Peak Performance How a master of motivation changed his business . . . and his life

Most people find their pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. DanBrattland found his at the end of a neighbor's driveway-past aferocious, snarling dog.

It was 1979, and Brattland, then 17, was going door-to-door inBloomington, Minnesota, asking neighbors if they would pay him tosealcoat their driveway. "One guy had a long driveway, with adog at the end of it-a big, mean dog," recalls Colin Sievers,Brattland's partner in that long-ago enterprise. "I said,'Dan, let's go to the house next door.' But Dan said,'No.' "

The teenagers made it up the driveway but not before the dog hadsunk its canines into Brattland's leg. It was a painful way tolearn the salesperson's age-old lesson about the value ofgetting your foot in the door. Whether out of pity or genuine need,the dog's owners hired the pair. For payment, Brattland agreedto a barter arrangement, accepting a set of audiotapes by notedmotivational speaker Tom Hopkins.

"I listened to those tapes, which were about how to sellanything, and I knew selling would be my profession,"Brattland says.

Today, Brattland has made his fortune promoting educators,authors and business trainers as speakers. President and founder ofPeak Performers International Inc. (PPI), based in Minneapolis, hiscompany grossed more than $6.5 million last year.

In a competitive field, Brattland has found success by addingvalue to the conventional concept of motivational seminars. Insteadof barnstorming from city to city, offering one-day seminars,Brattland has turned his company into the home team in 11 cities,hosting a series of eight monthly educational gatherings in eachtown. The audience becomes a "club" whosemembers-business owners, middle managers and salesprofessionals-share an interest in self-improvement.

While it's possible to buy a ticket for a single session,the whole series is marketed as a membership for $495. Members getaccess to all eight monthly programs-and, just as important, toeach other. With average monthly attendance in each city between1,000 and 2,000, networking flourishes. And business is booming:The company's 62 full-time employees sold 94 seminar serieslast year.

Birth Of AnEntrepreneur

Now 33, Brattland traces his entrepreneurial roots back to thatfateful set of tapes. He would sit in his truck between sealcoatingjobs, listening to the tapes. Each night, he wrote down what he hadlearned and how to apply it to his own business.

But Brattland wasn't content to just dream; he became ateenage miniconglomerate. In addition to the sealcoating business,he started a valet parking service for local restaurants, thenstarted selling "automotive orphans"-dealers' unsoldinventories or remnants of rental-car fleets.

Eager for entrepreneurial success, he was less than enthusiasticwhen his parents insisted he go to college. He left after a fewyears and returned to his recipe-for-success books and tapes,studying them intensely. He undertook an exercise he had learnedfrom the tapes: interviewing winners to learn their secrets. One ofthe people he spoke with, a man who promoted sales trainingseminars, persuaded Brattland to join his company as a salesperson.He soon veered off in pursuit of better money with a multilevelmarketing company. When that business folded two years later,Brattland was left empty-handed.

After back-to-back setbacks, he looked for a way to turn crisisinto opportunity. Says Brattland, "It brought me back to mytrue love: personal and professional developmentprograms."

Breaking Through

In 1988, Brattland approached Brian Tracy, a prominent salesexpert and professional-development speaker, and made a proposal.If Tracy would appear before audiences and provide financing,Brattland would manage advertising and promotion, send out salesrepresentatives, and handle a thousand and one other details for aseries of seminars throughout North America-details that Tracy hadno experience with.

Tracy agreed, and Brattland recruited two men to help with thesales and promotion chores, making them equal partners in his halfof the enterprise, dubbed Brain Tracy Seminars. In its first year,1988, Brattland's operation netted $50,000. It wasn't much,but it was enough to pay Tracy back his initial investment andmore. In three months, Tracy's $15,000 investment netted him$30,000.

If finding Tracy was Brattland's first big break, his secondoccurred when his road show reached Houston in 1989. There he metKerima Thomas, who introduced Brattland's traveling trio totelemar-keting. Hiring Thomas meant the partners could leave thecold-calling to someone else, freeing them to focus on what theydid best-sales.

Soon Thomas was heading office operations for the firm, which in1989 had been reorganized into a new business, PPI. "The yearbefore Kerima came aboard, we grossed maybe $200,000," saysBrattland. "The year after she came on board, our gross was$437,000."

Thomas continues to oversee PPI's daily operations as vicepresident, while Brattland focuses on long-term planning and sales.Something equally important jelled as well: In 1992, Dan and Kerimawere married.

Despite its growth, however, PPI was still traveling from cityto city, putting on a single show and moving on. The evolution intoits current format of presenting serial programs came about bynecessity: After initially increasing, attendance began todecline.

"We figured the reason was, when people went to one-dayseminars, they could learn and be motivated-but it wasshort-lived," says Brattland. "By offering a series, wegave people more chances to attend more seminars [and make thechanges stick]."

The strategy worked. "In 1992, we introduced the seriesformat," Brattland says. "By 1994, revenues had soared to$6.5 million." By entering two or three new markets annually,he expects revenues to climb to $20 million by 2000.

Until 1990, he had offered only one speaker-Brian Tracy. Salesguru Harvey Mackay, author of the bestselling Swim With theSharks Without Being Eaten Alive (William Morrow & Co.) anda much sought-after speaker, was Brattland's first choice as anadded attraction. But with his resume, Mackay could take his pickof promoters. Why did he agree to go along with a relative upstartlike Brattland?

"Dozens of Dan Brattlands make calls to me, trying to signme up," says Mackay. "The reason I went with this DanBrattland was that in checking with other speakers, I found he hadan impeccable reputation. If there's one chance in 100 that apromoter is not ethical, you're putting your own reputation atrisk. And in life and business, your name is all you've got totrade on."

Sizzling Sales

Having Mackay on board not only diversified the lineup, ithelped PPI fill another need. As the company shifted to the serialformat, big names became as crucial to filling seats as freshnames.

"I needed both 'sizzle' and 'steak,' "Brattland explains. " 'Sizzle' means widelyrecognizable names like Lou Holtz [football coach at the Universityof Notre Dame]. 'Steak' is a Brian Tracy who knows how toinspire salespeople. People might initially come to see Lou Holtz,but by the time [the presentation] is finished, it would be Tracydelivering the meat of the program."

Today, PPI's lineup reads like a "Who's Who"of motivational orators. Sports figures like Rick Pitino, headbasketball coach of the NCAA-champion Kentucky Wildcats, providethe sizzle. As for the steak, it's served up by the likes ofRoger Dawson, an expert on persuasion and negotiation, and saleslegend Tom Hopkins, author of How to Master the Art ofSelling (Warner Books).

As for the future, Brattland is aiming toward another of hisearly dreams: "I'd like to acquire more commercial realestate. Building this company will enable me to pursue thatdream," he says. After all, a man can never chase too manyrainbows. Or find too many pots of gold.

Contact Source

Paul Katzeff is a freelance writer in Boston.