Braun Ink Announces the Release of SALES FIRST! Growing Our Company the Old-Fashioned Way, the ColorMatrix Story

October 14, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Laura Sheridan
EMAIL: laura@vivalabrand.com

Cleveland, OH – October 19, 2020 – Braun Ink has released the second book in its Braun Collection of executive biographies and memoirs. Written for business students, business professionals, and business enthusiasts, SALES FIRST! Growing Our Company the Old-Fashioned Way, the ColorMatrix Story is a True Business Adventure Tale by entrepreneurs John Haugh and Michael Shaugnessy. Haugh and Shaugnessy tell the story of innovating in the 1980s in the now-$1.75 trillion-dollar, global plastics industry through offering a new way to add color to plastics.

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Financing business growth the old-fashioned way — by selling like crazy rather than raising venture and bank capital — is the primary message of the book. Driving their beat-up cars around the 1980s and 1990s Rust Belt area, Haugh and Shaugnessy made cold calls as they grew their business to $100 million in revenues, recapitalized it, and participated in its eventual sale for $400 million. They referred to their simple business plan as “SALES FIRST!”

Commenting on their story, John Haugh said, “Too many businesspeople chase venture capital financing when a better way to finance growth is through going out and selling, selling, selling.” Haugh and Shaughnessy said they wanted to offer that message through an engaging, short book. “That’s where the Braun Collection came in,” Mike Shaughnessy added.

The Braun Collection is a suite of immersive and experiential executive memoirs and biographies covering business leadership, strategy, finance, fundraising, and entrepreneurship. Its books, comic books, and conversation cards go deep fast to uncover the real business issues and opportunities executives face as they grow their companies. Longtime business biographer Braun Ink launched its Braun Collection in 2019 to fill a gap in the topics, businesses, and formats found in traditional business stories and classrooms and to offer content that drives intense discussion, reflection, and communication among students and business people.

Co-founder and president, Becca Braun, said “SALES FIRST! was a meaningful project for us because John and Mike tell an adventurous tale about polymers, sales, innovation, employee motivation, and the Rust Belt. These are under explored topics featured in business cases and stories.

SALES FIRST!: Growing Our Company the Old-Fashioned Way is available at Amazon and on the Braun Collection website. For educators who want to add a book to their syllabus in undergraduate and graduate business courses, Braun Collection also offers teaching notes, short-videos, presentations, reference sheets, and live video classroom visits by the authors. “The great thing about Braun Collection books is that the authors are available and eager to share their story through live video with students,” said Braun. “The combination of a short, action packed book, teaching note for infusing lessons, and live video visit is a great way to get students more engaged in understanding the personal values business leaders hold and the decisions innovators make.”

About the Braun Collection

Developed for a mass audience of business students, professionals, and business enthusiasts, the Braun Collection offers True Business Adventure Tales and executive biographies. Immersive and experiential, the stories are available as books with short, intense chapters, comic books that are visually engaging and BizBios ®, conversation starter cards.

For educators, Braun Collection products represent a contemporary alternative to the single-issue business case study. Braun Collection makes it easy and fun to add products to syllabi through providing teaching notes, presentations, short videos, reference sheets; and live video visits by the author-executives. The topics the Braun Collection covers include leadership, strategy, entrepreneurship, finance, and fundraising. Students gain competencies in deep discussion, fact finding, personal reflection, and development and articulation of arguments. These skills are in high demand in the business marketplace. Check out business leaders’ stories and biographies at BraunInk.com.

Using Comic Books in the Classroom

When using a comic book, business educators have the opportunity to develop these business competencies in students. Such competencies are in high demand in the business workplace.

Ask students to:

  • SUMMARIZE and SYNTHESIZE the actions, images, people, and topics.
  • DEVELOP ARGUMENTS about and CRITICALLY APPRAISE key actions and decisions made by executives.
  • OFFER SUPPORT for their arguments using text and facts.
  • REFLECT ON how the comic book characters’ views and actions compare and contrast to their own.
  • SHOW CURIOSITY about business leaders through asking questions of the main subject/CEO, if the LIVE VIDEO VISIT option is chosen by educators.

Using CEO Memoirs & Biographies in the Classroom

Memoirs and biographies combine the case method with more immersive and experiential learning because readers are immersed in the story and narrative. Narratives are arguably the most effective way to teach and learn in general. Studies have shown that students consistently recall information tied to storytelling better than material presented without storytelling. Organizational psychologists have found that learning from a well-told story is remembered “far longer” than learning derived from facts and figures and that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they’re part of a story.

Braun Collection books and comic books enable business educators to use narrative to enhance the learning experience of their students. Further, it seems that people who read narratives that “oscillate” (i.e., the narratives do not offer a story of clear ascent or descent but rather a story of oscillating successes and failures) have better resilience later in their own lives and careers when making their own decisions. This is because they have reference points (the prior narratives) that consist of patterns of oscillation as opposed to clear-cut ascent or descent2. As we know in real life, decisions rarely involve clear-cut ascent or descent situations. Braun Collection materials do  show neither deeply flawed heroes nor perfect decision makers, rather people who deal with the ups and downs of the issues and
opportunities in their lives and careers.

When using a True Business Adventure Tale (CEO memoir or biography), business educators have the opportunity to develop these business competencies in students. Such competencies are in high demand in the business workplace.

Ask students to:

  • SUMMARIZE the actions, people, and topics and SYNTHESIZE all the information into the theme of the book. Synthesizing key topics and themes is important in business.
  • DEVELOP ARGUMENTS about and CRITICALLY APPRAISE key actions and decisions made by executives. Being able to develop and appraise various actions is important in business.
  • OFFER SUPPORT for their arguments using text and facts as opposed to pure opinion and conjecture. Knowing how to offer factual, even if not scientific, evidence is important in business.
  • REFLECT ON how the subjects and authors views and actions compare and contrast to their own. A level of appropriate reflection is shown to build a level of warmth and relationships that matter for business.
  • SHOW CURIOSITY about business leaders through asking questions of the authors, if the LIVE VIDEO VISIT option is chosen by educators. Asking good questions is a vital business skill.