Fedeli runs one of Ohio’s biggest private insurance brokerages, but that’s not why his name is in so many BlackBerrys. He’s one of the best networkers in Northeast Ohio’s business community, constantly hitting the phones to leverage his seat on the Cleveland Clinic board and his support for prominent politicians to benefit his clients and favorite charities.
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Someone once said to my wife, “I don’t understand where your husband’s business life, political life, civic life, personal life and family life separate.” She said, “I don’t think you understand my husband.”
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What greater joy for me than to be able to have my mother here twice a week? It’s an opportunity to share my business relationship and community relationship and civic relationship with my mother, but also share her with others.
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It’s a tremendous secret weapon. It’s a coveted opportunity for people to have Mama Fedeli cook for them. People love coming up here for lunch.
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When you break bread with somebody, magic happens around that table. And that magic is relationships.
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If at the end of someone’s life, you say, “OK, what is the most important thing?” — what comes out more than anything else is the word “relationships,” be it with their faith, their family or their friends.
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Someone becomes influential because they believe in servant leadership. They believe in reaching out and saying, “How can I help somebody else?” There’s a line from a book that I use a lot: “At what point in life do you go from success to significance?”
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So, every day, you try to do as much as you can for as many as you can.
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The product sometimes of that is, you become a quote-unquote go-to person. Then people will consider you influential because you’ve been helpful to them.
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In order for somebody to want to do business with someone, they have to say, “I trust you, I like you, I respect you.” But you have to earn that trust by following up, keeping your word. You have to earn that respect by doing the right thing for the right reason.
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If you’re in selling or development, it’s ultimately a transfer of emotions.
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You also have to be enthusiastic. A lot of times, people will support something because you believe in it. They may not believe, but they believe that
you believe.
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No. 1, there’s nothing more important than relationships. No. 2, help solve problems for other people. No. 3, add value. Under promise, over deliver. Go over and beyond. No. 4, network for and with people. I define networking as the exchange of information, ideas and resources. If you do those four things, you have a chance that your product or service will be in demand.
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I get up typically at 3:30 to 4 a.m. Then I do some reading first, work and reports, anything I have to do that I need a couple hours of quiet time.
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If you start out at Mass, it puts everything in perspective. It is a way to say, “What is my long-term strategic plan?” Your ultimate plan is, if you’ve been successful in this life, and you don’t make it to the next, perhaps you’ve failed.
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If I’m without a phone, I feel like I’m just really lost.
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It is more stressful for me to be out of touch than to be in touch.
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I have one phone that I take when I go out of town or when I go walking. It can go anywhere. It’s a world phone. I have a BlackBerry that I don’t know how to use very well, but it holds several thousand phone numbers. I use it as a directory and to look things up. Then I have one that’s in my car.
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When I drive the turnpike, I think about how that road is a key corridor between New York and Chicago, two great, important cities, but how Ohio’s kind of nestled in the middle, in the Midwest.
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Maybe I had a small part with helping during my tenure [as turnpike commission chairman]. The third lane was needed because you can’t pave in the winter; you have to pave in the summer. The traffic is the highest in the summer, and if you pave one lane, you’re down to one, and if you have an accident or a problem, you stop.
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Good transportation means good commerce. The turnpike was not only able to create new jobs, new opportunities, new plants, and [help] companies stay there, it also made things more accessible.
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You cannot be in business and be a public official simultaneously without tremendous scrutiny, tremendous pressure and the tremendous appearance — appearance — of conflict.
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I don’t want to be a public official, so I don’t have conflicts. I’m free to do what I want, say what I want, and am able to get things done.
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You and I can be two business guys and be neighbors, and we can have an agreement: “Hey, I’m going to help you here, and you help me here.” In business, that’s called networking. In politics, that’s called quid pro quo, and that gets you in trouble.
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My grandmother, who’s 101, who never went to school one day and can’t read, can’t write — she’s all about love. She’s all about relationships. My grandparents would be willing to give you everything they had. They didn’t have a lot of material things, but they would give you the last cookie in the cookie jar, if you will.