Our Thinking

 A good friend of mine once summed up the way a business grows is to get more customers to come back more often to buy more. It’s memorable, and pretty insightful, too. It points to the two sides of growth: customer acquisition and retention. I used to do lots of infomercials, and the most…

 In big letters on the wall of our offices, it states, “The mission of business is to help people.” It is the number one, foundational belief that governs everything I do in business.   That’s part of why I’m so uncomfortable with a lot of traditional sales tactics, the kind of “twist your arm”…

None of us can succeed on our own. We all need other people. On the football field, I needed coaches and teammates who completely bought into what we were doing. We need partners who can make us better.  As I’ve built partnerships over the years, I’ve learned that I only want to work with people…

 Both on the football field and in business, I’ve been fortunate enough to be around some incredible leaders. There was Bud Grant, but also coaches like Vince Lombardi and Don Shula. Outside of football, I got to learn from business geniuses like Sam Walton, Steve Jobs, and Bernie Marcus.  They were all very different,…

 In February 2020, nearly everyone on the Tarkenton team was working in one place. We all came into the office five days a week, from the start of the day to the end. Little did we know that just a few weeks later, that would change – and that shift has continued to this…

 Whenever I’m going about my daily life looking to do business with someone, one of the most important qualities (maybe the most important quality) that I look for is what kind of service they provide. It doesn’t matter whether I’m looking for new shoes, a nice dinner, or the latest gadget: my experience as…

One of my early businesses was in the advertising industry. I came up with the idea after a long flight, and quickly succeeded in finding partners and customers to make it a reality. We would sell ads to print on airplane ticket jackets. The fundamental advertising principle we were following was to show up where…

 I’ve never believed in “selling.” I’ve never been one for all the hard-hitting aggressive sales strategies: the hard sell, arm-twisting that we’re all too familiar with. What do I believe in, then? I believe in relationships built on trust. We’re more likely to do business with people we know, like, and trust. So my…

 After my 18 years in the NFL, I’m no stranger to game plans changing. Every game that I played, we had a specific plan based on our opponent and what we wanted to do each week. But the adjustments weren’t just game to game – once we kicked off, we adjusted things quarter to…

 People often associate me and my football career with scrambling. But what people might not realize is that’s not how I played in high school or college; I developed that style when I arrived in the NFL, and it came from a very specific need. In my rookie season, the inaugural season for the…