Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Follow Mark Mertel to get new release emails from Audible and Amazon.
I grew up in Western New York State, in a blue-collar family. I attended a small college where I played football and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, then spent two years as a lieutenant in the Army. Upon my discharge, I spent three years with Xerox Corporation as a sales rep, then a sales manager.
I moved to Arizona in 1973 and went to work with Penn Mutual selling group health insurance to small businesses. After one year I left and started my own benefit consulting firm. To date, I’ve started seventeen companies and three charities. These organizations were all assorted sizes, from smaller companies (about ten employees) to some that were national in scope, with over a quarter of a billion dollars in annual revenues. To be candid, a few of those ventures didn’t work so well, and I learned a lot from those experiences, too. The fact that I had a small number of losers is actually to your benefit, because the lessons you’ll learn from me are about both what to do and what not to do.
Here’s a little about one of the winners, Partners Rx (PRx). PRx was an idea I had for a new pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), which is a company that helps reduce the cost of prescription drugs for employers that self-fund their health insurance. Ten years after we launched it, I sold PRx for $100 million! I mention this not to brag, but because I want you to know that the information that you’re about to read in The Entrepreneur’s Gameplan is not theoretical. It’s the real stuff that works and is appropriate for any size and type of business. Presently, I have two active companies, and I’m also on the board of two charities.
On a personal note, as you get to know me, you’ll realize that I don’t sugarcoat my thoughts and how I communicate them. With that in mind, I think we should deal with an important question right up front: “What qualifies me to be your Head Coach, to help me develop your Gameplan?”
My answer is simple. Within these pages, I’ll be coaching you about how to build a successful business using the real-life lessons I’ve learned over my career as an entrepreneur. I hope to be coaching you soon.
Read more
Read less
