Commander's Brief: 1/3/2025

Welcome to 2025. The last two weeks of the year are where we look at each other and ask:

“What day is it?”

“Do I need to put on pants?”

“Are you going to eat that last piece of pie?”

But it’s done. Now it’s back to the grind.

I wanted to share a few goals I have for myself with The Veteran Professional for 2025.

• Get to 10,000 subscribers on this newsletter (currently 2,230)

• Get to 10,000 visitors/month at theveteranpro.com (currently ~1,000)

Since starting The Veteran Professional in 2019, I’ve mostly treated it like a hobby. This year I want to treat it more like a business.

Step 1 is to be more consistent with this newsletter. So expect every Friday to see this newsletter hit your inbox and have the following sections:

Veteran Business of the Week - A great business run by a veteran

Resource of The Week - Could be a nonprofit or something else that helps veterans

Business Idea - Maybe an idea of something to start or a business for sale

New- Anything new I published recently

From the Archives - I will pull back some classic content to check out

Here is my big ask. Recommend this newsletter to a friend.

It’s easy.

You can share this link :

You could email it to a friend. Or copy it, paste it, and text it.

Easy for you, big help for me.

Thanks for the assist.

No on to the show.

Veteran Business of the Week

PreVeteran is one of the best veteran transition programs out there.

Run by Jason Anderson, a retired O-6, they have courses built around giving veterans the skills to crushr their first civilian job, enter a sales role in the defense industry, and negotiate the highest pay possible.

Here’s also what I like: it’s not free.

I’ve met Jason in person and spoken with him multiple times. He (like me) is a bit sick of the veteran nonprofit complex that wants to collect donation money and not be expected to provide real value.

So he is a for-profit and charges for his classes. But people love them (see testimonials here).

Bottom line: he gets results.

Jason is coming on the podcast soon and their next cohort starts Jan. 27.

Resource of The Week

VettoCEO is one of the best programs I’ve seen out there.

I did it myself in 2020 and was really impressed with the quality of content and organization.

Started by two former army officers with extensive entrepreneurship experience, it’s really top-notch.

Their next cohort starts Feb. 11 and you should definitely check it out.

Business Idea

A few weeks ago, I shared an idea for a knife-sharpening business.

(Read the post here)

Well one of you reached out and they already started the business. We shared some ideas together and it was great.

So if you live in Austin, be on the lookout for “The Slice is Right” coming Q2 2024 and support a veteran entrepreneur.

New

From the Archives

Thanks for tuning in.

Go crush it,

Mark

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal".

-Henry Ford