, about to be a big trend. But how did you – by the month I think is a brilliant model. That’s what Kennedy’s is about, monthly membership, continuity.

Bill: – right.

Chris: What did you base it off of? Were there – I don’t remember back –

Bill: I knew the guys that – I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Chris: – no. I was just gonna say, did you – back then, were there beers of the month? I’ve obviously given that as gifts for years to people, but I don’t remember if that existed back then.

Bill: It did actually. Yeah. That was kind of a – I’d known the guys that had done the beer of the month. I read about the guy doing wine. I thought, “Hmm.” I decided to do this. One of the people I actually called up was the guy who started Vermont Teddy Bear.

Chris: Oh, yeah, sure. Sure.

Bill: A guy named John Sortino. I’ll never forget this man. I called him and I said, “I’m thinking about starting this _____ month club _____. Can you give me some advice?” The guy took my call and he gave me advice. I was shocked because I wouldn’t have wanted to convolute the space. I would have thought, “Why create another competitor?”

But he kind of given me some tips and some guidance on how to buy radio advertising and I’ve never done that before. That was it. We let it rip.

Chris: Now, there’s an interesting story in the book, I remember, about how you kind of got a break and, in classic fashion, you kind of created it with the what I would now refer to as a “shock in all box.” We actually have our own with Kennedy’s that we send out to potential franchisees. That’s how you got on the radio _____, wasn’t it? You want to tell the story?

Bill: Yeah. It was – I was going in. I was resigning from my job that I had had. I had taken a job right out of college selling commodity metal. I was going in to resign from my job and the owners of the company laughed at me and they thought it was – I was explaining how I was gonna become a millionaire with the cigar business and I was gonna be leaving. They sat across the table and they laughed at me. It made me mad.

As I was driving back to the office where the cigar company was run out of, I was so determined to prove these guys wrong. I got back and I had wrote a letter asking for help. I put the letter in a box and I put some cigars in there and went and got these little Coke bottle glasses that you wear on Halloween, the nerd glasses. I put a little note on the glasses. The note read, “Please take a closer look at my business idea.”

I sent them out to the top ten morning radio stations in Chicago. About a week later, I got a call from the No. 1 morning radio show and she said, “Scott’ll have you on the air to talk about cigars of the month.” Sure enough, I went in there and the guy hammed it up and we went on the air for about 40 minutes just talking about this product and he was continually giving out the 1-800 number and the website.

When I got back to the apartment where our office was, every phone we had in there was ringing off the hook with people wanting to place orders. So that was kind of my lucky break.

Chris: Well, it’s interesting you say that because when I started in my commercial finance company about six and a half years ago – and by the way, we’ve been successful through this downturn as well because we picked a niche and we stuck with it. We finance commercial property for business owners and entrepreneurs all around the country.

I had the same experience. People actually laughed at us. They thought I was crazy to try and focus on such a narrow niche that I didn’t want to do the banker all things to all people model. Literally, it pissed me off pretty good too. We’ve channeled that for the last six and a half years here at your company. Obviously, we had some success with it.

It’s funny, Bill, that not a lot of people talk about that as a big motivator. But the more entrepreneurs I know, the more people I know that have had success and have done something that’s kind of defied the odds, _____ conventional wisdom, a lot of them have this type of experience

Any thoughts on that?

Bill: Well, I think there’s always gonna be those people around you who don’t want you to succeed. They may be your friends, believe it or not. _____. There’s those that feel the need to pull others down in order to build themselves up. That’s a fact of life. You got to – you want to stay away from those people, but also use it as motivation.

When you’re waking up at five in the morning to go to the dream, that’s motivation. You got to take the motivation in any way you can get it.

Chris: Yeah. No. I agree. And channel it. Yeah. No question. I call it the –

Bill: There’s gonna be times when you want to question why the hell am I doing this and is it really worth it because you’re getting up and you’re working your tail off, but you’re not seeing results.

Chris: – right.

Bill: That’s one area where you can pull from.

Chris: No. I agree. Well, did you ever have it in your mind that – I think you made The New York Times Bestseller List with your book. Was that ever something that you dreamed of or you thought would _____ happen with this?

Bill: _____. No. Come on. That was – it was – everything over the last seven years has been just a world wind, an amazing experience for me. I’ve been able to learn and grow from it. I’ve been able to do some pretty neat things. Writing two books. I also wrote a kids’ book called Beyond the Lemonade Stand and it was for kids between the ages of eight and thirteen to kind of bring out their entrepreneurial spirit

Chris: I didn’t know that.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that I’ve been able to get two books published by major publishers has been a dream come true. I’ve always enjoyed writing. My parents were teachers. So for me to be able to write a book to help teach kids how to become honorable entrepreneurs was kind of the passing of the torch from my parents to me. I’m teaching them in my own way.

Chris: Right. Right. Now, I know you talk about this in the book a little bit. Your parents being teachers, you wouldn’t normally think of teachers being so supportive of entrepreneurship, but your parents have really been kind of your cheerleaders, haven’t they?

Bill: Absolutely, yeah. They’ve been by my side and helped and always encouraged me to try whatever my heart and soul was into. So they’re – I give them all the credit.

Chris: Well, let’s talk about what you’re doing these days ‘cause I think when you came down here in June and had talked to our YPO group here in Orlando, I think you were just about to launch a new television show. You want to talk about that and how that sort of –?

Bill: Yeah. Well, when I was down there, we were in the middle of filming.

Chris: That’s right. Yeah. Right.

Bill: The show is called – actually, it’s called We Mean Business. It’s a show where I go in to small businesses that are having difficulty and try to give them a complete turnaround from a physical standpoint, redoing their – and trying to readjust the way they think and their mindset because we can go in and make physical changes and update their technology and help them with marketing, but if their mindset doesn’t change, then they’re not gonna succeed.

Chris: Yeah. It’s all about mindset. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. We’ve been – we faced some challenges. Some companies we’ve been able to help. Others, we haven’t. But it’s a show that airs on A&E on Saturday mornings.

It’s been a lot of fun to do and very rewarding because we were able to – especially given the current economic conditions – we were able to make changes in these people’s lives that could potentially affect generations to come because this business could be passed on to their kids and their kids’ kids. That’s kind of powerful when you think about it.

Chris: Yeah. Are you still in the first season? Are you starting to film a second season, or what?

Bill: Well, we’re scheduled to possibly start again in the spring. We’re in discussions on that right now.

Chris: Okay. How many episodes did you guys do? Do you remember?

Bill: We did eight.

Chris: Okay.

Bill: We did eight episodes. I’m sure they’ll be more to come.

Chris: So you’re kind of like a Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen just without the four-letter word, I take it.

Bill: Without the foul mouth, yeah. Exactly.

Chris: (Laughter) That’s good. That’s good. I’m surprised they haven’t done more stuff like that on TV actually. That’s one of the things I always appreciated about The Apprentice is you actually see real business lessons. I always thought Trump tried to – and maybe this was more Mark Burnett – tried to bring out the business lessons so that you actually walked away with something from watching an episode.

Obviously, your show does that as well. But there’s very few shows on TV that do anything like at all.

Bill: Yeah. I think people want to – they want the takeaways. People – the viewing audience is smarter and they expect more from the programming today. There’s a lot of shows out there that don’t provide that, but there are some that do. Sell This House and Flip This House and all these different programs that are out there, I think it helps people – it gives them ideas and motivates them.

Chris: Right. So what are you up to these days? Besides the show, what are you doing these days?

Bill: Well, I’m doing some real estate development right now. I’m actually – I’m a buyer in this real estate market.

Chris: I don’t blame you.

Bill: I think there’s some opportunities out there. So I’ve been doing that. I do a lot of speaking around the country. I’m still on the board of the company that I started. We merged into other divisions and really were no longer in the cigar business anymore. But I sit on the board of directors of Synergy Brands, which is a – we manufacture food and baking products.

Chris: Is it sold on a monthly membership basis?

Bill: No, no, no, no. We actually manufacture food products for companies and they put their own label on it. So for example, Wal-Mart will – or Walgreen’s – we manufacture the salt and pepper grinders with the Walgreen’s name on there. We do cake mixes and baking mixes for different national chains. We private label them at our factory.

Chris: Sure. Sure. So is that based out of Chicago?

Bill: No. We have a corporate office in New York and we have actually have a sugar refining plant in Michigan.

Chris: Oh, all right. Okay. So you’re keeping busy with that. Most of your real estate projects, where are they at? LA? Chicago?

Bill: Chicago.

Chris: All over?

Bill: Yeah, Chicago. I try to – I like Chicago. I’ve got a real good network of people there and a good team. The projects that I buy are usually gut rehabs. So we go in and we find the ugliest, nastiest projects out there and we make them look pretty.

Chris: Right. Now, Chicago is still my favorite big city. I’m originally from down state outside of Peoria. So that was me going to the big city when I was went to Loyola.

Bill: Yeah. That was a big move.

Chris: Yeah, it was. It was. All right. I got to ask the question ‘cause – actually, I had my coaching group that I meet with once a month, all day long. I told them I was gonna interview you today, and on of the guys said, “Well, ask him why Trump doesn’t come to Kennedy,” which was obviously a commentary on Trump’s rather interesting hair, which of course is a talking piece. I can understand from a marketing perspective why he keeps it.

But any comments on that, or do you want to be diplomatic?

Bill: No, no comments on that. _____.

Chris: All right.

Bill: I have no problem. It works.

Chris: Yeah. Exactly.

Bill: You’ve got one the most beautiful women in America married to him, so he’s doing something right.

Chris: Yeah, he is. No question. Well, anything we haven’t covered that you want to chat about?

Bill: No. I think – Yeah. I think it’s an exciting time. It’s a scary time right now. But I think there’s gonna be a lot of wealth created from what’s happening right now. I think people can’t be afraid to seize opportunity.

Chris: Yeah. You’re speaking at a franchise finance conference in May that I’m speaking at as well. I think you’re the keynote and I’m the next day. So maybe if you get a chance –

Bill: Well, I’m glad I don’t have to follow you. That’s a good thing.

Chris: - (Laughter) oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll see. But I’ll be talking about Kennedy’s and what we’re doing. It is a pretty exciting time. I’m a practitioner of what my philosophy as well, which is I’m right there with you.

I think now is when a tremendous amount of wealth is gonna be made. You buy when it’s low and hopefully you get out when it’s high. But you can’t follow herd. That’s what way too many people did over the last couple of years, I’m afraid.

Bill: That’s exactly it. Boy, it’s scary.

Chris: Yeah. Exactly. Well, hey, Bill, I’ll let you go. I appreciate you your time.

Bill: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you.

Chris: Yeah. We covered a lot of stuff here. You have a – I always have ask. You have a website or something where we should send people to if they’re interested in –?

Bill: Billrancic.com.

Chris: Okay. All right. That’s obviously B-I-L-L-R-A-N-C-I-C.com. All right. They can get both books there as well?

Bill: They can get both books there, Amazon, Borders. You can get it at pretty much most bookstores, I would imagine.

Chris: All right. I’m gonna go check out the Beyond the Lemonade Stand myself ‘cause I got two young kids and I’m already working on them, teaching them business. I don’t find too many children’s books that do. So that’s terrific. I appreciate your doing that.

Bill: Yeah. No, please do. I’ll see you in Chicago.

Chris: All right. Well, if not, I’ll see you in Vegas for sure.

Bill: In Vegas for sure, definitely.

Chris: All right. Take care, Bill. Bye.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

A couple years ago, during the Friday night of the Masters golf tournament, I was sitting down at a lawn table in someone’s Augusta, Georgia backyard I didn’t even know at an intimate gathering I’d been flown to on a private jet. I was getting ready to dig into a juicy, freshly-grilled ribeye when a gentleman asked if the seat next to me was taken… just as Jim Nantz (from CBS Sports and former college roommate of Fred Couples) was about to start telling stories to a crowd of no more than 50 people. Bonnie Bernstein from ESPN was Jim’s mic-runner, and Scott Van Pelt (also from ESPN) even volunteered to run the microphone a few times for questions from our small audience. How I got into that particular situation is a story for another time, but the gentleman who proceeded to spend the next 65 minutes chatting with me was a rather famous coach with a rather famous ex-student you may have heard of… Tiger.

So, Butch Harmon and I chewed the fat about his business, mine and golf courses around the country. What became very obvious to me was that he hated the courses in Las Vegas where his golf academy is located. This begged my question, “Why, Butch, do you have your academy there if you despise the courses so much, and you much prefer those in Florida, California, North Carolina and just about anywhere else?”

“Because, Chris, nowhere else can I charge what I want to make. When people come to Vegas, price pretty much goes out the window. They’re seeking and able to have the best experiences possible there, no matter how artificial those might be, so cost isn’t an obstacle anymore. I couldn’t get away with charging what I do if I did it near you in Orlando. There just wouldn’t be the demand for it. But, there is in Vegas. So, I tolerate these @$#%&$# courses.”

I’ve since kept Butch’s insights in mind whenever I visit Las Vegas and when I think about what my customers might want. And you know what? He’s was spot-on. Vegas IS different!

Where in the World Was I?

In mid-November, I visited Las Vegas for business and some pleasure. That’s what’s supposed to happen there, right? Now, I don’t know how much the national economic slowdown has affected Las Vegas statistically, but it appeared to have zero impact whatsoever as I got off my plane. The airport was more packed than I’ve ever seen it — and I travel to Vegas at least three times a year and have been doing so for many years. Some slowdown! It didn’t look like anyone was leaving Las Vegas.

I’m not much of a gambler, since I don’t particularly like it when the odds of winning a game are that much against me. So, Vegas doesn’t get my money in that way… it drains my wallet in other ways.

I was out there for the annual Restaurant Finance & Development Conference put on by Franchise Times. I’ve been going for more than five years and have always thought it’s one of the best conferences I attend every year – the venue, the speakers and the networking are always first rate. I go because about 15 percent of my core business (Mercantile Commercial Capital) involves financing franchise and non-franchise restaurant properties nationwide. I’ve spoken on panels there many times in the past, but this year, I was merely a spectator.

My second-favorite economist (who actually says such things?!?) kicked off the meeting. He’s Brian Wesbury, who regularly appears in the Wall Street Journal, on CNBC and in other media outlets. Brian’s take on our economy is that we should all be prepared for a “V-like recovery.” He said we nearly avoided dipping into a recession as late as August, but that the constant naysayers in the national media proved too much and helped create a self-fulfilling prophecy. With the Fed’s very loose printing of money at the moment, plus stimulus packages and still no bread-lines (what the national media would have us believe is imminent), Brian thinks we should get things moving in the right direction by summer ‘09.

Bill Taylor, author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller, Mavericks at Work, and whose interview with me begins on page 10, moderated the next major session. Bill tried to keep Jimmy John Liautard (Founder of Jimmy John’s), Sally Smith (President/CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings) and Tom Davin (CEO of Panda Restaurant Group) in check and focused on “Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win” for nearly an hour. I always find it interesting to hear from people who defy the norms in their industry – those are usually the ones having the break-through successes. Everyone who doesn’t differentiate themselves suffers from a regression to the mean… they become average or even worse, mediocre. That’s not what you or I want – it’s just not what a Kennedy’s® man would accept.

The keynote speaker was Christopher Gardner, the real-life inspiration for the Will Smith-starring movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. What’s interesting about Chris’ speech is that it was nearly identical to the one I heard him give a couple years ago at the Golden Corral annual conference in San Diego. It’s a wonderful speech on perseverance and determination (much more than the movie could show in only 117 minutes), but it’s also a lesson in professionalism. Chris was such a great speaker with such a great story, and he’d practiced it all so well… it was like watching a great performance, really. Too many people in business, especially in sales, just “wing-it.” But the great ones understand the need for preparation, planning and performance. Mr. Gardner knew this and delivered. People lined up hundreds-deep to buy his book and get his autograph after his talk.

I hadn’t taken a trip with just my wife in about three years, so once we secured a babysitter, she flew out to spend a few extra days with me. Ever the planner, we kept very busy. We had great pasta at Rao’s, the famous New York-based Italian restaurant. Had fresh stone crabs at Joe’s for lunch one day in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s (the original, 95-year old restaurant is near South Beach in Miami). Had another very “interesting” meal at Charlie Trotter’s restaurant (Restaurant Charlie in The Palazzo Hotel) – he’s one of Oprah’s favorite chefs, if the name sounds familiar, and I had taken an old college buddy of mine to his flagship location in Chicago last year when I attended my first Inc. 500 conference. We also went to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill and had terrific southwestern fare. We saw Cirque du Soleil’s “LOVE” show about the music of the Beatles, the “Jersey Boys” about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and saw Danny Gans before his long-running Vegas show came to an end late in November. All were terrific performances! But, truth be told, not all of these shows were necessarily my first choices – I couldn’t get tickets to some of my preferred shows even though I booked things in June. That’s how crazy Vegas was this time around!

You may be tempted to chalk it up to gambling being good in any economy, but remember: I wasn’t gambling. My wife and I were just going to nice dinners and shows… and everywhere we went, it was PACKED. I even managed to mystery-shop some “alleged” Kennedy’s® competition. I should have probably tried to fit in some golf lessons with Butch, but there just wasn’t enough time…

Our “alleged” competitor has been around for more than 200 years. They’re London based and have supposedly shaved the Royal Family. During my 45-minute turn in the chair, I was resoundingly unimpressed. I had high expectations; I’ll admit it. I thought their reputation was really something, and I thought I might learn a thing or two we could redeploy at Kennedy’s®. I learned a thing or two alright… about what NOT to do.

For starters, it was obvious that they were a product company, which also happened to provide grooming services — not the other way around like we are at Kennedy’s® – for the entrance gave way to a backroom that was disheveled and not nearly as well kept as you’d expect.

I got a respectable haircut until my barber had me hop out of my chair and lean, face-first, over her sink while she rinsed out my clippings. Water immediately rushed into my face and covered my eyes, nose and mouth. This wasn’t what I was used to back home. My barber handed me a towel to wipe off my face when she was done, noting that it happens every time and no one is ever prepared for it… hmmm, seems to me like she might want to mention that.

Next, I sat back for my shave. She leaned me back in my chair, put some pre-shave lotion on my scruff, put on a hot-towel and then lather, but didn’t bother to cover my eyes. What occurred next should be obvious: I tried to close my eyes, but I just kept watching her razor come closer and closer to scrape my face. At Kennedy’s®, we purposefully cover our clients eyes so they can’t watch and hopefully attempt to fall asleep – this makes for a much better overall experience.

I kept thinking something was missing during the first part of my shave, until my barber started on my neck. It was like sandpaper rubbing against my throat with every stroke she took. What was missing immediately came to my mind: the hot-water steamers. At Kennedy’s®, we use our hot, distilled-water steamers so our clients’ faces are keep moist and pliable. They don’t experience such a rough shave that a straight razor can sometimes give. Pores open-up when steam is blown on your face, so our barbers can give the closest shave possible with more exposed hair follicles and skin that is easier to manipulate. My barber did her best, but she was missing that crucial piece of equipment. I grimaced a few times, but I toughed it through the “dry” shave.

At the end, she offered me a bottle of water (we usually do that at the beginning of our Kennedy’s® experience), but offered no brief scalp or shoulder massage (again, like we do at Kennedy’s®). Now here’s the shocker: for all of this, or rather for only this, the price was $125 plus tip. For $140 dollars, this was a fraction of the experience you and I get every couple weeks at Kennedy’s®. And at Kennedy’s®, our highest-level membership doesn’t even reach that price-point.

So yes, Butch Harmon was right again: everything costs more in Vegas. But not everything is better in Vegas and certainly better values are out there… value like what you receive as a member of Kennedy’s®. Now you know what our “competition” does, or rather doesn’t do. And you now know how valuable that membership you have is. Feel free to share this “secret” with others as we grow our terrific concept.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

Bill Taylor was the cofounder and founding editor at Fast Company. Now an adjunct professor at Babson College, Taylor teaches a seminar for second year MBA students called the “Maverick Seminar,” named after his most recent book “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in the Business Win.” Taylor joined Chris Hurn to discus Taylor’s book and its business applications.

BT: The first question I often get when I talk about the book is, “Why did you write it.” And to me, the answer is: because we felt the business conversation was stuck. So, what we wanted to do with the book was to jump start or restart the conversation about the power of business at its best.

In a nutshell, there’s a lot of very provocative-thinking and cutting-edge companies we got to visit, but in some sense, it’s an old-fashioned, back-to-basics book in the sense that we try to devise new and compelling answers to four basic questions — the four building blocks of business. What does it mean to have a winning, competitive strategy when the world is more competitive than ever? How do you connect with customers in an age when customers have more choices, more options, and are bombarded by more commercial messages than they can possibly process? Where new ideas come from exactly and what’s the smart way to unleash innovation? And last, but certainly not least, how do you attract more than your fair share of the best people in your field — how do you win the battle for talent?

CH: That’s a good overview Bill. What I took away from it is that, this is a getting back to basics book because people have this incredible way of making things more complicated then they need to be. There have been mavericks all along, throughout business and throughout history. But you guys have taken 32 of the most cutting-edge mavericks and, through illustration and examples, you tell their stories by weaving them through the book itself.

BT: You’re absolutely right; much of progress of the ages has been driven by people who were essentially seeing an opportunity… seeing something that most other people didn’t see, which in a nutshell, is a pretty decent definition of a maverick.

Thirty, forty years ago, you could get by being a little cheaper than the next guy… a little higher quality… a little bit better. But in this day and age, given that there is so much competition in every industry, you can’t possibly win big if you’re content with doing things just a little bit better than everybody else. Originality really is the essence of strategy and what it means to be a company.

In this day and age, “playing it safe” really isn’t playing it smart, because it’s only by rethinking conventional wisdom, only by standing for something really distinctive that you have a remote chance to stand out from the crowd in your industry.

CH: You also defined what a maverick is. It includes being disruptive, not business as usual, rethinking their business and their industry, and having a distinctive, unique approach.

BT: Right, but it doesn’t mean being arrogant, being brash, or being a jerk. You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room anymore. The best leaders we got to know — and we use the mantra in the book — really do believe that nobody is as smart as everybody. Their job is not to always say, “I’ve got the answer to every question. I personally have the idea that it’s going to take this company to the next generation.” It’s, whether you’re the person that other smart people want to pitch-in with, collaborate with and share their best thinking with. And so there’s a difference between being a maverick and being a jerk. Or being a maverick and being a rabble rouser just for the sake of being a rabble rouser.

CH: Those are great points Bill. If you’re leading change in your industry, there’s a delicate balance between doing it and staying under the radar versus bringing on the big behemoths in your industry who suddenly adapt your strategy… and then you’re no longer the maverick, there’s multiples of you out there. The first chapter, you actually titled, Not Just a Company, a Cause: Strategy is Advocacy.

BT: ING Direct is a classic example. In December 2000, Arkadi Kuhlmann decided that he was going to create a new and better way to have a retail bank, and he created ING Direct USA with no brick and mortar presence whatsoever — no branches, no ATM machines, no checking accounts. He did everything with his customers over the web or over the phone. He offered a very small number of very easy to understand savings products. He kept costs really low, kept interest rates really high and started attracting a boatload of deposits. It’s an incredible, incredible business model story.

And yet, when we sat down with Arkadi, we wanted to talk to him about the strategy, about the technologies. He said, “We’ll get to all that. I’m happy to talk about the products and services we sell, but what I first want to do is talk to you about the ideas we stand for, the values we’re fighting for.” Suddenly he became this consumer advocate and gave this really withering critique of the financial services culture in the United States. People, sometimes encouraged by big financial services companies and their advertising, spend too much, save too little, borrow too heavily, and invest too recklessly. And what ING Direct wanted to do, is serve as the antidote, an alternative to all that. The mission of this company… the sense of purpose behind it is that ING Direct exists to, “Lead Americans back to savings” and to be a spokesperson and a force for a savings culture in a country that is famous for its credit culture.

We now use this term… rumor is George Carlin, the comedian is the one who coined it… we all know about de ja vu, the idea that when you go into a new situation, you feel like you’ve been there before. But what ING Direct does, what Southwest Airlines has done for so many years, is cultivate a sense of “vu ja de.” You could look at the same marketplace that everybody else is looking at, and yet you’re seeing it with fresh eyes. It’s as if you’re seeing it for the first time, and you’re seeing opportunities there that other people simply don’t see.

CH: That’s a great summary, Bill. To me, it has to start with the idea. If you start with the idea, and like you said, critically think about what’s wrong in your industry… and let’s face it, every industry has its problems… but if you can try to put on the goggles for fresh eyes, it’s this idea of starting with what can be reformed or what you can be renewed in your industry. And then, whatever that idea is, making that your central focal point becomes your purpose. I don’t think enough companies tend to do that. If more did, you’d have an epidemic of mavericks on your hands.

BT: So many companies, so many entrepreneurs have a very product-centric, category-centric, very MBA-driven view of the world, and what struck us when we’d talk to the folks at Southwest Airlines is they weren’t thinking there are a finite number of boxes and you choose your boxes.

This is a very unique and original way of seeing opportunities in the market place. If you are fighting for ideas in the market, you’ve got to be very good at explaining those ideas. So it’s no surprise that mavericks tend to not just think about their businesses differently, but talk about them differently as well.

CH: Well, they became not sellers of a product or service, but they’re educating others about the idea. It’s about what the product or service does for their customers. That’s the piece where I think most businesses get caught up missing. They’re selling the product or service, but they’re not selling what it does. Why would someone buy it? And it’s one of those elemental things that you scratch your head about. You don’t understand why so many businesses don’t seem to do that [explain the benefits].

BT: And by the way, it doesn’t mean you’re preachy. Some of these companies, like Southwest, use humor and outrageousness to be great. What you’re trying to do is get people’s attention and say, “We really are different, we stand for something different.”

CH: We have a lot of folks that are from smaller and midsized companies, and I know we’re throwing around some bigger names, but obviously there are mavericks in all industries.

BT: Oh, absolutely. One of the fun companies for me, because I got to eat their products, was Potbelly Sandwich Works, which is based in Chicago. It used to have one store, then it had 5, then 15 and it’s now got 100. It’s a growing national chain. What they said many years ago, is there’s no need to necessarily design a persona and a point of view down to the Nth detail at the beginning. You just do something that feels right and you grow into it.

They designed a restaurant experience and a personality in the marketplace that was like the Starbucks of sandwiches. The sandwiches are absolutely fantastic, but what really distinguishes the restaurant is that so many sandwich shops literally have an assembly line and are meant to get you in and out as quickly as possible. In much the same way that Starbucks created a one-of-a-kind experience… likewise with Potbelly, they’ve got really funky décor and each store looks different. They all have a loft where local acoustic musicians are invited to play during lunch. Countless little touches like this. You walk in and you feel like, “Wow! This is such a unique thing.”

CH: Too many businesses – - they want to be all things to all people. And really what the point of this first portion of the book, about rethinking your competition, is you need to focus on a niche. You need to lead your niche.

BT: Scott Bedbury, a great marketing guy who’s worked at Nike and Starbucks, calls it the “spandex rule of strategy.” It’s the equivalent of people wearing spandex; just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I mean, Southwest Airlines still doesn’t do assigned seating or, ala Jet Blue, will not put those TVs in the back of the seats.

CH: Right, they know who they are. One of the things I found interesting in the book, was the ad agency that talks about walking in stupid everyday. Was that was Dan?

BT: Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy. In Dan Wieden’s case, advertising is a highly creative, professional services business where if you’re a great ad agency, you’re suppose to be the know it all. These entrepreneurs come to you with their hopes and dreams they believe are going to be great, and it’s your job to tell them you’re the smartest ad creators in the world, and you’re going to solve all of their problems. And that often translates into arrogance and a know-it-all quality among the leaders in the workplace.

Wieden has been so good for so many years, about saying, “If this agency with huge, important clients, like Nike, thinks it’s going to survive because I’m always going to be the smartest ad man on the planet and I’m going to be able to address every problem we have that’s absolutely ridiculous.”

So, he created techniques to invite outside influences into the agency. They took the first floor of their beautiful headquarters in Portland and turned it over to the Portland Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s not there because it looks nice, although it does, but because of the endless stream of avant-garde, cutting-edge, creative people coming in mingling and mixing with the ad agency. They’ve got an ad school called Twelve, where young people who want to break into the ad business actually pay to attend the ad school. Wieden + Kennedy does teach them the tricks of the trade to some degree, but they are doing it mainly because they want to learn from them. The old business school notion is the experience curve, “The longer you do something the better you get at it.” In this case, it’s all about the inexperience curve where you invite people with fresh eyes who aren’t encumbered by the conventional wisdom. Wieden sums this up by saying, his job isn’t to walk in everyday and convince everybody how smart he is, his job is to walk in stupid everyday and remind himself how much has changed in the world over the last 24 hours, how much he doesn’t know about so many different things, and keep that openness to ideas and modesty.
CH: Exactly. In the book you say, “It’s about going from selling value to sharing value.” And this goes back to what we talked about earlier, this hyper-competitive environment where, just having a good deal is not enough. People will actually even pay more to have a more memorable experience, a distinct experience with a particular company.

BT: Every industry is on the verge of being utterly commoditized, where everybody is offering products and services that are incredibly well designed and affordable. The real challenge for companies is how to become more memorable to deal with as a company, how to we create a psychological contract with customers. Potbelly is a classic example. The sandwiches are great, but in the same way that Starbucks isn’t just about the coffee; Potbelly isn’t just about the sandwiches. It’s about an experience, a mindset, a role in the community, a look and a feel that really connects with people.

CH: And it translates in all industries. Life is short, you might as well have fun with what you do, and you may as well do stuff that matters.

For more information or to purchase Bill Taylor’s book “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in the Business Win” visit www.mavericksatwork.com.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.

It is an acknowledged fact of life that one of God’s great, unexplained mysteries (and cruel realities) is to let dogs live such short lives. One month, almost to the day, after my wife and I got married nearly 12 ½ years ago, we opened the Sunday classifieds of the Washington Post and began looking for our first “baby.” I suppose it’s rather cliché that we decided to get a dog, but things become clichés for a reason.

I had only two dogs in my life up to that point: an old English sheepdog (Alfie) who barely survived the downstate Illinois summers and a “Heinz 57” as we called her (Sunny) who was found nearly dying in a snowbank one Good Friday so many years ago. Alfie died when I was four years old and lived outside in his doghouse in our backyard, so I didn’t know him very well. But Sunny… we had her the rest of my childhood. I got the call my freshman year in college that my mother had to put her down. It came from my younger brother who couldn’t keep it a secret from me anymore. He was a mess and was 14 at the time. Mom didn’t want to bother me during midterms.

I had always thought Labrador retrievers were “cool” dogs. I’m not sure why, but I still think it. They’re one of the sweetest, most loyal breeds, yet they’re also one of the sportiest. They’re muscular, fast, big and playful… the kind of dog you can wrestle and play fetch with for hours. The kind of dog who’s not afraid to dive in water or introduce themselves, eagerly, to just about any human.

Chocolate Labs struck me as the coolest, since they’re the rarest of the breed. Instead of having my dog picked out for me, as an adult, I picked out the type of dog I really wanted. My wife agreed with my selection, and we soon found ourselves at a breeder’s house in Beltsville, Maryland.

The breeder’s ten-year-old daughter was at soccer practice, so she wasn’t there to hide her favorite pup of the litter (of course, that could have been the breeder’s sales tactic, but having seen how that puppy would turn out, I think she really was the pick of the litter). They only had two dogs left, and we couldn’t tell which was the little girl’s — it was obvious, though, which one we wanted. We ended up picking Hersey. Naturally, she was the breeder’s and her daughter’s favorite… even though she said it was fine for us to take her home.

Never being too fond of convention, we changed her name to Hannah. Too many chocolate Labs have goofy chocolate-related names, in my opinion. We immediately ended up at the local pet store, buying things we weren’t sure we’d need and many things we’d need more of. We even bought books about puppies. I remember some books by German monks or were they monks with German Sheppards? I don’t recall exactly. They’re probably hidden somewhere near the ceiling in my home-office bookshelves. That was 12 ½ years ago. A lot has happened since then.

Back then, we lived in our first house… a two-story condo on the outskirts of Bethesda, just over the D.C. Beltway. Being on the second and third floors meant one of us would have to take Hannah outside on-leash several times a day. It was a lot of work, but it gave us all plenty of exercise. We’d walk near White Flint Mall or around Georgetown Prep, or just let her play with the other dogs in Timberlawn Park. Like in some Hollywood film, we never got to know the “parents” of the other dogs… they just became “Mason’s dad” or “Muddy’s mom.” I worked just five minutes from our condo, so I’d come home daily to let her out around lunchtime. Those were the days when life was much simpler: BC… Before Children.

I remember getting furiously mad at some aggressive dog that everyone knew shouldn’t have been allowed at the dog park. He had gotten too worked up and bit Hannah above her eye. She had quite a gash and looked pretty pathetic at just six months old, but she bravely wanted to go right back the next day. It didn’t scar her emotionally nearly as much as it did us — my wife and I were pretty leery of other dogs for quite some time after that.

Hannah would retrieve for hours if I let her. There were times when her panting was so much, I finally stopped and made her rest… this was usually after 60 straight minutes of fetching 50-yard bombs. We’d both lose track of time: her diligently chasing, and me, lost in some daydream. She’d retrieve anything (rocks, even… I tested it a couple times), but any type of ball was her toy of choice. Her favorite “non-ball” toy was “Kermie,” a two-foot tall Kermit the Frog plush toy with bendable wires in it to make his joints flexible. About two weeks after we found Kermit in the parking lot of the Montgomery Mall, Hannah had pulled every ounce of stuffing out of him. In time, Kermie became a small piece of green felt with a couple wires in it that she slept with every night in her crate.

One time, she got up on the kitchen counter and ate an entire bag of bagels – we’re talking a baker’s dozen! I was planning to take them in the next morning for my co-workers. Her sides got so bloated, we almost took her to the vet, but when we called, they just said, “Wait it out and she how she does.” She made it through that night, but it took her eating three-quarters of a large Stouffer’s lasagna pan for her and us to realize we couldn’t leave anything out on our little kitchen’s counters anymore. Our habits had to change to accommodate our new “baby.” She loved food, like most Labs, and didn’t quite comprehend what it meant to be full.

As a puppy, I once threw her into the Potomac, not paying enough attention to the current. She nearly washed down-stream. Luckily, she was strong enough to make it back to the riverbank, and I was quick enough to wade in and pull her out. I thought Labs automatically loved water, but one of the books said we had to “introduce her” to it, so I literally threw her in. She eventually learned to love playing in water… but once we moved to Florida, we kept her out of fresh water and limited her to the ocean and our swimming pool – I had heard Labs regularly were favorite alligator “treats,” so no sense pushing our luck.

Hannah rode like a champ in the backseat of our old Pathfinder the entire 14-hour drive from North Bethesda, Maryland to Orlando with my wife back in 1998. She kept my wife company… even being sneaked into hotel rooms on two consecutive nights. To hear my wife tell it, Hannah nearly blew their cover two or three times, but she thoroughly enjoyed the other double bed. I had flown ahead to start training at my new job and check us into our corporate apartment.

A couple jobs and years later, I went to work for myself. I used to bring Hannah to my office in those early days. She particularly liked my business partner’s (Geof Longstaff) son, Blake, and used to hang out in the intern office almost as much as in mine. He’s now at Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, where I’m pretty sure no one’s ever even thought of bringing a dog to work.

We finally had to stop the practice after another intern, Anna, was deathly fearful of “big” dogs. Even though Hannah would never hurt a soul, Anna trembled at the sight of her, and I decided productivity was better than maintaining one of Hannah’s favorite daily activities. In retrospect, I may have made the wrong decision. I’ve had 30-some interns over the years, and I can’t promise you I could name them all immediately… but I’ve always remembered Anna… and I suspect Hannah did to. She knew when she was very rarely not wanted.

We gave Hannah her own Christmas stocking that hung on the mantel every year, and she got a present or two on Christmas and on her birthday. She was nearly as much a part of our family as our children are today… only with children, you get opinions, which they verbally express. My Hannah kept her opinions to herself and rarely got into trouble past her puppy years.

In short order, we had three dogs: Hannah, Jack (named after Jack Welch who I worked for at that time), and Maggie (named after Margaret Thatcher). I do all the naming in my family – from our dogs to our children. Jack and Maggie were both rescue dogs… they were also “pets for our pet” as I called them – it was a minor “battle” I wasn’t prepared to wage against my wife.

We walked Jack and Hannah near Church Street Station years ago when we saw a sign about an audition, that day, for a television show on misbehaving dogs. We thought Jack was a shoe-in! He had more “issues” then any dog we’d ever known. Lo and behold, they picked Hannah who’s only “issue” was that she was “aggressively affectionate” as I called it. She’d try to jump up on people to lick their face and “kiss them.”

Through the magic of television editing, Hannah finally didn’t jump up on the show’s host after 12 doorbell ringings and entering-our-house takes. Someone emailed me not too long ago while they were in a hospital watching way too much television; she had seen us on Animal Planet. That was more than nine years ago… you’d think they’d scrap that footage by now!

In recent years, we’d take Hannah to the dog park in Debary once or twice a month, and on lazy Saturday mornings, she’d enjoy sitting next to me in my convertible while we went through the Chik-fil-a drive-thru for the rest of the family. She’d sniff hard, but she knew it wasn’t for her. We’d trained her well. She was a great dog.

We got Winston (named after Winton Churchill, of course) about six months after Maggie died. It was obvious to everyone that it lifted Hannah’s spirits. It probably prolonged her life as well. And I often have wondered what “dog secrets” she must have taught this young pup. “Don’t howl in the middle of the night—they really don’t like that.” “Try not to jump up and land on his crotch… the kids did that enough when they were young… it makes him yell colorful words that aren’t really commands of any sort.” “Never eat the diapers… not that it’ll be a concern now with the kids grown-up, but you should have seen how they reacted when the last canine [Maggie] did it.”

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking care of a big dog, then you know they have no concept of how large they really are… and I’m not just talking about a 90-pound dog thinking they’re a lap dog. When in trouble, they’ll inevitably hide under a chair or a desk, rear-end sticking out in the open, thinking that they’ve “made themselves invisible.” Like a young child covering their face and thinking no one can see them just because they can’t look out to see anyone else. Hannah did this a few times, and I’ve already seen Winston do it too.

After a few weeks of the movie, Marley and Me, being in theatres, I finally got the nerve up to go see it. It wasn’t quite as sad as the book or so my wife said… she had listened to the audio-book after I had left it unopened, collecting dust for months. I normally don’t have a problem with conflict – lots of people try to avoid it – but I think I understand their hesitation and denial. I had displayed it by not wanting to come to terms with Hannah’s worsening conditions as she aged.

The part in the movie where I tried my damnest to “make myself invisible” to my wife and kids came when Owen Wilson’s character was about to put Marley to sleep at the vet’s office and tenderly pets him one last time from head to toe. That’s why I had spent the taxi-money to get to the Cabo airport a couple days early. It’s why I packed everything that morning on our second-to-last day of vacation and told Shannon, “It’s the right thing to do. She’s worth at least that much… whether I make it in time or not, I owe it to her to try.”

On the way to the airport, I had searched a hidden compartment in my briefcase where I keep photos of my wife and kids to look at when I travel. I found our 1997 Christmas photo – just the three of us: Shannon, me, and Hannah. I held it close during the 30-minute ride.

Despite not being able to find someone in reservations on six previous tries that morning, somehow my wife managed to make the phone ring at the check-in counter right in front of me at the Cabo airport. They had already hand-searched my luggage, and I was next in line to get my tickets. The airline lady who answered the phone and called-out for me, simply said the following in her broken-English when I arrived at the counter, “Your wife… she say come back to hotel. You don’t take flight today. Your dog is sleep.” She saw in my face what “sleep” really meant, even if she didn’t quite understand the message she had just given me. “I sorry,” she said. I knew she was. I was too.

Back at the Esperanza hotel, my wife broke the news to the kids in my absence. Apparently, after a couple minutes of hysterics by our 7 ½-year-old daughter — “Not before Christmas!” – they took it pretty well. My 5 ½-year-old son said, “Now she can be with Maggie again.” And my daughter calmed her nerves a few minutes later by stating, “Well, we still have Winston.” Yes, we do. And that’s one of the reasons why we got him.

When I got there to the hotel, my wife also told me that Reilly had later said Hannah and Maggie would wait for us at the dog bridge. Neither of us had ever heard of such a thing, but our son comes up with some pretty imaginative ideas, quite regularly. I asked him about it and he explained that dogs wait for their masters on the dog bridge, and then they enter Heaven with us. I thought that was a beautiful idea and again was awed by the utter brilliance young children sometimes state so matter-of-factly. I hadn’t grown up thinking that, but as I’ve gotten older and my beliefs evolve and solidify, surely God would do such a thing. It made perfect sense.

I think dogs, in particular, teach us a lot about unconditional love. They need us, and we’re better people when we have them in our lives. The same can’t really be said about cats or fish or birds (sure, some cats might not be the disinterested, nasty creatures I think they are, but those are clearly the exceptions). Cat people sometimes think dogs are just unthinking servants to their masters. That might be a fair criticism, but I’ve never read commentaries like the following one about cats:

“This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.”

–Napoleon Bonaparte… on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Bonaparte was said to be haunted by this scene until his own death.

Hannah seemed fine for us to go on our annual December family vacation. We never expected her to get so sick while we were away. Of course, my wife has now told me that maybe Hannah knew to do it away from us… that she knew it would have been too much for us to handle. We’d both get so scared over the years when the barometric pressure would drop (like with an approaching storm or hurricane) and Hannah would have another of her seizures — she’d been on medication for it since she was four. All of this certainly makes my final photos with her the day before we left for vacation, seem a bit foreboding.

Hannah has now been cremated and her ashes placed next to Maggie’s in a nicely painted wooden urn that sits neatly atop our built-in entertainment center in our family room. She’s with us every day and night in one of the busiest areas of our house. My wife and kids took my favorite photo of her and had a local artist make it into a framed painting for me as a belated Christmas present.

I think it’s quite telling that we received a condolences card from our vet’s office with the entire 20-some staff members not just signing it, but writing paragraphs of messages to us about Hannah. She was our vet-tech’s favorite – she would let her, off-leash, warmly greet people at the Lake Mary Vet when she’d be dog-sitting for us while we were out of town. It’s not every dog that can become an Ambassador at the local vet’s office, but I’m pretty sure she warmed everyone’s heart there. She had that kind of way about her as she got older and calmed down a bit. My dog smiled at everyone… not panted; it was a smile… of that, I’m certain.

I lost someone who was a part of nearly my entire adult life, thus far. She’s been with me through five jobs, three grandparent’s deaths, two children’s births, and much, much more. I had her longer than I’ve had my children. She loved my children like they were her own; despite the tail-pulls and body-slams she endured. Her and I would lock-up the house every night, and she’d be the last I’d say “Goodnight” to. Her and I would “talk” business and politics and fatherhood and anything else I needed an ear to listen to, when I didn’t want to bother my wife or she was sleeping. When my wife was laboring in the hospital, it was Hannah’s calming presence that took some of my anxiety away. Good dogs always do that for people. She was always there for my wife and me. ALWAYS ready with a smile and a lick or a wag. And yes, I believe she’s waiting for me on the dog bridge, ready to play fetch with whatever they have up in Heaven.

I miss you, girl.

Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of Mercantile Commercial Capital (MCC). His company was recently added to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, number 245 with 951% growth over the past 3 years. Chris is well-known for his innovative marketing achievements and continues to coach and consult with various business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, MCC has closed commercial loans in 31 states for over $350 million in total project costs – one business owner at a time, and has been voted “Best Place to Work” by the Orlando Business Journal for 3 years running.

A few other business achievements Chris has received:

• Reader’s Choice Award for “Most Respected Executive in Central Florida” and “Best Small Company in Central Florida.”
• “SBA Marketing Guru of the Year.”
• NADCO’s Banker of the Year.
• SBA Financial Services Champion.
• Top Twenty Most Influential People in Small Business lending.
• Hallmark Award for Top Producer in Mortgage Lending.
• “Top Male, 40 Under 40″ in Orlando.
• One of the “100 Most Influential People” in Orlando.

Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna.