by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. A lot of people reading this article are unhappy campers. Either you've lost your job and face the uncertain future with nothing more than the few bucks you've got saved and those minuscule unemployment benefits... or... you've got a job you hate working for a boss you hate, feeling like you're trapped, despairing, down, maybe worse. If this is you, then listen up because this story of a guy like you might be the most important thing you've read in a long time.
To put you in the mood for what follows, I want you to go to any search engine and find "Proud Mary". Of course you know it. It's a rock song written by American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John Fogerty and recorded in 1969 by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was immortalized as one of the great attitude songs ever by Tina Turner in 1970. She warned those folks who wanted "nice and easy" that she never, ever did "nice and easy" and that they should expect "nice and rough." She was true to her word and thus you need to listen to Tina and get off your you-know-what and sizzle. It's been too long since you did...
"Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis."
In the mid-1960s, Terry Loebel was an unemployed forklift operator looking for a way to support his family. His former employer American Motors was going through hard times and let him go.
First, in 1965, he picked up his family and moved to Pinellas County, Florida; he was sure things would be better there... but he was wrong. Like Proud Mary herself he took one lousy, dead-end job after another; bug man, even collecting soda bottles for the deposit. Things could hardly have been worse. They just had to get better... but when? How? Where?
One day, when things were bleak indeed, Loebel received a bunch of merchant discount coupons for new residents in the mail. Eureka! He had an "aha!" moment. Why, he reckoned, just send discount coupons to new residents? How about tweaking the idea, sending coupons from local merchants to all area residents?
Start-up funds needed yesterday. Where to get them?
First, Loebel drew up a list of expenses, the bare minimum needed to produce and distribute his first issue. They included
* telephone * designer to create the ad copy and camera-ready art * the specialized printer necessary to print and bag the coupons * the good ol' United States Post Office to deliver them.
He even added the gas necessary for driving to the various merchants, picking up camera-ready art and delivering finished samples. It all added up to a prodigious sum. Now what?
"You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money/ People on the river are happy to give"
About this time, trying to get blood from the stone of his empty bank account, he thought of OPM... Other People's Money. He persuaded merchants to put up the front money required (the USPO never gives credit). He guaranteed to refund their investment if the ads didn't work and they didn't make money. On this basis he got the money he needed and turned his family's living room into discount coupon central. Wife and children were impressed into service, sorting, stuffing, licking... It was a family factory...
At last the first issue was printed and ready to go... Loebel took a deep breath... crossed his fingers... and gave a little prayer. He had staked everything on his idea and made promises he couldn't honor if things went badly. That night he tossed and turned... it was an experience most every entrepreneur has had... a rite of passage.
"Big wheel keep on turnin' "
Thankfully, in the great Hollywood tradition, things did go well... very well. Terry Loebel went to bed broke and anxious... and, as his discount coupons hit and stimulated new business, putting real dollars in the pockets of the merchants who participated, he made money... lots of money. And so his Valpak empire was born based on the proposition that if you help business people make money, they are happy to use your service, and thereby make money for you. The key was making the best possible offers, so that recipients couldn't wait to get the next Valpak with its truly astonishing bargains.
And here Terry Loebel has a message for every marketer: the better the offer, the better the response, the faster and bigger the response. Terry Loebel's Valpak empire and profits grew as he showed merchants what worked and thereby shaped what they put on their coupons. The more he did for his customers, the more he showed them how to make the coupons work to produce the best responses, the more money he made. It was a very neat, very lucrative system. Terry Loebel was never broke again, even for a single day. Quite the reverse. Once he created a system that worked... his job was to keep expanding it, reaping profits which over time became huge.
Enter Cox Enterprises.
As Loebel's lucrative empire grew, more and more people paid attention, of whom the most important were the folks at Sandy Springs-Georgia based Cox Enterprises, a behemoth with 2010 revenues of over $9 billion and a raft of lucrative subsidiaries. In 1986 Terry Loebel, former Orkin pest control distributor, once living low in a two-bedroom cracker box, became Very Rich Indeed, by selling his closely held Valpak to Cox's closely held Cox Enterprises. Terry Loebel never had to work again. Once his really big check from Cox Enterprises cleared, he was off like a shot, fun and the thrill of discovery for himself and his family the objective.
"I never saw the good side of a city/ 'til I hitched a ride on the riverboat queen"
Loeble started off by racing cars in Sebring and across the United States, though after he hit a wall at over 100 MPH in Atlanta in 1962 he moved away from this sport. He studied black and white photography, presenting 32 gems from his valuable collection to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. One was an 1890s tintype of Butch Cassidy, an entrepreneur infinitely less successful than Loebel himself.
One story, however, best characterizes Loebel and his life. One day years ago Loebel and his son were out for their favorite burgers. Coming home they saw a car on fire at the side of the road. Loebel recognized as its driver the cook at the restaurant they had just left. The man was disconsolate; without a car he couldn't get to his job or get home. Hearing the problem, having the means to solve it, he did. Years later, his son found out that his dad had bought the cook a car that afternoon... handing it over as a gift. "That's my dad," son Greg said when he found out.
And that's why baseball-cap and jean-wearing Terry Loebel will be missed. He was a good man, one of nature's gentlemen with a can-do attitude that helped multitudes. It's been my pleasure to salute and praise him.
"Proud Mary keep on burnin'/ Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river."
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com
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