Band of Brothers – Part 2

January 1-13, 1945

Finally on January 5^th Easy was pulled back to the regimental reserve south of Foy but by the 9^th participated in a scheduled attack of the village at Foy.  It would be a simple, yet brutal operation because they would have to charge across an open, snow covered field approx 200 meters long.  Regiment put ‘I’ company (25 men) on the right into the attack.  But success or failure rested with Easy Company. 

Lieutenant Dike led the operation and half-way to the village on the charge he froze; signaling for the 2^nd and 3^rd platoons to join them behind two haystacks.  Captain Winters later remarked “Suddenly the line stopped about 75 yards from the edge of the village…the company was a bunch of sitting ducks out there in the snow.  They started taking needless casualties because of his inaction.”  Capt Winters tried to reach him on the radio and in his frustration grabbed an M-1 to lead the attack.  Running down Capt Winters realized that he was leading the whole battalion and it wasn’t a good idea for him to commit himself.  Racing back to the line he saw Lt Speirs, told him to “take over that company, relieve Dike and take that attack on in.”  Without hesitation Speirs took off running.  When he reached Dike he blurted out, “I’m taking over,” and the extremely capable NCO’s filled him in.  Speirs, gave some orders then took off, not looking back but depended on the men to follow….which they did.  The company started the surge into Foy again with men firing a full range of weapons from M-1’s, tommy guns, bazookas, mortars, grenades etc.  But the Germans were still inflicting many casualties until they were able to take out some of their key snipers.  Strong as the opposition was, Speirs just kept advancing, and the company kept firing.  The Germans still thinking that their escape route to Noville was open soon realized they didn’t have many options as their ‘Tiger tanks’ took off.  Soon all that was left was some 100 Germans who were mostly wounded and they surrendered.  Easy Company had won the test of will.  It had taken Foy.

Part of me wanted to label this post “The Importance of Execution – NOW!”  As you can see in the video clip below when you hesitate in battle, people die.  I love watching the courage of Lt Speirs as he races on into battle.  At the end, Sgt Lipton is commenting on how it was so impressive that he ran right into the German line to find ‘I’ Company on the other side, conferred with their commander and ran back.  Wheeww!  I’m getting all fired up just writing this!  You know business is all about courage and execution.  Sometimes you have to make quick decision and not look back.  I’m going to end this with a couple of quotes that I like.  “Action is the real measure of intelligence” – Napoleon Hill and “Procrastination is a thief, waiting in disguise to rob you of your hopes and dreams” – Jack Canfield 

Make it count!

Take care,

Tim Schmidt

Endurance – Bastogne Part 1

Band of Brothers, December 19-31, 1944

One of my all time favorites!  If you are not familiar with the story of Easy Company, 506^th Regiment, 101^st Airborne you need to read the book ‘Band of Brothers’ by Stephen Ambrose.  The DVD mini series is AWESOME but like so many things…reading about it is even more amazing.  I will say, because it takes place during WWII, and because Easy Company traveled all over Europe, that watching the DVD first helped me to visualize where Easy Company was more easily when I then read the book.  PLEASE understand that my very short synopsis of Bastogne will hardly do the men, book and series justice.  But this part of history, of real American heros, deserves to be re-told again and again!

So who is Easy Company?  Their accolades include parachuting into France early D-Day morning, fighting throughout Europe, and also the capture of Hitler’s Eagle Nest at Berchtesgaden.  A tremendous company could only be led by a tremendous leader and his name was Capt Richard Winters.

Dec 17^th Eisenhower declared that the crossroads city of Bastogne as the place that had to be held no matter what.  So they decided to use the 101^st paratroopers to plug the holes in his lines and hold Bastogne.  Easy company, who had just arrived at Mourmelon for some recovery time was ordered to go along with 11,000 other men.  The men of Easy had recently come from fighting in Holland and had not received a winter issue of clothes.  Their boots were not lined or weatherproof and no long underwear or wool socks were available. 

Dec 19^th Easy went into the line south of Foy as one part of the ring defense.  They suffered through the worst of conditions, temperatures below zero, twelve inches of snow; trying to sleep in foxholes at night they said that ‘shivering became as normal as breathing.’  Food rations were low.  Capt Winters remembers his Christmas Dinner that year was 5 white beans in a cup of broth.  Because they were surrounded by Germans, warming fires were out of the question.  Runners who went into Bastogne would bring back flour sacks for the men to pile on top of each other and use as blankets.  The Germans persisted trying to get through so shelling into the pines was a common occurrence. 

(A clip from the HBO series, man, if this doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up then I don’t know what will!  What an excellent portrayal of courage despite horrible conditions!)

By January 3^rd, 1945 Easy had spent twenty-three days on the front line in Normandy, seventy-eight in Holland, fifteen in Belgium, for a total of 116.  Statistically, the whole company was in danger of breaking down at any time.  According to Army psychiatrists, they reported that a man reached his peak of effectiveness in the first 90 days of combat, after that his efficiency began to fall off and he steadily became less valuable.

Wow!  Talk about Endurance!  It just amazes me what those men went through and I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have served in the military helping to protect the freedoms we all enjoy. 

I know we are all going through a battle in one way or another and I pray you have the endurance to keep fighting through.

Take care,

Tim Schmidt

This post is from a recent forum thread on the “private” form over at www.USConcealedCarry.com. Two of my fellow USCCA members had a beef with my latest entrepreneurial venture. I’ve decided to post my response to them. Why am I doing this? Well, it took me over an HOUR to write and turned out pretty good! There’s a bunch of pretty interesting info here… Well, I hope you like it!

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LONG Response from Tim

Okay, here we go.

The kids are done with their homework and the two younger ones are in bed. I’ve got a fresh cup of McDonalds coffee next to me (my kids made me give up Starbucks and beer for Lent… YES, Starbucks AND beer!) so now I’m ready to type.

WARNING: … this may be a bit of a long post.

First of all, I’d like to address my detractors. Charles (ccrizer) and Kyle (kgtgv4), I personally apologize to the both of you. I am sorry that you feel duped, scammed or whatever. I know this may sound like a broken record, but if you ever want you money back… just say the word. I promise, there will be no hard feelings.

See here’ a little MORE background about Tim Schmidt. Sure, you may know SOME of my story. You probably know the part about why, how and when I started USCCA and CCM. But trust me, there are a VERY few people who know the whole blood and guts story.

About 2.5 years after I published that first issue of CCM, I was in a LOT of financial trouble. And the only reason I was in that trouble was because I refused to give up my “dream magazine”. So to whoever questioned my commitment to this business or the cause in general, I’d like to think I stuck this thing out LONG after most would quit.

So how bad was it? Well, as many of you know, I started an engineering business (Schmidt Engineering - nice name, huh?) back in 1997. It was a fine business… I wasn’t much of a leader at the time, so the business didn’t grow much. But it WAS profitable. Well, my little dream magazine was about to DESTROY my engineering business.

I had a line of credit at my local bank for Schmidt Engineering. It was a “demand” line of credit for $100,000. That just meant that I could borrow up to $100k whenever I wanted, but the bank could call anytime and say… give us back our money! Well NOBODY would loan me any money to start a magazine about carrying concealed guns so I just borrowed the money from the line of credit for my engineering business!  (If my banker is reading this post… well, sorry for not telling you!)

It didn’t take too long to peg that $100k line of credit. (Starting a small, niche magazine is REALLY expensive!) So there I was, 2.5 years and close to $200,000 ($100k of mine and $100k of the banks) invested in a business that was truly my LIFE PASSION… and it was kicking my butt. I’ll never forget that night on our front porch. It was 11:30 pm. Tonnie (my wife) and the kids were all in bed. I was sitting there looking at our gravel driveway that we couldn’t afford to pave cause I kept spending our money on postage, advertising & printing bills. I prayed. I thought. I got mad.

Well, within the next couple of weeks, 2 things happened that truly changed my life. (It may not seem like it in the beginning… but BOTH of these things have a direct impact on YOU and USCCA, so I hope you’ll stay with me here!)

Here’s the first thing. I happened across a website on the internet that was JUST like the one that Charles and Kyle don’t like (My “Tribal Marketing” website - BTW, this site just went live today). So I’m on this website and I’m reading about some DVD course that claims to teach you all about marketing on the internet. The course cost close to $2,000 and the guy who was selling it was named Yanik Silver. I had never heard of this guy and I didn’t know much at all about marketing or internet marketing. My first impression was that the website was cheesy… it seemed like an infomercial… the graphics were terrible and the sales pitch was relentless!

But guess what… the website was convincing. The website was VERY persuasive. And you know what? I bought that $2,000 DVD internet marketing course with money I didn’t have. I was desperate. And then I went back to work trying to keep BOTH my engineering and magazine businesses from going under.

Well, a week later this “magic” internet marketing course showed up. The production quality was poor, the packaging wasn’t all that great either. My initial feeling was that I was getting scammed. But I persevered. I decided to give this info a fair shake. So I proceeded to lock myself in my office for the next 7 hours. I literally devoured this stuff. In hindsight, this Yanik guy just basically outlined  every basic principle of direct response marketing. I mean these principles have been around for decades (if not centuries!). But it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. Little did I know, but what I had just done would be the catalyst that would SAVE Concealed Carry Magazine from certain death.

— Wow, this IS getting really long. I’ll try to wrap it up! —

So I proceeded to completely revamp EVERY marketing aspect of CCM. This was when I did the second thing that I mentioned above. This was when I decided to create the USCCA. Sure, the USCCA logo had been on the cover of the magazine from day one… but it was mostly just a figment of my imagination. There was no member interaction, member communication or cohesiveness. In the beginning, it was just a logo!

I’d like to tell you that things changed overnight. But they didn’t. Nope. It took awhile to dig out of the hole that I had dug! But I got out. WE got out. And ever since that day in my office with that $2,000 stack of DVDs that looked like they had been produced by a bunch of 7th graders… I have NEVER stopped investing in my direct response marketing education. You see, without the marketing, the USCCA and CCM would NOT exist.

Marketing isn’t BAD. It is simply a tool. It is a powerful tool that can be used for GOOD or BAD. (huh, kinda like a gun!) Sure, there are a TON of people who learn how to persuade and then use it for bad. These people are all flashes in the pan. Heck, I’ve met a bunch of them. They’re always up to something new… trying to escape the last batch of customers they pissed off. But there are also a LOT of brilliant marketers who build long-term businesses that are built on giving their customers a LOT more value than they’ve paid for.

So where does that get us so far? Oh yeah, the blood and guts story of Tim Schmidt, CCM and USCCA.

So last October a good friend of mine asked me if I’d give a short talk at his “Membership Website” seminar. As a favor to a friend, I agreed to help him out. (Trust me, speaking in front of a big crowd does NOT come easy for an engineer!) My presentation went well. Mostly because I over prepared. My high school football coach would always yell at me, “Schmidt, I told you that Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance!” But, something happened AFTER the presentation that I simply wasn’t expecting….

I was literally mobbed by people who wanted to talk to me. Some of them told me that I had inspired them, some wanted advice, some wanted to just talk about their ideas. Let me tell you, the feeling of being able to have such a positive impact on so many people was intoxicating. It was then that I decided to start yet ANOTHER business where I would help people to do what I’ve done.

For example, right now I’m working with a couple who is starting an association for couples that struggle with infertility. This couple went through 7 years of hell and they want to share their story. I just got done helping a woman set up The Association of Work at Home Women. I’m also helping a friend help set up the Video Marketing Association. Heck, there are a bunch of others…  And since a few thousand USCCA members are business owners themselves, I thought I’d share my new venture with them. I am not embarrassed or ashamed in the least. I am proud and stand behind everything I do. Heck, there just MAY be some of YOU I could help out. Guys, the association business model is a FANTASTIC model. It literally SAVED this business. And it’s NOT fake. You simply can’t fake this stuff. People have VERY sensitive “B.S.-Meters” when it comes to associations. If you’re not genuine about what you’re doing, people will smell it a MILE away! But I digress…

Here’s the bottom line guys.

I risked everything I have to make CCM and the USCCA work. Furthermore, some of my closest friends and confidants are fellow USCCA members. I am VERY proud of CCM, USCCA and every single one of its members. Being in my position, I don’t have the luxury of losing my temper and yelling at people who call me a scam artist and/or dishonest. So a big THANK YOU to those of you who defended me on this thread. But as you can tell by the length and depth of this post, my skin is still very thin… and I still take EVERY single negative post, email and comment personally. (I really have to work on this!)

So I will end with this. Thanks to each and every one of you. Thank you for being man (and woman) enough to carry a gun. Thank you for giving me the chance to make you a happy customer.  And finally, thank you for reading this note.

Sincerely,

Tim

P.S. - Here’s the website of my new business that touched off this response! www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org