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Mark Ryski spent years unable to get retail executives on the phone. He hated cold calling and was bad at it. So he wrote a book — and started sending it to CEOs of retail chains.
They started taking his calls.
That was three books and 23 years ago. Today HeadCount does traffic and conversion analytics for retailers in more than 20 countries, with a largest client running 1,600 stores. But the road there ran through two complete failures: a 1990s version built out of $300 of RadioShack parts that nobody wanted, and a 2003 relaunch that also went nowhere.
In this episode of the Command Your Brand Show, Jeremy Ryan Slate talks with Mark about using authorship as a door-opener, knowing when NOT to pivot, and what actually separates real thought leadership from the performative kind.
In this conversation:
- Watching customers walk out of a store without buying — the problem that started everything
- Why his boss wouldn't spend $2,500 on a traffic counter, and what he built instead
- Two failed versions of the same company, ten years apart
- Eight years at Intuit running QuickBooks for Canada
- "The credibility of authorship" — how a self-published book replaced cold calling
- Why a little success can misdirect an entrepreneur worse than failure does
- When holding your course beats pivoting, and how to tell the difference
- Losing 40% of revenue when COVID closed retail — and what came after
- The Jeff Bezos question he's never stopped thinking about: what WON'T change?
- Three honest tests for whether someone is actually a thought leader
If you're building authority in a field where nobody knows your name yet, this one's worth your time.
👇 COMMENT BELOW: Have you ever held your course when everyone told you to pivot — and was it the right call?
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
01:20 The computer store, early 1990s
03:09 The $2,500 counter his boss wouldn't buy
03:54 Building one for $300 in RadioShack parts
04:37 Version one fails — nobody wanted the data
04:59 Eight years at Intuit running QuickBooks Canada
05:50 Version two launches in 2003, and also fails
06:27 The book that got CEOs to take his calls
08:37 When not to pivot: don't chase rainbows
13:49 COVID wipes out 40% of revenue
16:50 The Bezos question: what won't change?
18:21 Real thought leadership vs. performative
21:20 Where to find Mark
CONNECT WITH MARK RYSKI & HEADCOUNT:
HeadCount: https://headcount.com
Store Traffic Is a Gift: The Retailer's Guide to Converting Visits into Sales (2025): https://www.amazon.com/Store-Traffic-Gift-Retailers-Converting/dp/B0F1XG8QC5
Conversion: The Last Great Retail Metric: https://www.amazon.com/Conversion-Last-Great-Retail-Metric/dp/1463414226
When Retail Customers Count: https://www.amazon.com/When-Retail-Customers-Count-Ryski/dp/1420824759
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Stu Heinecke, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone: The Untapped Selling Power of Contact Marketing — the cartoonist Jeremy references at 07:13: https://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Meeting-Anyone-Marketing/dp/1946885134
