We recently connected with Doc Murphy and have shared our conversation below.

Doc, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I came up with the idea of Widman University / The 8:18 Division as a passion to help coach others in Business and Marketing. Below is a small backstory from my Book “Go Ready Set”.

Back in the 90’s God called me to the world of business. I call it Kingdompreneurship. I had no experience. I had never read a book about business, I didn’t have much money to invest, and I didn’t have a business coach to advise me. I just got out there and launched all kinds of businesses. I never made huge profits in any of them, but I wasn’t afraid to make something happen. I used my apartment number as a suite number on my letterheads. I used an eight-hundred number voicemail, and then I used the pay phone to call clients back (we didn’t have a home phone). I would spend all our money investing in random ventures. My wife was mad! But all of that was Business School 101 for me. I learned a lot. Now I can look back and laugh at all the stories but let me tell you—my wife was not laughing at the time. We were losing cars and getting evicted. We survived on a steady diet of rice, and I had to pawn almost everything. I used to wash my suits in the washer and iron them myself because I couldn’t afford dry cleaning.

Over the years we gained wisdom from God and mentors and have been able to be successful in business. My wife has a successful Tutoring Business, we have started a Book publishing company, an Insurance Agency, Marketing company and have helped many people launch businesses and consult them in their marketing endeavors. Now as part of my ministry, I teach business courses and I lead business seminars. Our Coaching Business is called The 8:18 Division/Widman University. Go to www.the818division.com.

Doc, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I love to help people get started. People have ideas, but many of them don’t know how to get started or they are just too afraid to. So we teach and challenge people to get rid of fear and procrastination and get started. We teach the Go, ready, set concept. This means you don’t have to have everything you need to get started, just go and as you go you can get ready on the way. This means adding more to your business later on. And as you go and get ready on the way, when you get to the destination everything will be set. Go. Ready. Set.

We have a Business Course called Widman University / The 8:18 Division. We also have books that help our clients learn valuable information:

Go. Ready. Set.
Personal Monetary System
Kingdompreneur
Go Fishing

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been Facebook Ads and seminars.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I first started in business, I failed over and over. We were losing money, getting evicted, and getting cars respossed. I didn’t have wisdom or knowledge. But I kept pushing. I knew one thing and that was God assigned me to do it (besides ministry). I kept pushing and started learning as much as I could. I gained valuable mentors who had valuable information, tips, and strategies. I started implementing them and we started launching and growing successful businesses.

I learned to read biographies of men and women who overcame incredible odds and kept pushing.
I learned to advertise and market my business during times when people stopped (this was back in the early 2000s). Being consistent was the key.
I utilized marketing techniques that my competitors at that time were not using. I was able to differentiate myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.the818division.com
• Instagram: @the818division
• Facebook: @the818division
• Linkedin: @docmurphy
• Twitter: @widmanuniv1