Bart Ratliff
Most businesses invest in marketing without knowing where they actually stand in their market. Authority, being found, chosen, and referred consistently, is not the result of more ads. It is the result of a system. Every system CGS builds is running on Bart's own business right now as proof.
It Starts with How You Were Raised.
Before the strategy. Before the systems. Before the AI. Before the $7,500 website that nobody believed in, there was a lesson Bart Ratliff learned at home.
His mother and father were card senders and book readers. Not as a business strategy. As a way of life. Cards went out constantly in that household, a rhythm of recognition that shaped a young Bart Ratliff before he understood what it would mean. The idea that how you make people feel is the most important thing you can do, in any relationship, personal or professional.
Mom gave Bart The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Peale led to Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie led to Joe Girard's How to Sell Anything to Anybody. Girard sent a card to every customer every month. 13,000 cards per month at peak. Guinness World Record for most cars sold by a single salesperson in a year.
Bart inherited the card discipline from his parents. He inherited the systematized version from Joe Girard. His addition was the picture. That was his layer on an inherited philosophy. He did not invent this. He inherited it. Then he spent 35+ years proving it works across every industry he entered.
"The industry does not matter. The human truth is always the same. Every business in every vertical needs to connect with its people and focus on how it can serve them. That is not a marketing strategy. It is a fundamental law of how human beings work."
That single principle, absorbed from parents who lived it, became the lens through which Bart has seen every person he has ever met in business. Not as a prospect, a contact, or a transaction. As a human being with extraordinary gifts and the potential to change the trajectory of other people's lives.
It is also why Bart has a rare gift that has quietly powered every major opportunity in his career: the ability to see the greatness in others, and the vision to recognize how each relationship could benefit the other relationships he has built. Not for personal gain. Because that is what genuine service looks like when you practice it for decades.
Almost every major project, every industry he has entered, every partnership that opened extraordinary doors came not from marketing himself in, but from relationships built through years of authentic investment in people. Strategic introductions made from a place of genuine care. Doors opened from the inside.
Four Decades. One Philosophy. Proved Everywhere.
It started with disruption. The family oil and gas business faced seismic industry shifts in the early 1990s, and Bart had a choice: adapt or fade. He adapted. That instinct has defined every chapter since.
By 1995, he was running sales at one of the largest multi-line boat dealerships in Northeast Oklahoma. While competitors were still relying on newspaper ads, Bart invested $7,500 in one of the first dealership websites in the country, before most people knew what the internet was. Not because the ROI was obvious. Because he saw the trajectory before anyone else could see the destination.
That same year, he began a separate practice that would prove just as foundational. Bart started taking a picture of every customer with their new boat at delivery. Two prints from every picture. One went up on the dealership's Wall of Fame. The other got mailed back to the customer with a handwritten thank-you card. No ask. No referral request. Just a simple thank you to show appreciation for their business.
Referrals exploded. Sales doubled over the next two years.
The picture story and the website story together prove the foundational pattern: relationship-first plus technology-early. That pattern has been the operating model for 30+ years.
From there: mortgage in Southern California. Industry disruption hit again. When the market shifted, his relationships did not, and that was the second documented validation of the philosophy across a completely different industry under completely different market pressure.
In 2006, he was introduced to SendOutCards through BNI. His boat dealership picture practice, automated and scalable. The response was immediate: everyone wanted to know his secret. That question, asked enough times, became the business.
In 2012, Bart formalized that work under the name Inspired Marketing Consultant, teaching social media masterminds, building lead acquisition platforms across restaurants, professional services, and retail. What grew from that work would become something far larger. He was eventually asked to create and produce Relationship Marketing Weekly, a show featuring conversations with the leading voices in sales and relationship marketing including Jeb Blount, Lewis Howes, BNI Founder Dr. Ivan Misner, and BNI CEO Norm Dominguez. The show became significant source material for The Power of Human Connection, authored by Promptings Founder and CVO Kody Bateman. Every guest came through a genuine relationship built over decades, not a booking request.
In 2020, he became Corporate Strategist at Sovereign Edge Solutions, a research and software development company building institutional-grade automated trading systems. In 2025, the work rebranded to Client Growth Strategies to lead with what it had always been building toward: AI-powered authority systems rooted in genuine human connection.
When Bart talks about AI, he is not reading from a whitepaper. He is speaking from the inside.
Five Industries. One Philosophy.
The Show. The Book. The Summits.
Long before Client Growth Strategies had its current name, Bart was building one of the most recognized platforms in relationship marketing. A nationally distributed show. Significant source material for a published book by Promptings Founder and CVO Kody Bateman. Two landmark live summits that brought together the most influential voices in the field.
Where AI Meets Authenticity
Most businesses chase automation for efficiency. We chase it for scale without sacrifice, so that every prospect feels like you reached out personally, even when the system did the heavy lifting.
The businesses that will dominate the next decade are not the ones using the most AI. They are the ones using AI to amplify the human qualities their competition has automated away: genuine care, timely follow-up, and the feeling that someone actually gives a damn about you.
That is the edge Bart has been building since 1995. And since 2020, working inside a research and software development company building institutional-grade automated trading systems, he has built the technical fluency to deploy it at scale.
Technology is the delivery mechanism. Human connection is still the destination.
The Complete Authority Growth Ecosystem.
Every service CGS offers, every tool, every system, every automation, exists to help you build the market authority that makes your business the obvious choice. Found consistently. Chosen over competitors. Referred without asking. Solutions listed in CGS priority order.
Any Business Built on Human Relationships.
Bart's core belief is that the industry does not matter. The human truth does. If your business depends on connecting with people, serving them well, and earning their trust and referrals, these systems are built for you.
Your Pipeline Should Not Depend on How Hard You Are Working Today.
Most business owners are still prospecting the old way. Manually hunting leads, chasing cold contacts, watching potential clients fall through the cracks. That is not a hustle problem. It is a systems problem.
What if your business was identifying, reaching, and warming up qualified prospects around the clock, while you focused on closing and serving the clients already in front of you?
- Manually hunting leads when revenue dips
- Prospects go cold because follow-up slips
- Missed calls equal missed revenue with no safety net
- Every new client requires your personal effort to find
- Feast or famine pipeline that never stabilizes
- Competing on price because you cannot reach enough people
- Qualified prospects identified and contacted daily, automatically
- Every lead nurtured through sequences until they are ready to buy
- Missed calls trigger instant text-back, no prospect left behind
- AI agents pre-qualify and book appointments around the clock
- Predictable, consistent pipeline you can plan revenue around
- Compete on authority and relationship, not just on price
35+ years of sales instinct baked into every system. Across five industries and a dozen verticals. The difference between automation that annoys prospects and automation that earns their trust is not the tool. It is the strategy behind it.
Build the authority that makes your business the obvious choice.
Whether you are fighting commoditization, navigating industry disruption, or ready to scale past your current plateau, we bring the strategy, systems, and accountability to make it happen. Not theory. Battle-tested playbooks from four decades and a dozen verticals. Running on Bart's own business right now as proof.
A business world where technology amplifies trust and never replaces it.
Through Client Growth Strategies™, we are proving that AI-powered growth and genuine human connection are not opposing forces. They are a multiplier. The right systems, built by someone who understands both the technology and the human truth underneath it. Business is about who you serve. Authority is the result.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Bart Ratliff, Client Growth Strategies, and how the systems work.
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BNI® and Givers Gain® are registered trademarks of BNI Global LLC. Bart Ratliff serves as an authorized BNI Launch Director Consultant.
Find Out Where You Actually Stand.
29 questions. 7 categories. An instant grade from A through F. Bart reviews every result personally before any conversation. Free. No obligation. Just clarity on where your business stands right now.