| It';s almost as if Dave Anderson, the founder of Famous Dave's Barbeque restaurants, stepped right out of a Horatio Alger novel, one of those late 1800s rags to riches novels that tout the American Dream. "It doesn't matter where you come from," Anderson exclaimed as he opened his speech at Marketplace 2007 at the Ho-Chunk Convention Center October 11. "It doesn't matter what you've been through. The only thing that matters in this great country is that you have dreams. And if you're acting on your dreams and you're willing to work hard, there isn't anything you can't accomplish." Anderson was born in Chicago to a Choctaw father and Lac Courte Oreille mother. And while he grew up impoverished and didn't exactly stand out in the crowd, everything began to change when his father took him to see the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. Anderson worked on his interpersonal skills, developed an extremely positive attitude and worked his way up the ladder of success. While Anderson's first business was as a failure, he picked himself up and tried again. His second was as a wholesale florist. He recalled going from bank to bank and getting turned down because he had no collateral. A friend suggested that he join the Chamber of Commerce in order to develop contacts and visibility. After one particular meeting, Anderson was approached by a bank president who asked Anderson to come and sell his flowers at a promotion the bank was having. Anderson was excited and set about making everything right, including "polishing the leaves on the flowers," as he put it. "The next morning, I sold every single thing I had brought there," Anderson said about the bank promotion. "Then at noon when the bank closed, I was packing up my boxes. The president of the bank came from around the corner and said 'Anderson, I want to see you in my office.' I was wondering if I made one of his customers mad. I had never seen an office so magnificent. There was mahogany from top to bottom. It was the biggest, plushest carpet I had ever seen. The bank president said 'Anderson, at every Chamber meeting, you're always out there shaking hands and you're always enthusiastic. We need customers like that. Today, I saw how you handled our bank customers. I saw how you handled yourself. Tell me young man, how much money do you need?' This was back in 1972 when I said '$10,000.' He looked at me and said 'That's a lot of money.' He asked what kind of assets I had. I said 'Sir, I don't really have much. I have a great heart and I'm willing to work hard.' He said 'Every once in a while, we take a chance on someone. And I walked out of that bank with a check for $10,000 on my signature alone. So it just goes to show in this great country, if you believe in yourself and you're willing to work hard, people will come along side you. And it's a vision that you have of yourself. It's a vision and enthusiasm that you have for your business that's what's going to carry you around." While the wholesale floral business became hugely successful, a monster Chicago snowstorm in 1979 stifled Anderson's business and he went bankrupt. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Anderson never gave up even though he failed at times and ended up establishing some very successful businesses. But he never forgot the barbeque that he experienced growing up in Chicago when his dad would bring some home from work. "I can remember the first time I ever tasted a barbeque rib," Anderson recalled. "I thank my Black brothers here because I would never be here if it wasn't for the love that you have of barbeque. Every lunch time, some of the men left the job my dad was at and when they came back, they had some of the best tasting ribs. And my dad, being an old Southern boy, he had to go with them. He found they were going to the west side of Chicago where a Black gentleman would be there with a 55-gallon drum. And he would have these slabs of spare ribs that he was smoking over smoldering hickory and charcoal. And then he would slather it with some home made barbeque sauce. The first time my dad brought this home, the first time I ever tasted it, I couldn't believe anything could taste so good." Anderson had fallen in love with barbeque. "It became my dream that I knew that one day, I was going to be America's rib king," Anderson proclaimed. "And when I started my business on the shores of Round Lake right next to the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in Hayward, Wis., financial analysts and bankers would tell me 'Anderson, you're going to build a barbeque joint in Hayward, Wis. That's Norwegian country with Swedes. What do they know about barbeque?' Well, I had a dream and when I started my barbeque joint, I said to the world 'I'm going to have the best ribs in America. I'm going to have the best barbeque sauce, the best cornbread, the best country-roasted chicken.' I had a dream." "They asked me why I wanted to build it in Hayward because there were only 1,800 people in town," Anderson said. "We didn' advertise. By the end of the summer, because we were certain we had the best ribs in America, we were serving 4,000-6,000 people. One week, we served 8,000 people in the little town of Hayward, Wis. We were getting people who were driving from Green Bay, the Twin Cities and Chicago. And ladies and gentlemen, because I never let anybody get me to doubt myself, because I believed in my dream, because I was willing to work hard, today there';s something like over 150 Famous Dave's all over the country. And this year, we will make over $400 million in sales. In 2003, Anderson left Famous Dave's to become the assistant secretary of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior for Indian Affairs. Anderson now headed the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the organization that had forced his parents to attend boarding schools in order to be mainstreamed into American society. But while he was performing his public service, Anderson's good fortune slipped away. "I had left my business with someone else," Anderson said. "I had to sign away my business interests and this person whom I trusted squandered millions of my money away in a business." Undaunted, Anderson resolved to begin again. He is currently working on building a $135 million resort complex in Gurnee, Ill. "I just don't think about business anymore," Anderson exclaimed. "I think about creating billion dollar businesses because I know Famous Dave's is going to be a billion-dollar company in seven years. And I believe Key Lime Cove is a billion-dollar concept. Ladies and gentlemen, too many times, we think too small. The notion of abundance is unlimited. If you believe you were created in God's own image and God is infinite and unlimited, we really are too! Think about it. Every time we have reached a scientific, technological or philosophical breakthrough, all it does is line us on to new horizons. There isn't anything that we can't do if we are willing to give ourselves along the way." Anderson's rollercoaster ride through the business world hasn't been easy. And it hasn't been easy on the people who love him. One night as he was driving drunk from Hayward, Wis. to Minneapolis, he was involved in a car accident that almost killed him. During his convalescence, Anderson found religion. And then one day, his wife forced him to go into treatment. "That day, I found myself flat on the floor and I was saying 'I'm tired of doing things Dave Anderson's way, I'm tired of being sick and tired and if God you ever had a time to touch someone, now was the time to do it,'" Anderson recalled. "When I got up, it felt like the world had just lifted from my shoulders. And I knew then that it wasn't about Dave Anderson anymore. From that day forward, I was sure that there was power in the word surrender. And so many times, personalities like mine are afraid to go out and ask for help. You're afraid to say what is really going on in your lives. The day that I surrendered was the day I realized that there was power in the word surrender. When I was saying 'Hey, I don't need your help and I can do this my own way,' that was really ignorant. That was really stupid. But that day it changed when I said I needed help from a higher power. From that day forward, I understood that it was no longer about Dave Anderson. I am nothing more than a servant to everyone else." It was at this point in Anderson's life that he realized he could wait for a lifetime for things to change around him. And that wasn't the meaningful change he was looking for. "I truly believe that life is about change," Anderson said. "And where most people get caught up is that they think change happens out there. They think the good life is going to be better, that it is going to happen out there. Then we need a better economy or a better president or a better spouse. But change doesn't happen out there. Change happens inside us. Sometimes people say 'Dave, you shouldn't be talking about this stuff.' Well I believe that today, as Indian people, we were spiritual people. And I believe this country was founded on spiritual things. And today, it's almost politically incorrect to say that we worship an Almighty, Living God. And I don't believe that there could be a higher calling than when my time has come and gone that folks would say 'There went a God-fearing husband to his wife, there went a God-fearing father to his children and there went a God-fearing leader in this community.'" That has carried him through the hard times and made him successful. "No one has ever said 'Go get Dave because he's good at singing Kumbaya around the campfire,'" Anderson said. "They say 'Go get Dave because he knows how to get through the adversity. He knows how to get through the challenges.' Now when you get through the adversities and you get through the challenges, you are becoming a wiser, a stronger person. And the Good Lord is saying 'That's what opportunity is all about. When you are faced with the big crisis and you are tempted to shake your head at the Good Lord, don't do that because all these years, what many people have been doing is running away and saying 'That's not my problem.' And the Good Lord is looking down and says 'Hey, where are you going? You wanted an opportunity, well there it is. And I put a lot of time on that one. That's a doozie.'" Dave Anderson is quite a character. Looking back at the countless images of Anderson in each Famous Dave's restaurant, one cannot but believe that he was -- and is -- a self-fulfilling prophecy, an existential incarnation of himself. As one listens to Anderson speak, one can't help but get swept up in his enthusiasm and begin to believe. However, while there is plenty of room in the world for success, there's only room in this world for one Famous Dave, a Horatio Alger success story of our times. |
| "Famous Dave" spoke at Marketplace 2007 Nothing's gonna stop him now By Jonathan Gramling Part 2 of 2 |
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