Endorsements

Thank you for your four dedicated years to the publication and to me! I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you on every publication we have put out since you “signed up” as a writer for SP.

Your tenacity for pursuing articles for quarterly features has been amazing! Your ability to put “all that” into a feature is awesome!

I have appreciated your dedication to “the cause” more than I can tell you.

You have been a major contributor in the creation of a publication that receives so many kudos after each publication has been delivered to our readers—so many, in fact, that there have been times when we have had to save some of them for the next issue.

On a personal note, I have to tell you that working with you has been one of the highlights of my connection to Scandinavian Press. You have never failed to miss a deadline; you have never failed to go that extra mile (at your own expense on occasion) to get your story, and you have never failed to bring the very best to me, the Larsons, and SP. For that, I will always be grateful to and for you.

I will spend tomorrow, in part, giving thanks for my positive and constructive a relationship with you over the past four years. You have been an inspiration to me since we first “met”, and you will continue to be a friend as long as I’m alive!!!

Please keep in touch, John… I miss you already. I will be looking back to all of those issues we have created together, and remember all of the enjoyable conversations we’ve had over the past four years. You are an amazing individual, who has been blessed with entirely too much talent for only one man!!! For that, I’m thankful!

John Bechtel and I collaborated successfully for 27 months on a book project that eventually reached over 100,000 words. John is bright, diligent and self-motivated.  Beginning only with a series of discussions about relatively undefined goals and conceptual ideas, John began his research into what had already been published on our topic.  In the first six months of our project John on his own initiative purchased, read, and virtually dissected dozens of books that had been published in the previous fifteen years and who knows how many online pages, of what else had been said or written, by whom, and analyzing what new developments had been overlooked or misrepresented in the press.  From this research and our subsequent conversations, a framework or outline of my book evolved and was integrated with my own personal story and professional experiences. Without any medical background, John was a quick study with legal and medical vocabulary, grasped concepts, and was adept at organizing material and creating a theme that tied everything into a coherent whole. This was no small feat when developing a topic of such magnitude as ours. And while working at this, he was carefully listening to me express myself, and writing text that embodied my thinking, personality and passions. What could have been a painfully frustrating and even disastrous partnership developed into mutual trust and professional respect, a recognition of shared values, and friendship.  John proved to be an exceptional writer who persevered without supervision in a lengthy and complex project.  He carefully documented sources and he was true to my vision.  He did many rewrites without prompting, and endlessly reorganized material to get it right. Personally and professionally, he was a pleasure to work with.  He has my highest recommendation for your most demanding writing needs.

 

For years, I’ve created websites for individuals and corporations and one of the hardest things was to write the content, so I gave John Bechtel a shot at it. His writing was so good that I gladly paid him thousands of dollars to write all the content on my client’s sites, so it freed me to develop the look and feel of the site as well as the search engine ranking.

When John was entrusted with a writing project, all I had to do was tell the clients that he’d be contacting them and to expect great writing from him.

John took it from there and made the appointments directly, did interviews and amazing research to form the foundation of his writing. No writer I’d ever hired could compare to John’s pre-writing investment.

Later, when I talked with the clients, they loved talking to him and opened up to him. No matter how successful they were, they found that John became an entrusted friend instantly.

John worked with a calendar and would eliminate distractions in his life and focus on getting the work done. I never had to chase him down to see how things were going, he just did it on his own discipline.

As I recall, I often paid him half of the cost of the website because he created so much value for the assignment.

When one of my clients needs to get the word out fast, I often suggest a press release. Press releases can be dry and just state a bunch of facts, but John really shone in his ability to write with eloquence and make the content engaging. He was my secret weapon.

Impressed with his work, my clients recommended his work to their connections and that led to writing three books for them. He’s very good at networking and building a referral based business.

I was invited to speak at a $20,000 a seat event and I asked John Bechtel if he’d like to go. We arrived the night before the event and the facilitator took us to dinner. John hit it off so well with him that he was invited to be a surprise speaker. He mesmerized the entrepreneurial audience and they gave him a standing ovation. That’s the John I know.

Before John focused on writing, he became a full-time speaker for Fred Pryor Seminars and Skillpath. They kept him booked solid because they could count on him to do a stellar seminar. The audiences he was asked to speak to were impressive. As I recall, one was to a division of the Federal Reserve and another to a room full of doctors and engineers. There were international invitations as well.

No matter if John’s audience was the common man or the erudite, they found his insight to be invaluable.

That’s why ‘just a cup of coffee’ with John feels like an event.

When John began a website collaboration with me, he was very goal oriented.  He immediately wanted to know not only what I needed or wanted, but what I was trying to accomplish.  As he was interviewing me for the project, he was constantly evaluating the relevance of every bit of new information to see where it belonged in the narrative, or if it belonged at all.  When he was done, he had artfully woven all the essential threads into a tapestry that communicated the desired message.  He was a pleasure to work with and he delivered a beautiful product.

Kudos to John Bechtel! As editor of Scandinavian Press—the only English-language magazine in North America with news from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, I have had the good fortune to be working with writer John Bechtel. His passionate and fearless approach to achieving his objective is impressive: writing comprehensive articles about serious issues facing Scandinavia, and the world, for our quarterly publication. John has brought a new dimension to the magazine’s content, which, in turn, increases readership. Not only do I rely on John for the excellent quality of his work, in the process, I rely on his “life experience” expertise and continue to enjoy our deepening friendship.

John Bechtel is a high-end writer with an excellent command of the English language, his mother tongue. Like any artist, he understands the power of nuance, subtlety, and understatement. He uses the power at his fingertips sparingly, just enough to achieve desired goals, which is almost always to persuade. John can purposefully evoke an emotional response from those who may consider themselves beyond its reach; such as readers who seem disinterested, jaded, or too busy and overwhelmed with life, careers, or business concerns to bother.

As a translator of the EC (European Commission), where I regularly translate documents written in many different languages into my mother tongue of Swedish, I am a linguist and a lover of language, and I can tell you that John as a writer is a master of his profession. He is a talented interviewer, and it is easy for others to confide and share valuable, even personal information with him. John has an artist’s eye for the telling detail, the subtleties others will miss, and whatever the subject, he will either find or create the story that ties it all together.

I have had a lifelong passion for the culinary arts and I love the art of food preparation and presentation. If we compare the art of writing to the culinary arts, there are those who know how to make a toasted cheese sandwich or scrambled eggs, and there are those who can make a Baked Alaska or the most delicate soufflés. When it comes to writing John compares to the best chefs. If you need something quickly, John can be your ‘short order cook’ and write something fresh, wholesome, and with zing in it. And when you have a project that requires reliable research and analysis, John will serve up a presentation of unexpected elegance and clarity. Because of his reading and travels, John has global perspectives.

Great writing is a seduction, so if you have a compelling need to persuade, John is in a class of his own.

I have worked with many people over the years and by far is John Bechtel one of the most knowledgeable and confident public speakers I have ever used. His sense of business ethics, morals and overall sense of how to effectively build a team is uncanny.

If you need any materials written on any subject, I have discovered that John delves into it unlike any one I have ever seen. He totally learns every tid bit of information that is out there prior to writing anything about it. His depth and use of the English language is outstanding.

I would highly recommend John for any meeting that needs a professional yet funny speaker that catches everyone’s attention. In addition if you want to have anything written for you, John is the person to contact.

I have known John Bechtel in both a business and personal relationship for over ten years. Whoever wrote, “Until you have walked a mile in my moccasins, will you then know my journey” summarizes what sets John Bechtel apart from hired word-guns, gadflies, and PR wonks; the simple fact that he’s ‘been there—done that’. As an entrepreneur and businessman for three decades, John has known many of the gains and pains.

More importantly, what differentiates John from others is that he sincerely cares. He’s not the guy that’s going to ooze sincerity to you on the phone while billing you for every fifteen minutes. Rather, he’s the candid type that actually wants to understand what you are doing and craft your communications to meet your intents. Getting it right for you is not just his “task”, it’s his manna. And if together you have not got it right, yes, he is the guy that will go that extra mile in those moccasins for you.

In many ways you exceeded my expectations for the book. I was very impressed with the extent of your skills and the scope of the material. I did not expect such a comprehensive, well researched, and detailed composition. The investment in research time alone astounds me, and that information provides such a complete description of self-esteem. . . Thank you for investing such incredible time, effort and energy in research.

There were many, many parts of the book that I found especially well written. I love the first paragraph, but there were so many other areas where I appreciated your ability to capture my humor and way of looking at the world. Balancing the extensive information and complexity of the topic with quotations, sub-headings and personality really highlighted your professional experience and skill.

It was a pleasure to meet you and Caroline.  Dino and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and conversation with you.  I look forward to staying in contact and working with you on other articles.

Thanks for sending us your feature article on Mall of America.  It’s a terrific story and reflects well on MOA as a tourist destination for North Dakota residents and our target market – ND oil workers and their families.

Dan and I enjoyed working with you and look forward to staying in touch.

I loved the article and appreciate it so much. In fact, I really like the fact that you didn’t focus on shopping – because that is what the vast majority of reporters do. This was a refreshing take on the Mall.

I had the privilege of working with John on several projects and learned much at his side. He is a very dynamic person. His public speaking skills are in the expert category, He is relaxed and at home on the stage. Some people have a natural commanding presence, John definitely falls into that group.