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Bernie Bregman joins the first episode of the Growth Mode Conversations Podcast!

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Bernie Bregman Part 1 S1E1 Growth Mode Conversations Podcast

Hey guys. Thanks. So turn it into the growth mode conversations podcast. This is our very first episode and we are so excited to bring you an incredible interview. A man by the name of Bernie Bregman. He’s an absolute legend at 89 years old. He is still doing business and connecting business owners in central New York.

Absolutely incredible, man. We we’d like to get people’s background on this podcast and, uh, That’s going to take two episodes. So spoiler alert, this is going to be a two-part special premiere of this podcast featuring Bernie Bregman. You’re going to love it. Stick around. Part one is coming up right now.

This is Matt with growth mode technologies. This is the growth mode conversations podcast. That’s what we’re calling this thing. And the whole idea here is to a learn about some local people in local businesses and, and help kind of spread the word about what they do. But also get some wisdom and, and share some advice for other local professionals on life or business or whatever.

And when we talk about, you know, sharing advice and experience in business absolutely the first person that comes to mind is, is you Bernie. So. One thing I’m doing here on this podcast, that’s a little different is I’m going to let the guests introduce themselves and position themselves any way they like.

So if you wouldn’t mind, go ahead and give us your name and what you do today, I guess. Okay.

My name is Bernie Bregman.

I run a firm called BBB marketing, but I’ve had many careers over the last 89 years. I’ll be 90 next March. Wow. And I embrace and love networking. I challenge anybody in this town to do more networking than I do. And my motto is everyone is a prospect and I can tell you I went to east orange, high school was editor of the high school newspaper won all kinds of awards there.

I was interested in journalism, came to Syracuse university. In 1950 and came to the, Skytop and I thought, well, that sounds really nice. Turned out to be a bunch of prefabs it’s Syracuse university housing, 40 people, and you had to transport from Skytop down to the university went to Yates, castle Yates castle is where Y Scott and the whole.

At this point and draft the old castle, that was the school of journalism. I was on WWII or the local station for Syracuse university. And I was with the daily orange, the newspaper. I wanted to be a commentator. That was what I desired to do. And spent four years at Syracuse and graduated comb loud.

And after that, I ended up in the service was in Fort bliss, Texas, and I was with a public information office, which meant that I covered generals when they gave out commendations to people. And then I had the opportunity to fly to forest fire. And I think they’re still doing this. They’ll send troops to forest fires to help fight, fight them.

And since I was a reporter with public information office, I was flown in an L 19, which means the Lieutenant was the pilot and I was the one passenger and in a second place. They they flew the photographer. And then I interviewed during the fire, the general that was running the operation and send stories back home.

And while I was there in Fort bliss, El Paso, I also had the opportunity to help people. If it rain there, they had no, no way to. To take care of the rain. There wasn’t much drainage. And so we rescued people by army vehicle from their homes because there was inches of water, which is amazing to me.

When I look back now at any rate, I came back to Syracuse university, worked on my masters in public relations and at the time was hired by the post standard. So as opposed to standard reporter for a while, and then I was tapped on the shoulder and I was with channel five television on court street road, back in the days of Marilee and so, so I’ve had multiple careers and I was fine.

From the TV station and it was 1957, there was a recession. I answered a blind ad, which doesn’t tell you what it’s all about. And it turned out to be fuller brush, which is door to door sales. I became a door to door salesman in the Syracuse university. Area, it turned out. I was good at, it was the number two sales guy.

And that’s that’s when I got into sales, really for the first time I learned if you knocked on seven doors in an hour, and it was generally women that answered the door, you made seven displays. Three people with BI. Wow. And so there’s a law of averages may have what you find is whatever you do. If you do so many things, you’re going to be successful.

Sure, babe Ruth. Yeah, he was the home run king. We also struck out more times than not. So there’s a law of averages with everything. That’s incredible. So after that, Let’s see, after, after after that I got fired at fuller brush after several years I was successful, but it was a graveyard, a fuller brush.

If you didn’t meet whatever their goals were. Eventually I was, I was at good relationships with the people that were secretaries and I was warned in advance. And so when the time came. That I got the word, I was going to be heaved. I was ready and I took half my Salesforce with me. Oh, wow. When I was with fuller brush, I ran 50 weeks, a year ads looking for people and I would hire during the year 50 people.

And I could train somebody to go out and make more money than they’ve ever made before. And after a couple of weeks of rejection. At the door they would quit. Wow. And it’s funny. The the doctor that I have now was one of the people that when he was 18 years old, I was his manager. It was the first time he ever got to actually date somebody.

He met somebody out in the Bellevue territory at any rate. Many years later, I ran into him and he, and he became a doctor. And he remembered me and he said I helped change his life. So I’ve, I’ve had some meaningful exchanges over the years. That’s that’s incredible. So at that point when I leave. It was called the Concord company and in Nottingham Plaza, as a matter of fact, and what they did is similar to fuller brush. They had a line of brushes and brooms and sprays and other things. And what I found was very interesting.

When I went back and trained people and call them the same people I call when I was a fuller brush, they, they greeted me and said, oh we really like you. And that’s the reason we buy your products. So it’s the person fuller brush would tell you it’s because it was fuller brushed. Sure. But at any rate, people buy from people.

Absolutely. That’s part of it and it’s individual. So if you make them. For yourself and people remember you. And that’s, that’s part of my forte, I guess, is that I become an individual that people remember. And from, from from that particular time, somebody approached me, there’s a Jewish organization called

And I was president of the B’nai B’rith chapter and there was somebody else in the, in the group that was a paint chemist. It was a company called Sundar paint here in Syracuse, and he wanted to start his own painting. And so we approached me about being an investor. And what I did is I looked up paint manufacturing, and I decided I wanted to be more than an investor.

I wanted to really be part of it. And so I ended up putting in 10,000 and he put in 10,000, the chemist and the third partner was somebody that was part of the Sears Roebuck thing. And he had no problem putting in his 10th house. So with $30,000, we we bought out Syracuse paint and varnish, which was Khalid hill road and they manufactured paint.

And we ended up having a store in shop city. Fellow named Michael foul Cohn, who ended up he was a real estate agent for Egan real estate. And he’s the one that places there. And so he’s someone, I knew that who later ended up buying shop city and he was the one that started pioneer and the foul cones.

Have been a big institution here in this town. So there I was when I was a kid growing up in east orange, New Jersey my father had a grocery store and I lived in the back of the grocery store and I promised myself I would never be in retail because my father worked seven days a week, six 30 in the morning till nine at night.

And on Sunday. He stopped it at noon. I said, I’ll never do that. And I ended up in the retail business after all. And as a matter of fact we ended up and we had three different stores I actually had four different careers.

It was funny when I went back to my 25th high school reunion and whoever became a doctor was a doctor. If they became a teacher or professor, they were doing that, I was the only one that had different careers.

Is Bernie amazing or what truly an incredible person. And there’s so much more to here. We’re going to hear more on the next part of the podcast. Stay tuned for episode two, with Bernie, and obviously he’s going to be a regular recurring guest. There is so much incredible wisdom and interesting stories and just all around.

Awesome. Coming from this guy, Bernie, we’re going to keep that going. So stick around again, subscribe to the growth mode conversations newsletter at growth mode, tech.com. And if you need any tech help for your business, I’m your guy. Matt Masur drop me a line. The info is on the screen or in the notes.

However, you’re listening to this. Check us out. We’ll see you next week with more Bernie .