Dan Stocke Email & Phone Number

Duluth, Mn, Us

Duluth, Minnesota

Dan has a weird love affair with small business. He appreciates the entrepreneurial spirit that goes into building a business, especially one that is community based and not (necessarily) built to scale nationwide. These are businesses built by people who want to do good by their town, to make their cities better, to give back to their fellow citizens. What’s not to love?Small business owners wear many hats. They are the salespeople, customer service, HR department, marketing department, janitor, etc. of their store. Dan believes that to help small business is to make any one of their processes simpler. As a marketer, Dan felt he could simplify that part of a businessperson’s life.“Small businesses don’t have the time to delve into the intricacies of the world of marketing,” Dan says, “nor do they have the money to pay someone to do it for them. They are really kind of stuck. And that sucks.” Buzz Frenzy was born out of that frustration and was designed to allow a business owner to easily and cheaply tap into world-class, high-octane marketing prowess.Using Buzz Frenzy a business can, for a set monthly budget, add a preset hashtag to any Facebook post and that post will be turned into an advertisement which will be seen ONLY by customers in their area who are predisposed to buy what that businesses is selling.“It’s almost magic,” says Dan. It’s an issue he is grappled with in the early stages of the company. Buzz Frenzy is so simple and so powerful people have a hard time believing it works. But, as Dan points out, “what, my product is too good? Yeah, I can live with that problem.”Lesson Learned: There is an odd resistance taking the ridiculously complicated and making it ridiculously simple.

Duluth, Minnesota, United States

This Never Happened is a production company creating a vast array of content: movies, television, theater, podcast, books, and whatever else might tickle my fancy. Such as:- The Happiness Guy - A weekly newsletter about finding, using, and leading with happiness (danstocke.substack.com).- Take It With You - Producer of an award winning live radio podcast (takeitwithyou.org).- Dance TV - Producer of a perennially sold out theatrical production of a fictional dance television show (dancetvstudios.com). - Al Luvis Woke Up - Writer of a children's book about the current state of politics (it’s a satire).- Do You Sleep Naked - Host of a podcast about the differences and similarities of our morning routines (listen wherever podcasts are found).- The Mistress Reality Checklist - Producer of a podcast about notable mistresses and the lessons learned from them (listen wherever podcasts are found).

Duluth, Minnesota, United States

3964 East Calvary Road, Duluth, Mn 55803

Dan Stocke, with a business partner, bought Design Pro in 2007 and promptly changed its name to World Block to more accurately reflect what the company does: build precast modular block forms for the concrete industry. As a metal fabricating shop, World Block has the capacity to cut large sheets of steel on a high definition plasma table, bend steel in a 250 ton press brake, and weld steel with four robots working in tandem as two pairs.Dan bought the company just before the Great Recession. While 2007 was a good year (seeing World Block make the Inc. 5000 list as one of the country’s fastest growing companies), 2008 was a disaster. November sales fell 80% year over year. Whatever education Dan didn’t have before, he quickly learned on the fly. 2008 saw the acceleration of implementing efficiencies into the company’s processes. Rearranging the manufacturing floorplan, ensuring best-use practices, and questioning every aspect of production flow became priorities. Two robots had just gone on line. Their use was now vital to the health of the company. Dan designed an online quoting system that paired the front end website with back end work in process.The Great Recession brought with it the banking industry’s desire to get their money back. World Block, while current on all of their debt, had their large, national bank (names withheld to protect the guilty) call in all of their notes. Dan was able to fight back this knee-jerk irrationality until he could refinance all the company’s debt.Since then, Dan has steered World Block to a strong financial footing. Seeing sales drop from $3.3 million in 2007 to a low point of $1.8 million in 2009, the company has climbed nearly back to par, but with profits 1.5x higher (thank you efficiency) and free cash flow 2.3x stronger.Lesson Learned:Efficiency will take you from trough to peak, and cash will carry you from peak to trough. Efficiency and cash will safely carry you through the roughest seas.

Zip-It is a long thin piece of plastic with barbs running along its sides. Push into a clogged drain, pull it back out and Zip-It will yank the clog out of the drain. Dan’s uncle, Gene, invented it. The first time Dan was shown the invention he said, “I can sell millions of those things.”Dan and Gene set out to create a company to manufacture and distribute it. Dan worked through product design and testing, patent filing, logo design, packaging design and process, sales and marketing, and logistics.They have since licensed it to a much larger conglomerate that manufactures and distributes it for them. Zip-It can now be found in all Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Ace, and thousands of stores worldwide.Since 2001, Zip-It has been used by over 26 million people.Lesson Learned:Set ambitious goals and every day take at least one step toward them.

When Dan started working at Design Pro, a metal fabricating shop, the company would take on just about any project that anyone asked for: median barrier forms, parking curb forms, truck outriggers, septic tank forms…. any and every thing. The sales process behind the scenes was just as disjointed.Dan first streamlined the order taking process so that everyone in the front office was doing the same thing the same way. This sped up sales. It did NOT speed up production. With a backlog of orders, Dan did a cost/benefit analysis of all the products the company was producing. Most all of them worked on slim to negative margins, except for the precast modular block forms being built by one guy working in a back room like a madman. This one guy was carrying the rest of the company.Dan guided the company to streamline and concentrate its product offerings to only those that had high enough margins to be sustainable.Dan then created the company’s first catalog and mailed it to all of the ready-mix and precast concrete producers in the country. Sales soared from $1 million in 2002 to $3.6 million in 2006.Lesson Learned:Everybody is part of the manufacturing process - from when the phone first rings to when the shipping truck pulls off the lot.

Education record

Education record

Education record