Bill Rancic will address attendees at Club Industry 2010 in Chicago on Oct. 8.

Bill Rancic’s entrepreneurial beginning led him to opportunities in television, books and public speaking.

Yet Rancic, the first winner of Donald Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice,” still considers himself an entrepreneur at heart.

“That’s kind of the blood that runs through my veins,” says Rancic, who will speak to Club Industry conference attendees at 10 a.m. on Oct. 8 in Chicago.

Since winning “The Apprentice,” Rancic has added several TV shows to his resume. He is the co-star of the reality show “Giuliana and Bill” on the Style network, a show that chronicles the lives of Rancic and his wife, Giuliana Rancic, who is an E! TV host. In addition to that show, Rancic produces and stars in the A&E TV series “We Mean Business” and is the executive producer of “Repo Man,” which will begin airing on The Discovery Channel in the next few months.

Rancic also has written two books, The New York Times best seller “You’re Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life” and the follow-up “Beyond the Lemonade Stand.” The Rancics have collaborated on a new book titled “I Love You…Now What?” that is scheduled for release this month.

Rancic began his business career at the age of 23 when he started an Internet-based company called Cigars Around the World out of his 400-square-foot apartment in Chicago. The success of that company got the attention of the producers of “The Apprentice,” who chose Rancic from a pool of 250,000 applicants as one of 16 contestants to appear on the NBC show in 2004.

Landing the show changed Rancic’s career. Winning “The Apprentice” changed his life.

“I think every entrepreneur is always looking to seize opportunities,” says Rancic, 39. “With ‘The Apprentice,’ it was an opportunity, and it was an opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up. It was an opportunity for me to learn, not just about real-estate development and what businesses are like at that level, but I learned a lot about television, and I learned about promoting. It was probably the most incredible education I could have ever received because I wouldn’t have learned that in a Harvard classroom or a Yale classroom. It would have taken me decades to learn that. I capitalized on the opportunity, and I was given some pretty incredible opportunities to participate in.”

Rancic knows he’ll always be associated with “The Apprentice.”

“I think that’s something that’s going to be with me forever, and it’s not a bad thing,” he says. “I’m OK [being] the first winner of ‘The Apprentice’ because it involved a lot of hard work and a little bit of ingenuity, and I think that first season was very popular. People saw something new in television.”

NEXT PAGE: RANCIC'S THOUGHTS ON BUSINESS AND DONALD TRUMP

Listen to a short podcast of part of the interview with Bill Rancic.

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