Black In Business

I have 2 brothers by birth, Al and David. Richard Burns is like a brother to me as well and we have been working our careers together for the past 30 plus years. I think back to my days in college when me and my roommates, lived for our dreams of a better life. I cannot not stress enough the important aspect of having contemporizes that want to do great things in life. This is a blog for ordinary people wanting extraordinary success. When you have made that decision for your self, you need to surround yourself with others that either want great things out of life or already have them. Over the past 16 months I have told the stories of several black success stories and Richard Burns and his success is one I am very proud of.
I first heard of Richard during the early days of corporate integration via Affirmative Action. I was a member of the Syracuse branch of Xerox Corporation and Albany was within our branch as a remote field office. Richard was a star already and established an affinity for great performance and results that have been a hallmark of his career. He was my and the other black sales reps idol.
Richard left Xerox to sell capital equipment for Abbott Diagnostics. I was left behind at Xerox but as soon as I was able to establish myself as a sales talent I followed Richard to Abbott. I remained there for 23 years until I no longer fit the culture and I retired. Richard went on to a career as a great salesman, selling telephone integrated systems, medical device, blood testing products, laboratory data management systems and eventuality hospital software for data management.
He has been a success every where and now as a Regional Director for the Midwest has realized his most recent honor, Salesman of the Year. Richard is one of two black businessman in his company and in his first years has distinguished himself as the best. In a moment of surprising modesty Richard informed me, “this is a small company but I was named Salesman of the Year.” It was a side of him I had not witness prior and I was more excited than he was.
Richard Burns is your quintessential salesman, tall broad shouldered, loud, life of the party, but willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. He was a college basketball player and a campus leader at Albany State University, a family man with 2 college educated kids, and is active with inner city issues.
Richard attributed his success to; hard work, being competitive, understanding his product, and his love of people. His customers respect and trust him and he elevates their total satisfaction of products to his highest priority.
Richard Burns, salesman of the year, congratulations and I hope somewhere a young salesman is inspired by your story.