Ken Krogue

Many of you may know that InsideSales.com and George Wythe University partnered to pull off the Glenn Beck at the Capitol black tie fundraising event on May 30th at the Utah State Capitol at $500 per seat.  We had over 400 dignitaries, executives, politicians, philanthropists, and supporters of patriotism, statesmanship, and good books there for an amazing night of great food and awe-inspiring entertainment.  It was all capped off by a video introduction by Mitt Romney and nearly an hour listening to the ever-amazing Glenn Beck.

What you may not know was that Glenn told the story of Rachell Harkey, the 14-year-old girl in the audience, who along with her friend Sara Patterson and a table full of kids under 18, raised their own $500 and more to be at the event.   They went door-to-door and raised pennies-a-page in their read-a-thon just to be there.

In the middle of Glenns story he paused and said he had gotten his wifes permission to donate $25,000 to these girls read-a-thon on behalf of George Wythe University.  Everybody was stunned, then broke into applause that ended in a standing ovation.  He challenged these girls to get reading quickly and said, “Only in America!”

Well I sat back and calculated how many pages they would need to read at 1 penny a page to earn $25,000… that’s 2.5 million pages.  And I smiled to myself and wrote it off.

Little did I know they would get busy that very weekend.  They started recruiting hundreds of kids including my own sons Jacob, Joseph, and Jonny.  Next thing I know they had finished their first read-a-thon by July 29th and read 1.5 million pages!  I was blown away.  The kids decided they wanted to try and raise another $100,000 besides the donation from Glenn Beck for a total of $125,000.

They got some parents and programmers from George Wythe to put together a website, they got the artwork donated from ForthGear.com and in just over a month had a first class webpage going, the only problem was they hadn’t figured how to get the donations to meet their goal.

They are asking for kids to start the 5-5-5 program where they:

• Read 5 books
• Get 5 friends to read
• Get 5 sponsors to pledge at least 5 cents a page

My three boys ganged up on me and my companies.  So Comanity, InsideSales.com and I pledged. 

I want to challenge everyone who went to the Gala and everyone who likes Glenn Beck or wanted to go to the Gala to join me in supporting these girls and my sons and hundreds of these kids in this great cause.  Join me in pledging a little, or a lot.  $10 or $1000.  Let’s help these kids make a contribution to the world of education, literacy, and statesmanship.  It’s a little thing, but it may be the most powerful thing we can do.  The pen may still be mightier than the sword.

Go to http://www.infund.org to help your kids or grandkids become readers, or better yet, sign up yourself first.  Then go to http://www.gw.edu to read more of the story and to see why Glenn Beck believed in this cause strong enough that he pledged to donate $25,000.

I was reminded yesterday of a major turning point in my life.  It was sixteen years ago and I was the Marketing Director at Infobases, Inc.   Paul Allan and Dan Taggart were the two founders and they had recruited me away from my Sales Manager position at Computers Made Easy, the Novell Platinum reseller in the Provo Area.  They went on to start Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com and now Paul Allen has launched FamilyLink.com.

I think they recruited me because I had lots of cool ideas for marketing, even though all of my career and background was in sales.  My hobby, love, and background from the military was strategy and marketing was the purest form of strategic thinking I could find in the business world.

A close friend of mine, Jon Heaps, was the VP Sales and was selling up a storm.  I was over Marketing and Dan Taggart, in his customary direct approach asked me a very pointed question in front of the whole team, “When are you going to start bringing in sales?”

That question brought me up short.  I thought I had been doing lots of things, and I had.  But doing lots of things and bringing results are often two very different things.  I learned something that day:

Results are all that really matter.  It’s about execution.

My course correction to that pointed question has changed my career and many others.  Dan probably doesn’t even remember that little event, but I do.

Chet Holmes in one of my favorite books, “The Ultimate Sales Machine,” says that there are three kinds of executives in the marketplace.  90% of them tactical and get things done.  9% are strategic, and know the right things to do.  1% are both strategic and tactical, and get the right things done.  The 1% accomplish more than all the others combined.

Now I have seen people who are very effective at getting things done, but never take the time to make sure what they are doing will make any appreciable difference at all.  I’ve seen some who are addicted to staying busy, or keeping their people busy.

Troy Fullmer, one of my dear friends and a master at getting things done, taught me the value of ‘hoeing till the end of the row,’ with this great poem about a boy named Bill Brown.

Hoe to the End of the Row!

Bill Brown made a million,
Bill Brown, think of that.
That boy you remember,
As poor as a rat.

He hoed for the neighbors,
Did jobs by the day.
And Bill made a million,
Or near it they say.

He worked for my father,
You’ll maybe recall.
He wasn’t a wonder,
Not that, not at all.

He couldn’t out-hoe me,
Or cover more ground,
Or hoe any faster,
Or beat me around.

In fact, I was better
In one way that I know.
One toot from the kitchen
And home I would go.

But Bill Brown always hoed
To the end of the row.

We used to get hungry
Out there in the corn.
You talk about music,
What equals a horn?

A horn yellin’ dinner,
And tomatoes and beans,
And pork and potatoes,
And gravy and greens.

I ain’t blamin’ no one
For quittin’ on time.
To quit with the whistle,
That ain’t any crime.

But as for the million,
Well, this much I know.
Bill Brown always hoed
To the end of the row.

- Anonymous