Resume… Background… And Business Accomplishments
of
Leonard Friedman

 

I AM A FULLY EXPERIENCED:…

 

Entrepreneur, CEO, COO, Director, President, Executive VP, VP sales, VP marketing, VP franchising, internet marketing expert, marketing director, sales director / manager, telemarketing manager, advertising director, lead generation expert, sales trainer, sales recruiter, sales rep & closer.

 

I have been acknowledged by my peers as... a master business, and marketing, creative visionary... an idea man... an “outside the box” thinker… a business, sales, marketing, and management authority and guru. I am also a business start-up expert, and a business turn-around specialist. I have conceived, created, developed, implemented, and managed, sales, marketing, and management programs that generated sales revenues, in the multi hundreds of millions of dollars each… that caused the competition to “drool with envy”..

 

I have produced hundreds of winning projects for small start-ups to mega Fortune 500 clients in hundreds of separate markets across North America, South America, Europe, Australasia, Asia, and Africa.

 

I BRING TO THE TABLE
40 HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL YEARS OF THE FOLLOWING POWERFUL EXPERIENCE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

 

 

MY EXPERIENCE

My lifelong career has been in 5 constantly upward stages
The 5 stages are shown below … presented to you in reverse order (last to first).

 

STAGE FIVE	MY CAREER TODAY - FULL TIME BUSINESS AND MARKETING CONSULTANT
STAGE FOUR	MY 20 YEARS OF MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE
STAGE THREE	MY CEO, COO & MY MAJOR BUSINESS BUILDING EXPERIENCE
STAGE TWO	MY EARLY SALES MANAGEMENT & VP SALES & MARKETING EXPERIENCE
STAGE ONE	MY START IN THE WORLD AS A SALES REP

 

STAGE FIVE
MY CAREER TODAY
FULL TIME CONSULTING

 

Years ago I retired from the high pressure business world of owning 16 of my own, very large, multi-million dollar direct marketing companies. In those companies I personally developed all of the strategies and programs, and had personally written all of the sales copy and advertising that produced so many millions of dollars for each program.

 

Since I retired from that chaos… I now work in a much more relaxed capacity doing freelance business and marketing consulting, and direct marketing copywriting, for my hundreds of clients all around the globe. I now guide my clients in building their businesses, just as I had done for myself over my lifetime.

 

I love what I do as a freelance consultant and copywriter… I find it so enjoyable.

I get exactly the same thrill in doing it for my clients, as I did when I was doing it for myself.
I am truly a lucky man because I love what I do.
I can’t wait to get out of bed each morning and get started.

 

I work full time every day from my office in my home… functioning as an Internet & offline… business development, sales, and marketing, consultant, and direct sales copywriter. I work with clients of all types and all sizes (from the smallest to the largest… from the brand new start-up to the decades old business… to Fortune 500 companies) … all over the world…

 

helping my clients achieve the same successes that I had achieved for myself in ALL PHASES of:

• Business Development
• Marketing Development
• Sales Development

 

I am considered a top marketing strategist and guru…
producing hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

I am considered a top world-class (on and off line) sales copywriter.

 

 

MY CAREER - STAGE FOUR
MY 20 YEARS OF
MAJOR ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE

 

Fresh from the utterly electrifying experience of building a start-up business and then selling it for millions of dollars… I spent the remainder of my career specializing in repeating that... Over & over again.

 

Over the next 20 years, I started up, and personally built, 16 of my own (each vastly different) start-up marketing businesses from initial concept, and total scratch… all 16 quickly grew to well over a million dollars in annual sales each… and in two cases, grew to well over 100 million dollars in annual sales each… and I sold most of them for 7 figures each.

For about 20 years during the height my business career, my repetitive schedule was…

 

• Start-up & build-up a new business (from total start-up). Running it for no longer than 24 to a maximum of 36 months.
• Then selling that then very valuable business, usually in the 7 figures range.
• Then take off 90 days to relax, travel the world, & recharge my batteries.

 

Then start-up another business and repeat the above process all over again, and again, and again for a total of 16 times during my business career.

 

Two of those businesses had brought in over a hundred million dollars annually. A few of those businesses had over 200 employees (mostly in the sales & marketing areas). Those that I built in my later years were multi-million dollar producing Internet marketing businesses.

 

MY CAREER - STAGE THREE
MY CEO, COO, - MAJOR BUSINESS BUILDING

 

One day the owner of the company that I was VP of sales/marketing for was looking to retire (I was the # 2 man in this multi-million dollar company). He offered me a sweetheart deal to buy the company. I arranged financing and bought him out. My career then skyrocketed to a much higher level once again. I eventually sold that business for well over a million dollars more than I paid for it.

Just some of my accomplishments during this SELF OWNED series of businesses stage of my career were...

• I had already been completely running all of the sales and marketing for that above mentioned company. However when the owner retired and I was then totally free to implement 100% of my ideas, concepts and strategies (the old owner was very set in his ways, and had been resistant to new concepts and strategies), I quickly increased sales 250% (for an already mature company). Part of the retired owners buy-out payments were based on future generated sales. Because of my mammoth increase in sales, he actually made more money from the company while relaxing in the Florida sun during his retirement years than he had earned while actually running the company day to day. Talk about a win/win situation.
• Several of the companies that I developed and ran in this stage of my career grew to grossing well over $100 million dollars in annual sales revenues. They achieved this because of my core sales, marketing, management, motivational, and visionary talents. During this stage in my career I also discovered that I am a "BUSINESS VISIONARY", an "IDEA MAN", a great CONCEPT CREATOR and DEVELOPER. I am also "a DETAIL MAN" and not overlook the smallest detail when developing a program. I constantly use project management software to keep an ongoing eye on, and constantly measure, every microscopic detail of the companies operation and growth. I conceive, and push, the big picture but I also am in total awareness of all the microscopic details.
• During this period I honed, my entrepreneurial and business talents. I opened multi branch facilities in many areas of the nation, plus conceived, set up, supervised, and operated several extremely large, multi location, warehouses in cities across the US and Canada. I also conceived, developed, set up, and supervised (100% company owned) manufacturing plants… all to support the ongoing sales drive and then support our new customer, dealer, distributor, and/or franchisee.

 

MY CAREER - STAGE TWO
MY EARLY SALES MANAGEMENT
AND MY VP OF SALES & MARKETING EXPERIENCE

 

After functioning as a "Take Over Closer" in the later part of the first stage of my career, I was then hired as SALES MANAGER for a fully established, well matured, 14 person sales force.

 

THAT'S WHEN I DISCOVERED MY TRUE CALLING… As good as I was at making the sales myself, or closing them for others, (recognized as one of the best in the industry nationwide) I found that I WAS EVEN BETTER AT conceiving, designing, implementing, and supervising, sales and marketing programs, recruiting and training OTHERS, and motivating, mentoring, and leading them to achieve their absolute best, and maximizing sales volumes (and therefore profits) for the company.

 

I increased the sales of that sales force 1,000% (Yes, you read that correctly. Not 100%, which would only be double I actually increased the sales volume ten fold, 1,000%, in a very short 9 months.

 

I was then sales manager, then marketing director,
and eventually vice president of sales and/or marketing
for several companies over that next decade.

 

Only a small few of my accomplishments during that “stage two” career period were...

• During my 35 year career of thinking outside the box, and conceiving, developing, and leading very high power, high volume, sales operations I have personally recruited, hired, trained, supervised, led, and mentored, over 1,000 sales reps (face to face, one on one).
• I have successfully developed some of the top professional, highest producing, thus highest earning (for themselves and for the company), sales reps nationwide.
• I have personally authored ALL sales: collateral materials, literature, brochures, sales presentations and telemarketing scripts, sales and corporate training materials, and franchising materials, etc. used by all these companies.
• I have recruited, interviewed, hired, set up, trained, and run, sales forces from absolute scratch some of them numbering over 200 sales reps. Some of them acknowledged as the sharpest, most productive sales forces in their industry.
• I have also conceived, and then developed and trained, sales forces, and sales programs, that exhibited at, and developed large quantities of customers at, several different trade shows each and every week for most weeks of the year (averaging exhibiting at 175 trade shows annually). I found that most sales reps exhibiting at trade shows understand that they want to end up with sales. But most don't really know how, nor have a bullet proof step-by-step system, or specific goals in place, to constantly accomplish that high production for themselves. I wrote a powerful, no nonsense, highly productive, step-by-step manual (as part of an intensive sales training program) on how to achieve the maximum sales production from exhibiting at trade shows. A virtual "road map" of setting goals for each single step, and what to be doing, hour by hour, minute by minute, during the time that entire trade show is open, and what to be doing after it is over, to achieve maximum dollar production. Most of it was counter intuitive. This training program propelled us to obtain the most sales leads, to become the highest productive, and most respected, exhibitors at these trade shows. Ex sales reps eventually gave the manual to our competition, and it soon became the standard sales program followed by successful companies exhibiting at trade shows across the nation, and around the world.
• I set up a program of funneling prospects that were attending trade shows into a series of well produced sales SEMINARS during the next few afternoons and evenings after they attended the trade show, while our sales team was still in the city where the trade show was being held. The closing ratio of these seminar attendees (who we now had all to ourselves away from the influence of the other trade show exhibitors) invited to our seminars, was rather impressive.
• I conceived and set up a program of quickly capturing the names and contact information of all attendees to each of the trade shows we exhibited at. Then quickly “whisking” off the leads, each evening, to our home office (sometimes thousands of miles away) where that same evening they were quickly placed into the hands of a very large battery of waiting telephone sales reps. These very sharp, well qualified, extremely well trained, telephone sales reps worked the leads, one by one… usually the same evening that the prospect had attended the trade show… occasionally spending an hour at a time on the phone with each attendee, providing information, answering all questions and concerns, and motivation for the prospect to attend one of our sales (closing) seminars the next day, or two, in a nearby hotel ballroom, and finalize. While this fresh, refreshed, high power, sales force was hard at work “working these leads” in the evenings after the shows while the other exhausted trade show exhibitors were in their hotel rooms after each shows evening closings, resting, soaking their tired feet, or out on the town partying… while they rested or played we were signing up their potential customers in wholesale quantities… without their catching on how we were doing it. They assumed that it was the few reps that we had attending the trade show itself, back in their hotel rooms making a few phone calls after dinner… never dreaming that it was a fresh force of 30 high power sales reps back at our home office.
• I have conceived, and then developed, marketed, and supervised, sales operations that produced our own very large audience, LIVE SEMINARS, simultaneously in each of 4 different cities around the nation each and every week of the year (averaging 150 of these self produced seminars annually). The 4 individual seminars we produced each week kept moving from city to city, for the following weeks scheduled seminars, as they constantly kept traveling the country hitting ALL the top markets in the U.S. and Canada once every year. These independent seminars were in addition to the seminars I produced for the attendees of each trade show. Our seminar seats were filled by a mix of: internet marketing, email marketing, direct mail, print advertising, TV, radio, & joint ventures.
• I have personally been the podium speaker (sales presenter & motivator) in hundreds of these, multi hundred prospect attendee, sales seminars. I have trained, all of our other podium speakers.
• I have conceived, and then developed, trained, and supervised, several highly trained, high quality 70 sales rep inbound telephone sales rooms (receiving thousands of company produced inbound leads weekly, that were directly responding to the phone numbers in our advertising). Most of these prospects received a complete qualification, and live sales presentation, right then, the same instant they first called responding to our advertising (with this system, we already had them firmly in our “closing funnel” while some of our competitors took ages to even respond to them by a bland email). Some of these telephone sales rooms produced over one million dollars in sales weekly. I have personally written all sales scripts, and trained every sales rep in each of those telemarketing rooms. I conceived, developed, and constantly sharpened, every step of the sales process.
• I have developed, trained, and supervised several live direct sales forces. These sales forces received pre-set appointments (produced by our in house lead generation that I was also in charge of). With these home office developed leads… the sales reps then went right into well qualified preset B2B & B2C appointments to make presentations and close the sales. The closing ratio was exceptional. I wrote every step of the sales presentation, and the supporting sales materials, and displays, used by these sales reps.
• I conceived, set up, developed, personally trained and supervised our own in house advertising agencies that successfully provided us with THOUSANDS of fresh sales leads each week (nothing like tidal waves of millions of new sales dollars to self finance a company’s start-up, or rapid expansion). These in house advertising agencies were under my direct leadership, supervision, training, and control. In addition to all other advertising media, I also identified the 700 most productive, highest direct lead generating, and highest lead quality producing, newspapers across the nation. We then broke those 700 targeted newspapers into 4 groups and our in house ad agency rotated constantly placing advertisements through the 4 groups, at the rate of 175 newspapers from the group each week of the month. This system had our advertising appearing continually in each of the selected highest producing 700 newspapers across the entire nation, at least once every month. I wrote all Ad copy for these newspaper insertions, and constantly measured, evaluated, and tweaked the results. I set up a system to monitor the flow and success of each and every lead, constantly measuring, and improving, the cost of each lead, cost of each qualified prospect, and advertising contribution cost to each sale.
• When I then decided to use massive amounts of direct mail as one more major part of the total, multi source, lead generation process I specifically sought out, paid as much as $15,000 each to the nation’s top acknowledged masters of direct response, direct mail, strategy, copyrighting, lead generation, and marketing. I paid them to individually train me, and mentor me "one on one" in that highly productive art.
  
  

  After that direct mail training, from that point on… I then personally authored all of the direct mail letters, and literature packages, that we mailed by the hundreds of thousands each month to provide sales leads for: some of our telephone sales rooms, for our direct sales forces, and to directly bring hundreds upon hundreds of weekly live prospects into each of our live field seminars held in hotel ballrooms across the nation. I have set up, personally directed, personally chose the direct mail list and list sources, did all the continual testing, and supervised, and constantly evaluated and "tweaked" these ongoing direct mail campaigns. I am NEVER satisfied with results no matter how good they are. They can always be improved upon. I function in a perpetual state of measurement and improvement.

• I have developed and run very effective multimedia… internet, magazine, newspaper, direct mail, TV, and radio lead generating campaigns.
• As lead generation and marketing technology changed and matured over the years during my career, so did my skills. I studied, and participated, in great depth, and became an acknowledged authority in internet lead generation, and internet sales and marketing techniques…which includes some of the highest producing internet marketing strategies. I have personally built entire multimillion dollar sales campaigns exclusively using internet generated leads obtained from several different internet concepts. Some of my internet campaigns have set multimillion dollar sales records.
• I identified several appealing foreign sales markets. I developed, and supervised, specialized sales teams, and sales campaigns, that, physically operated in, and became successful in those foreign markets.
• I have set up large programs of opening traditional “live” sales territories, in lots of distant marketing areas, for direct business to business and for direct to the home sales reps. These new territories were “kicked off” by hiring reps in each of the many distant markets, training them in the home office, then sending them back to their distant territories. An outbound telemarketing room had been set in place in the home office. Specific telemarketers were assigned to each distant marketing area, and were provided with the remote marketing areas local call lists. They set up and confirmed a minimum of 2 to 4 well-qualified sales appointments each day for each direct sales rep. This system, because it saved the rep from spending the typical 60% of his/her day prospecting and not selling, increased sales reps morale, increased their sales production, greatly reduced sales rep turnover… and increased the company’s total sales production radically.

MY CAREER – STAGE ONE
MY VERY EARLY YEARS
STARTING AS A SALES REP

 

I started out over 45 years ago as simply a sales rep.

 

My very early sales positions, where I really learned how to sell, were in hard sell, “one call close” products (I enjoyed them, and I was very good at them).

As soon as I figured out "which end was up" I quickly became THE TOP SALES PRODUCER in several consecutive companies.

 

As a next upward step, I then became a TO (Take Over) sales Closer for the rest of the company’s sales force. Closing the sales of the prospects that needed more of an intelligent, creative, mental, & motivational "push" than the sales rep working them could muster. Turning a prospects negativism, indecision, and/or procrastination into a solid "YES", without them feeling sales pressure (a velvet hammer), became a specialty of mine.

 

My closing ratio of prospects that were given to me because other sales reps had not been able to close them was extremely high.