The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Winning "The Apprentice" / "The Mega-Brands That Built America"
Thu, 13 Jun 2024
Entrepreneur, television personality, author and speaker Bill Rancic talks about becoming an entrepreneur at age 10, the 3 biggest lessons he learned from competing on (and winning) The Apprentice, and "The Mega-Brands That Built America”, airing on The History Channel.Hear Bill's full interview in Episode 460 of The Action Catalyst.
I want to talk about your first entrepreneurial venture. I mean, the very first. When did you catch the button? Well, the first business I had was with my grandma and I was 10. I was at my grandma's for the weekend. My mom and dad were heading out of town. And I woke up one morning and my grandma was in the kitchen making breakfast. And I was probably like a lot of entrepreneurs out there.
I would always ask a million questions. What goes here? Why are you doing that? How does that work? And my grandmother decided she was going to take me in the kitchen and she was going to teach me how to cook. So I spent all day making pancakes with her in the kitchen.
And then the next day I woke up and I raced into the kitchen and I picked up the phone and I called all the old ladies who lived on my grandmother's block and I invited them all to come over for a pancake breakfast. And they loved it. And then when they left, they all left $5 bills underneath their plate. And I said, oh my, I'm onto something here.
So then for the next five weeks, I went to my grandmother's every weekend and I kind of had this big shift restaurant and Then my mom caught wind of what was going on and she shut the operation down. She claimed I was taking her social security money. So that business ended immediately. That was my first start, to be honest with you.
And then from there, I started buying and selling used cars when I was 14. There was an old publication. This was way before the internet called the trade and times. And I was using that to buy news cars and then resell them. And then I had the boat washing wax business in college.
And then when I was right out of college, I took a job briefly for about eight months and I realized that I couldn't work for anyone else. And then I started an online cigar subscription company. that we sent cigars to your home every month. We had over 10,000 monthly subscribers getting these boxes sent to their home every single month. It took off.
I started it in a 400 square foot studio apartment and then it quickly grew and grew and it was something.
You were the winner of season one of The Apprentice, which maybe people don't remember was an absolute phenomenon when it was on the air. What was it like to suddenly be in the public eye and what are some of the habits and practices that set you apart from your peers and competitors and ultimately helped you win?
Yeah, it was huge. It's funny that I won the first season of The Apprentice 20 years ago last month. So it's kind of ironic. And it changed my life. There's no question about it. We had 25 million viewers every week watching. Today, if a hit show gets 3 million, it's considered a complete success. So that was the golden age of TV in our generation. but it was remarkable.
You know, it was just that as if someone slipped the switch and I was introduced to the world and I was insane, but I learned a lot of lessons because we had, you know, really good competitors. We had, you know, there was 16 of us, great entrepreneurs, great business people, you know, Harvard and Yale and all these amazing, you know, business schools.
And I think there were three things I learned that I implement every day. And one is you have to be agile. You have to be willing to adjust and adapt and react to what's happening around you. And we saw it during COVID. Those who were able to adjust and react stayed around. Those who didn't became extinct. And that is my belief with or without a pandemic.
I think, secondly, we have to learn to think like a conductor. You have to check your ego at the door. You've got to think how a conductor of an orchestra is. And that's hiring the best people. Don't try to play every instrument yourself. So a lot of people, they think they know everything. And I don't believe that. I think you've got to get the best people you can around you.
And I think you have to stop making excuses. I think one of the reasons people fail is because they point to their left and they point to the right and they blame everyone and everything around them. If you look at the people who are in that rare air, they point the finger at themselves because at the end of their career, there's no one else to blame but themselves.
Well, continuing that long television career, you're now featured on the mega brands that built America airing on the History Channel, which is really entertaining. Look into the early innovations in some of the biggest businesses of our time. Do you have a favorite episode or one that surprised you the most?
Well, I'll tell you, I love the History Channel. I've always been a fan of the History Channel. In the early days, I used to binge watch modern marvels and all their amazing programming. And when this opportunity came along, I knew I wanted to do it. It took me all about 10 seconds to say, where do I need to be? There's so many great episodes this season. The evolution of credit cards.
There was a gentleman who was out to dinner and back in the early days, you had to pay cash or you wrote a check. And this guy was out to dinner with clients. He forgot his checkbook. He didn't have enough cash on him. He was horribly embarrassed. He had to go to the men's room and call his wife and she had to bring him a checkbook.
And he left and he said, I'm never going to let that happen again. And through that embarrassing moment, he created Diners Club Card. Wow. And now it's a $6 trillion industry, the credit card business. So I love how innovation really comes from necessity. Nike's another great one. I'm a huge fan of Nike. But the co-founder of Nike, along with Phil Knight, was in this kitchen one day.
His wife was making waffles. And that was how he came up with the sole of the Nike shoe, from a waffle iron. He made the first shoe on a waffle iron. So it's really educational. I watch it with my 11-year-old son. He loves it. He would watch it even if I wasn't on the show. It's a great way to give people the vitamin without them knowing they're taking the vitamins.