A Business Benefactor

It's a term of my own invention

Do you have someone in your life who truly knows you, supports your work, and cares about your success?

Think about it. It’s most likely not someone you actually work with -- your co-worker has their own survival to worry about. Might actually be someone completely out of your work sphere. And the support might look different than what you would expect. And it’s not a mentor, that’s a different thing.

While not a widely used term, the concept of a business benefactor aligns with the notion of collaboration, support, and partnership within the business community. It represents a mutually beneficial relationship where one entity supports another to help them achieve their goals or overcome challenges. Simply, it is someone who is invested in your success.

Here's the story of my Business Benefactor.

Every two months I get a USPS Priority Mail box from my dad. In the box are manilla folders filled with newspaper clippings. You might think this is a little strange -- like who reads the newspaper anymore? But what I get every month is a curated, tailored, personalized synopsis of everything important that’s happened in the last months. Everything that’s important to me, that is. Because my dad knows me, supports me, and cares about my success.

The clippings come from either the Minneapolis Star Tribune or the Wall Street Journal. They come in the following categories: business, music, writing, birdwatching, opinion, and miscellaneous news. My dad knows me well. Every article is something in which I am completely interested.

Let me tell you about my dad and why you couldn’t ask for a better business benefactor. My dad grew up poor just outside of Minneapolis and worked his way through college in the 1960s and even got himself an MBA, which was rare at the time. Around 1968 he bought himself a plane ticket to New York and got himself a job at Clairol. My dad was not one of the Mad Men, but damn close. I would call him a Mad Men V2 . Still New York, but later 1960s. Think longer sideburns, paisley ties, and a wilder vibe.

My dad was a natural marketer and he moved up fast. He helped to create entire new product campaigns. He worked on big new product introductions for  Living Color hair color and the launch of Herbal Essences shampoo.  This was back in the day, when print and TV ruled. It was high stakes, it was in Manhattan, and it was the deal.

In 1974 my dad saw the way things were going and decided to move his young family back to Minnesota. He took a job at Pillsbury, where he was Director of New Products. Compared to Manhattan, the slow-moving bakery company stifled him to the point of despair. So he took a flyer on a startup, a small company called Minnetonka, Inc. The founder had an idea for a new kind of soap, one that came in a pump bottle. My dad created the marketing and intro campaign for Soft Soap, rolling that baby out in 1979 to massive success.

Minnetonka Inc., turned out to be a one trick pony, and my dad had a self-realization moment that he was better off on his own rather than working on a corporate hierarchy. So, trading on his expertise, he created a consultancy to CPG companies that offered analysis on new products. Over the next 20 years he would build this business into a boutique consumer products marketing intelligence company, ultimately selling at 30x multiple. 

He gave me my start business by giving me a job after I came off the road being a full-time musician. My trials were by fire, but it was a gentle fire, and I learned a lot and was able to make a lot of mistakes in a forgiving environment. Certainly, after my dad sold the business and I stayed on I had a bit of a target on my back as the ex-bosses son. But, c'est la vie. Many lessons learned, and it was good for me.

My dad was always the one to teach me by throwing me in the pool. (That’s literally how he taught me to swim.) That’s also how he taught me to write. One day, he just kind of handed me over the assignment to write the synopsis for marketing reports across dozens of categories of consumer package goods. I struggled it first, but, through his critiques, I learned how to write for the audience.

Both he and I love to write. He’s a fantastic writer, and what I know about writing is mainly from him. Which is why the newspaper clippings resonate. From Harvey McKay columns to beautiful opinion pieces to basic reportage, they all adhere to good writing principles. Write in a direct fashion, don’t use big words, do use big ideas, and never talk down to your audience.

That box of clippings I get every month is sometimes supplemented with a Jazz record albums. Another gift my dad gave to me is jazz. He learned to love jazz back in the 50s, and began taking me to shows when I was just eight or nine years old. This is how I was able to see Miles Davis, Ornette, Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Mose Allison, and many many more. Jazz and writing and articles and ideas are all of the same fabric.

The fact of my dad still still sends me articles means he still cares. If you have somebody who cares about you enough to clip newspaper articles, put them in a box, write your address on it, drive to the damn post office, and get those articles to you – – well that means quite a bit. If you have anybody in your life who does anything even similar to that make sure you thank them.

And absorb every piece of wisdom they throw at you.