“Barry Raber is the entrepreneur I look up to most. He has had a dramatic impact on countless colleagues in his orbit.” — Jill Nelson, Founder of Ruby Receptionists
Articles
A 2-minute read could improve your business forever
Core Values Scorecard: How Does Your Company Stack Up?
Do you have good or bad core values? Read this article and find out.
Compelling Core Values with this Step-by-Step Guide
How to create exceptional core values.
Why Jim Collins is Wrong About How to Create Core Values
Jim is a business guru but the way he suggests creating core values is all wrong.
5 Questions to Get Your Brand Crystal Clear
Does everyone in your company know your brand inside and out? We developed what we call the Brand 5, One Page Document so that we can answer that question yes.
More Extreme Differentiation
Business just gets more competitive. This one idea, when implemented, can keep you ahead of competitors and boost your sales.
The Most Successful Entrepreneurs Know How to Say ‘No.’ Here’s the one Exercise You Need to Learn this Skill
Do less and win. The most important question in business is not what you will do it is: What Won’t You Do?
Running a Company with Two Awesome 10-Minute Meetings
I hated meetings before starting my own company. I vowed to make them as short and effective as possible. These 10-minute meetings accomplish so much with so little time.
Meet Like a Billionaire: 5 Tactics to Slash Meeting Times by 50 Percent
This article is the ticket to getting you and your team’s time back.
3 Questions to Help You Determine Whether Your Business Model is Capable of going Bigtime
Can your current business go bigtime to create a $20M business? Read this article and find out.
5 Secrets to Take Your Business to the Bigtime
If your business is capable of going bigtime (to be worth $20M or more), these are my thoughts on how to do it.
Bigger Isn′t Always Better: 4 Benefits of Staying Small
This article started as a take over the universe article and ended with keep doing what you are doing.
How to Complete the Big 3: Vision/Strategy/Execution
Do you want a bigger future? This is the trifecta that will get you there. Do these 3 things and be surprised at how far you go.
Vision vs. Strategy
While vision can be a “me” thing, strategy should be a “we” thing.
Try this simple Tool to Move It Forward with Your Strategic Plan
Our company is known for execution. This is the simple tool we use for that and the story behind it.
Pivot to Something Better
When the chips are down, it might be time to look for a pivot to something better. Here is how we did it.
How Katie Poppe Used COVID To Pivot to Something Better
Do you know the story of the buffalo? It inspired Katie Poppe to run through the Covid-created storm and come out the other side better than ever.
The Million Dollar Question
This question changed my life and fuels our success all the time.
From Startup to Life-Changing Exit — The 4 Secrets Behind Amazing Success
Jill Nelson is the best businessperson I know. She shares the 4 biggest secrets to her success.
5 Surefire Strategies To 6X Your Revenue
My good friend bought a company and 6xd the revenue before he sold it. I asked him how he did it? This article gives his 5 secrets to how he did it.
How to 10x a Family Business
4 success secrets and 5 pro tips from one of the most successful business leaders I know.
Considering a Profit-Sharing Program to Reward and Motivate Employees? – Here’s Your How-To Guide
Sharing profit with your team that helped make it can be super high impact. Here is how we did it.
The 4 Keys to Creating a $50,000,000 Business
Implement these 4 simple (yet brilliant!) tips to forge an exceptional company that investors can’t resist.
These Stoplight Graphs Saved My Construction Projects
Using these color graphs will speed up your production and motivate great results and lower your stress.
Tap Into Your Unique Ability to Make Twice the Money in Half the Time
Ready to transform your business? Discovering your Unique Ability can streamline your work, boost profits, and create a company culture that maximizes everyone’s strengths.
How to Sell Your Business for Top Dollar and Get the Deal Done
Get an offer to buy your business or interested in selling? Here is my experience share on how to get the best price and get the deal done.
Make it More About the Customer
Sometimes a business or your team loses focus on the customer. Here are 3 proven ways to hardwire the customer as the top priority.
My Simple Advice to New Graduates
No one learns this important advice in school and most parents don’t teach it specifically either.
Cater to Lazy
Every time I have put my “lazy glasses” on, the result is more customers. Three entrepreneurs share how they cater to lazy.
Thought Leadership 101 – How To Become a Thought Leader in Six Months
This version has more specifics.
Boosting Your Positivity
As you grow older, it’s harder and harder to stay positive. Adopt these 3 techniques to safeguard your positive outlook and uplift those around you, too.
Get Rich in Real Estate
After 30 years of successful real estate investment, I wrote down my top 5 secrets.
Onboard Like a Boss
This is my best-kept secret on how to onboard new hires for success.
Thought Leadership 101
How to become a thought leader in six months.
Startup Fundraising
9 great tips from successful serial entrepreneur, Tal Moore.
How I Made Peace with Those Dreaded Google Reviews
Hate that strangers can post whatever they want about your business for all to see? Read this.
Testimonials
What successful entrepreneurs are saying about Barry
“I know many people who attribute seven, eight and nine figures of earnings to Barry Raber’s sage advice, including me.” — Paul Williams, Connective DX
“Barry Raber shares some of the most valuable secrets in business… he is the real deal.” — Joe Squires, Admiral Companies
“The value of the information Barry Raber provided cannot be measured. I will use what I've learned from him for years to come. The Brand 5 is an amazing tool.” — Gaila Lusby, Momma G’s Soup
Resources
All of these tools have had a big impact on me and my businesses
Verne Harnish, Scaling Up
The best series of books and systems for starting and building a business.
Cameron Herald, Double Double
Great series of books on growing your business, Double Double and Vivid Vision especially.
Gino Wickman, Traction
For some of the best execution systems.
Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach
His books Unique Ability, The Gap and the Gain, and Who Not How are exceptional and the best personal/business coaching program I know.
Invest in Your Leaders
Great leadership training for you and your leaders hosted by Cameron Herold.
What Big Brands Know
Best branding advice and help I know.
Entrepreneurs’ Organization
Best peer organization to join.
Bigger Pockets
The go to resource for learning real estate investment. Any books by Brandon Turner or David Greene are fantastic too.
MasterClass
For inspiration and experienced advice on being an entrepreneur and how tos these three courses from Master Class are excellent.
Sara Blakely Teaches Self-Made Entrepreneurship
The Gottman Institute
This is the best couples coaching resource I know.
Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker PHD
Groundbreaking exploration on sleep.
The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
On life, perspective and inner peace.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie
Best book for stress management.
Wisdom from the Top, Guy Raz
From the creator of How I Built This, stories of crisis, failure, turnaround, and triumph from some of the greatest leaders in the world.
How I Built This, Guy Raz
In each episode, founders reveal deep, intimate moments of doubt and failure, and share insights on their eventual success. How I Built This is a master-class on innovation, creativity, leadership and how to navigate challenges of all kinds.
TED Radio Hour
Each episode, host Manoush Zomorodi explores a big idea through a series of TED Talks and original interviews, inspiring us to learn more about the world, our communities, and most importantly, ourselves.
About
Barry Raber’s Business Journey
We had a family friend who seemed to have a lot of money and free time at a younger age. I asked what he did for a living, and the answer was real estate. He got me an interview at Randall Realty, where I spent 10 years learning from one of the best in the real estate investment business, Robert Randall (RDR). I worked my way up to the top of the company, which had 250 employees and $1 billion in assets. After RDR nearly died of a heart condition, he decided that his job — which he previously stated was available to the first “qualified candidate” — was no longer available. My Dad was an entrepreneur who started from nothing, and I saw the life he built by owning a business. I always knew I would try it at some point. This was that point. I quit and started my own real estate investment business, using all I learned from RDR.
I quickly joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) to gain a network of peers to share experiences with, learn from, and help build my business. That organization changed my life with its firehose of business ideas and best practices which I readily absorbed and implemented as quickly as possible. All the answers and strategies for success were there in EO. I’ve been a member for 22 years now, and I still get ideas from it and give back to it, too.
I learned early from one of my mentors to hire great people. Working alongside these great people, we have successfully built, scaled, and sold two businesses: Business Property Trust (a business park company) and Bargain Storage (a self-storage company). We are now building up our third business, Carefree Covered RV Storage (an RV and boat storage company).
Throughout these experiences, I have absorbed an immense amount of business strategy and information. Ultimately, I realized that focusing on strong product differentiation, super-clear and engaging branding, a distinctive customer-oriented culture, and careful exit timing are the Big Four Secrets to business success.
With this site, I aim to help others by sharing the best of what I have learned in business.
I live in Portland, Oregon, with my wife, Jennifer, and our three kids. I enjoy traveling, creating memorable experiences for friends and family, and savoring the occasional corndog with a pumpkin pie chaser.
Special thanks to Kelly Wiebke and Steve Reed for the website/brand/design and build as well as Kent Lewis for thought leadership advice and Anne-Wallis Droter for article writing.
Contact Barry Raber
Questions and comments encouraged. I would love to hear from you!
Phone
(503) 278-3434
Location
2175 NW Raleigh St.
Suite 110 - Room 2008
Portland, OR 97210
