Terry Hiebert: We have offered Dale Carnegie Training, sponsored by the chamber and I have conducted workshops for chamber members as well. Some of our best clients are also chamber members.
Dietrich: How did you first get involved in Dale Carnegie?
Terry: I have to take you back 35 years. Back then I was involved in the restaurant business, with Hoffman House, as their real estate guy. I used to be warmly welcomed wherever and whenever opening up a new chain.
That is, until, I hit a wall in Chicago, where I flubbed three straight presentations to this one unimpressed group, who ran us out of town.
Soon after, my boss took me aside, “Son, you ought to take the Dale
Carnegie course.”… “Oh, why?” I shot back. His clincher: “You do want to keep working for me, don’t you?” The initial focus was to become more effective in front of groups. But the training dramatically impacted me beyond public speaking to make me a more sensitive, person-focused manager and leader.
Dietrich: That was 35 years ago, have you been with Dale Carnegie ever since?
Terry: Actually, it started out as an avocation. Still in the restaurant biz, I was teaching Dale Carnegie courses on the side each week. Then, through a series of mergers and acquisitions (Hoffman House got acquired by Green Giant, who was acquired by Pillsbury, who was acquired by a U.K. conglomerate), Terry Siebert was ‘un-acquired’! That was 1989.
Dietrich: After that lay off, what then?
Terry: For the next five years, I ran an ad agency. For two years, along with other partners, I opened up a franchise of ‘D-Lites of America,’ a healthy fast food chain. But the franchisor went belly up—bad news for us franchisees. I lost all my money. That was 1987, just as the Madison office of Dale Carnegie Training was going through transition. That’s when I began selling and after a few months I took it over.
Dietrich: As manager or owner?
Terry: Good question. At first I was paying ‘rent’to the franchisor. In 1996, Kathy (my wife) and I became owners, and the rent payments became more like ‘mortgage’payments. Now we own the business free and clear.
Dietrich: That brings us up to 1996, what then?
Terry: By 1996, we had already grown the service territory beyond Dane County to include 17 surrounding counties, still our size today. Meanwhile, who we serve has changed. When I first got involved in Dale Carnegie, the focus was on personal and professional development of individual managers and leaders. Now it’s almost all corporate clients who pay our bills.
Dietrich: What kind of corporate client is attracted to Dale Carnegie?
Terry: Those who love their people. By their actual behavior, by investing in their employees, they demonstrate this. They invest in training, not just once, and not just with Dale Carnegie, but repeatedly, year after year. The sweet spot for our business are companies with an employee count ranging from 50 to 500.
Dietrich: That’s a wide range, but I get it. Less than 50 and the company is too small to engage Dale Carnegie; beyond 500, they will engage their own training department in house.
Terry: You got it. But something else has changed that you might not be aware of. Back in 1987, about 95 percent of our
business was public courses, but now it’s 50-50, with the public invited to come on their own time; for the other half, we offer on-site classes tailor-made to individual companies.
Dietrich: You are obviously very enthusiastic about what you represent. Why?
Terry: I am passionate, to be sure, but cannot take credit for the success of Dale Carnegie Training. We are committed to change the world, one person at a time, in a positive way, and somehow have that change bring a meaningful and measurable impact on the organization that individual works for. But the results are out of our hands, sometimes even miraculous, as when this one graduate reported back to me she was on the verge of suicide before taking the course.
Dietrich: Wow. What kind of person joins your company as a training Associate?
Terry: Coaches and facilitators. If you are more of a lecturer, this is not the business for you.
Terry: Our philosophy is consistent with that, but our principles are not religious, just common sense. We get paid to put common sense into common practice. People who don’t play well in the sandbox learn to actively listen and sensitively respond.
Dietrich: Dale Carnegie Training has been doing that for how long, now?
Terry: One hundred years. Founded in 1912, the famous Dale Carnegie Course came out with How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936, which is when the company took off worldwide. But after he died in 1955, and his wife took over, for a second time that lid was blown off.
P.S. Terry’s “Leader to Leader” blog is one of the “voices” in the InBusiness magazine, or online at www.ibmadison.com