I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some people I feel thankful for this week of Thanksgiving. I know it would be too lengthy to mention everyone individually, so I’ll need to speak in terms of groups in most instances. In light of the fact that we are moving into other SIC’s, this will most likely be the last “pianocentric” writing as future writings will be about universal topics, but this Thanksgiving it’s about those who helped get us to this point in time.
I want to start with the many business persons from all different business types who have done business with the two companies my wife Tammy and I have been owners of for the past three decades. You all have afforded us a very nice living by trusting us with your marketing dollars. I would like to continue by thanking the piano industry for allowing us to specialize in a niche industry and create new and innovative ways to help place music in thousands of peoples lives, specifically, Glen Gough, who gave us our first piano industry direct mail project, and the folks at Forte and Concerto marketing who helped us get established in the industry early on. Who would have known that over thirty years later we would still be a significant force in industry, and now the leading digital marketing firm, serving forty clients who represent over sixty markets? The industry has been good to us and we, in return, endeavor to be good for it.
I am thankful for my wife who has kept me organized and grounded with her advice through this entire journey and allowed me the freedom, as she kept all the finances in order, to “do my thing” as a marketing and sales person.
I am thankful for my oldest daughter Lauren who is involved in the day to day administration of both the mail side, Direct Success Enterprises, and more recently the digital company, Prospects International. She has lightened my load and allowed me to use my “think time” for creative ideas, solutions and brainstorming with our partner, as she wades through the administrative things that she enjoys organizing.
I have a HUGE deal of gratitude for our partner Joey Bouza, who we call the Wizard, for buying into the potential of serving and building the sales funnels called EventFlow and LeadFlow. These methods have created over ¾ of a million online piano interest leads for our clients thus far… and still counting. Many of our clients have told us that they wouldn’t want to run their businesses without it. He coded into existence something fundamentally sound and relevant in this technology-filled business landscape for an old sales pro to take to market. I saw more than a decade ago that I needed a tech wizard in my professional life and am glad to have found him.
I’m headed for the finish line… but Thanksgiving also makes me thankful for my parents and grandparents whose example instilled my Midwestern work ethic and my in-laws who gave an incredible ethic to my wife as well, which made us compatible and ready to tackle business life together with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Finally and ultimately, I am not shy or reluctant to publicly thank God for the opportunities and blessings he has bestowed upon our companies, therefore the people we have had the privilege to touch in a positive way, whether large or small. Tammy and I once sat and figured out how many people were in some small way, through their job associated with a mailing project we asked to be done, effected. The best we could guesstimate was if you started with the workers at the paper mill, everyone in that company, the transporters to the paper company, the print shop, mail shop, technicians, postal workers, data processors, multiple information companies, graphic artists, and so on and so forth, that we were allowed to contribute in some minute way to over 100 folks in many different places with every project we had executed for a piano dealer, manufacturer or weekend marketing firm. What a privilege.
We awake each day with an attitude of gratitude for the right to innovate and serve at Prospects International. Per usual, I’ll end with a quote…
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for” – Zig Ziglar
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
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