Message to businesses: Take risks

Bill Rancic: First winner of “The Apprentice” speaks to Yorkville group

October 14, 2007
By ROWENA VERGARA Staff Writer

YORKVILLE -- Bill Rancic has succeeded as an entrepreneur, real estate investor, author, national financial expert and most notably the first winner of Donald Trump's The Apprentice -- all before the age of 36.

Still, Rancic aspires to do more, and he has no plans to hold back.

Fear, he told a crowd of Yorkville business professionals last week, is the one thing that separates those who succeed in life and those who lag behind. “Everything I’ve done in life, I’ve been told I couldn’t do it,” he said in an interview during the Yorkville Economic Development Council’s seventh annual meeting.

“Don’t let people pull you down. If you have a dream in life, do it.”

Rancic turned a $24,000 cigar business operated out of a studio apartment into a multimillion dollar company. And that was before he was hired by Trump.

Since the show, he became the owner’s representative, or the eyes and ears for The Donald, on Trump’s Chicago hotel and condominium project, Trump Tower. Rancic stayed on as a judge for The Apprentice for four seasons, was an occasional on-air financial adviser to chef Rachel Ray, and now is a host on the Chicago-based In the Loop with iVillage NBC daytime talk show.

“I kind of got bit by the (TV) bud,” Rancic said.

His advice to entrepreneurs and business owners: Live life like a marathon and set mile markers for specific goals.

“You have got to have a good strategy, like a marathon runner,” he said.

It also takes practical execution, agility and the ability to take risks, he said.

The visit to Yorkville was his first, although the Orland Park native said he had driven through the town before.

The keynote speaker attracted about 350 business people to the evening meeting at Whitetail Ridge Golf Club in Yorkville. The dinner was the first of its kind for the development council, which usually holds a luncheon.