Welcome to the Close The Deal Podcast!

Closers,

We have one mission: to help you find more leads and close more deals.

Helping professionals, small business owners, and entrepreneurs drive more sales became very personal for me - and here’s why.

I’ve always loved marketing to drive sales, but during my time leading the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, it became something far more meaningful.

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wiped out three of the nation’s largest fishing docks (Louisiana supplies one-third of the seafood in the lower 48 states), six and seven generations of fishing families were suddenly on the ropes.

Our infrastructure was completely destroyed. Our fishermen lost their boats, homes, trucks, gear and in some cases, family members.

It was beyond brutal.

On top of it all, we lost billions in sales.

That’s where I truly learned the power of storytelling - not just to the national media, but to our delegation in Washington, D.C.

It wasn’t about spin; it was about rebuilding trust, restoring livelihoods, and reminding the nation why Louisiana Seafood mattered. Those same lessons in storytelling are what drive this podcast today.

Marketing and storytelling stopped being about promoting a product; they became tools for survival.

Just five years later, when the BP oil spill hit, by the time the well was capped, we had lost 98% of our market globally.

We literally started all over again from the ground up.

In the end, my small but mighty team marketed more than $25 billion in retail seafood sales and secured hundreds of millions in recovery support for the seafood and logging communities.

Those years taught me something much deeper than business. You don’t get through this alone. You do it with people who share your vision, who refuse to quit, and who believe in something bigger than themselves.

Later, I carried those lessons into another tough chapter representing North Carolina’s loggers as Executive Director of the Carolina Loggers Association through COVID. That meant leading two of America’s most dangerous industries per capita: logging and commercial fishing.

I’m proud to have stood beside the men and women who literally risk their lives every day to keep this country supplied, fed, and moving.

This path was anything but easy. There were many long nights, tough calls, heartbreaks, and tears along the way. We all fell more times than we could count. But through it all, I had one constant - my wife Jenny. She’s been my champion every step of the way, and without her, candidly, none of this would have been possible.

So yes, this podcast is about sales, marketing, and closing deals. But it’s also about grit, resilience, and purpose. It’s about finding the courage to reinvent yourself when life knocks you flat.

Today, at 58 as a franchise coach and podcast host, I’m doing just that reinventing once again and inviting you along for the ride.

Through the Close The Deal Podcast, I’ll share conversations with entrepreneurs and sales and marketing pros who know what it takes to overcome, adapt, and help you succeed.

If that speaks to you, I hope you’ll stick around, subscribe, and share your ideas. You never know where this will lead to..

You know the drill...

...make today a great day!