About Don Schenk

Don Schenk has been self-employed ever since he was a teenager – owning a half a dozen businesses.

His creative parents, who met in art school, gave Don a little Kodak camera when he was age 5, and about the same time they began teaching Don to play music - guitar and piano. By age 13 Don was playing music in local rock groups at teen dances - thus began his first experience at being self-employed.

At age 16 Don began renting a teaching studio at a local music store where he taught guitar, electric bass, and keyboard as a self-employed instructor... and continued to do so during his college years and a little while beyond.

While still in high school he joined forces with a couple of his music students, to form what was to become the most popular local teen band during the mid 1960s. The group rented a large reception hall where they put together teen dances, attracting up to 2,000 kids each week.

He says this is when he decided to always remain self-employed.

Upon completing college at Xavier University, Don started a photography business as a sideline while working in the recording business, playing bass in a jazz trio, and still giving private music lessons. Eventually music became a side interest while his passion for photography made it one of his careers.

During the mid 1980's, the photography business, had a serious downturn that almost put him out of business. About that era Dons says, "I never felt so sick, broke, and hopeless. I was desperate for a way out of the madness."

It put him on a quest to study, discover, and learn everything possible about marketing and about building a strong business. By reading three and four business books a week, and by studying what other business owners did to be more successful, he completely turned around his business.

Soon he his business needed more space, so he added a large addition to his building. Then he bought the building next door and connected them for still greater space.

He continued to study business and marketing, and when he saw how well the strategies he had discovered worked, he began teaching them to other studio owners.

Over the years Don has owned a half dozen businesses including a recording studio, the photography studio, and still owns a real estate rental business. In 1992, as an offshoot of his business turnaround success, he started ideapage to publish "how-to" books and spoken-word audio courses for other business owners.

October 2008, one of Don's employees acqired the portrait photography division of Don Schenk, Inc, and moved it to another location, which let Don devote more time to teaching and writing.

Today he conducts marketing workshops at his business location.

Don's passions include downhill skiing, playing music, writing, teaching, publishing, photography, and spending quiet time at his other home in Park City, Utah.

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