Hi, I'm Rod Nichols, host of this site. Since you invested your valuable time to visit my site, I'd like to take a few minutes to introduce myself.
I am one of those strangely multi-faceted individuals. In 1977 I graduated from the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration (specializing in Marketing). During my Senior year I was blessed to work as a marketing intern for IBM and after graduation secured a full-time sales position with Motorola in the two-way radio division. I quickly achieved high levels of success and at age 24 was promoted to Zone Manager, where I continued to sell to major accounts and managed up to five salespeople. I was awarded the Salesperson of the Year award for our region in 1980 and was runner up in 1981.
In 1983, I made a career move by leaving Motorola to start my own marketing agency. Initially, I consulted and trained home-based business owners and was selected to the Board of Directors of a home business association. As my agency grew, I expanded into the bricks and morter businesses and began writing marketing plans and developing advertising campaigns. Our specialty was direct response campaigns and we had several that produced a response of between 15% and 25%. My favorite was the "seventeen inch bandaid" campaign that we did for a medical supply company. It produced a 23% response by mailing to large industrial businesses.
In 1993, I sold the company and retired for a few years to contemplate the future. 1995 was a big year for me as I filled a life-long void by accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord and committed to serving Him for the rest of my life. I attended many classes and seminars and read the Bible voraciously. In 1997 I was asked to head up Men's Ministry at the large church I was attending. At that time, it was as good as dead, but within a few months I had recruited a team and we built a very active ministry.
1995 was also the year that I started my second successful business. I was introduced to USANA Health Sciences in Salt Lake City and contracted to help them develop a distributor network throughout the U.S. and into a number of foreign countries. The internet was in its infancy, but I saw an opportunity to reach thousands of people quickly. Over the next few years, I helped several thousand people start businesses, which resulted in a nice residual income that allowed both my wife and I to be more heavily involved in ministry and for me to enjoy my lifelong passion of writing (more on that later).
2001 was another banner year, as my wife and I were asked to help a friend plant a new church. I helped with all the administrative work, including the paperwork for the 501(c)(3) and the bookkeeping systems. Six months later, I began the process of ministerial licensing and ordination and was selected to be an Associate Pastor, a position I held until late 2005.
In 2005, Karen and I launched a traveling teaching ministry called For the Lord Ministries. You can learn more about it by clicking HERE. We taught in churches, at retreats and conferences for the next two years (and continue to do so on request). However in 2007, the Lord began to re-birth a vision we had in 2000 for an inner city ministry and a church that wasn't a church. We launched the Inner City Renewal Center which is a transitional ministry for those coming out of jail/prison, drug/alcohol treatment, or homelessness. We counsel and train in preparation for re-entry into the world. We also launched, The Open Door, which is a network of simple churches (those that don't meet in a traditional church building). You can learn more about The Open Door by clicking HERE.
Through out the years since 1987, I have also been a professional writer and have written nine books (some of which you will find in the Store on this site) and hundreds of articles that have been published in both print and electronic media. You can find a number of these on this site in the Articles area. I have also written newsarticles for a business newspaper, columns for Entreprenur and Keepin' On internet magazines, am a contributor to A Cup of Comfort for Christians and A Cup of Comfort Book of Prayer, and a regular contributor to Men of Integrity magazine. Writing is a love and passion for me, I've also written copy for many types of marketing pieces, direct response mail campaigns, web sites, e-mail autoresponders and blasts, newsletters, brochures, audio and video scripts, and more.
More important than my background, I've been happily married to Karen, my wife since 1988. We have five wonderful children between us and they have blessed us with five equally wonderful grandchildren, to date. We make beautiful Washington State our home, but enjoy traveling to other parts of the country.
Now that you know me, I hope that you enjoy my site - the many articles and great resources - and if you feel so inclined, e-mail me so that I can get to know you. One of my life goals is to make a million friends and I'd love you to be one of them.
