This week, in episode 194, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jaci Russo talk about the new rules that may—or may not—ban non-compete clauses, increase the number of employees who must be paid overtime, and eliminate TikTok in the U.S. How much would those changes matter to each of their businesses? What might the owners do differently? Do the changes make sense? And why does it so often seem as if it’s small businesses that get caught in the cross-fire when the government tries to rein in abusive big ...
May 07, 2024•47 min•Ep. 194
This week, Shawn Busse talks about his belief that, for all kinds of understandable reasons, business owners have been fixated on marketing tactics that amount to a losing battle of digital trench warfare. Over time, he says, those tactics have come to cost more and return less. But there are alternatives, and Shawn takes us through some examples. Plus: Are there lessons for smaller businesses in Walmart’s decision to place a big bet on a premium line of food.
May 06, 2024•25 min
The wrong way to make innovation happen, Ty Hagler says in this week’s special bonus episode, is to have a great idea and then go all-in trying to create it. That, he says, is a really expensive way to find out if your idea works. The right way to pursue innovation, he says, is to take your idea to customers so you can assess the pain points and opportunity spaces before proceeding. Hagler, who is founder and CEO of Trig, an innovation and design firm in North Carolina, also says he’s learned th...
Apr 30, 2024•38 min
Okay, maybe not every business, but this week, Gene Marks tells us about a little known program in the Department of Defense that is dedicated to helping small businesses find contracting opportunities at all levels of government and even with prime contractors. The service is free, it includes one-on-one counseling, and the advisors will help you through every step of the often-frustrating application process. You might be surprised by the opportunities out there. Plus: Is inflation still a pro...
Apr 29, 2024•27 min
This week, in episode 193, Sarah Segal takes Paul Downs and Jay Goltz through her recent QuickBooks nightmare. Right before tax season, Sarah ran her P&L, and it showed a profit of $250,000—but she knew right away that that couldn’t be right. It then took a bookkeeping SWAT team to figure out what exactly had gone wrong. “I was literally on the verge of tears,” Sarah tells us. “How am I going to do this and not be late on filing my taxes? And credit to this woman, who, I swear to God, was li...
Apr 23, 2024•49 min•Ep. 193
This week, Victor Hwang, who is founder and CEO of Right to Start, talks about what he and his organization are doing to bring down the barriers that make it harder than it has to be to start and build a business. Among other things, we discuss the state-by-state progress Right to Start has been making, the drivers behind the recent surge in business starts, and the need for capital sources beyond banks and venture capitalists.
Apr 22, 2024•21 min
This week, in episode 192, special guest Jenelle Etzel, who majored in weaving, tells Shawn Busse, who majored in ceramics, why she believes attending art school and managing a punk rock band were perfect preparation for building a thriving real estate business. Her agency, Living Room Realty, has 130 brokers, roughly $5 million in revenue, and a market position that stands out among the big boys. While she once considered business a dirty word, she has embraced entrepreneurship and learned lots...
Apr 16, 2024•56 min•Ep. 192
This week, Shawn Busse talks about how much harder marketing keeps getting, especially for do-it-yourselfers. The cost of everything keeps going up, and the likely returns keep going down. As Shawn points out, it’s even getting expensive to advertise on podcasts. Wait! People pay to advertise on podcasts!!!!????
Apr 15, 2024•23 min
This week, in episode 191, Liz Picarazzi, Jaci Russo, and Laura Zander talk about what it’s been like building a business in partnership with a spouse, and they all agree on some important things. For one, they all say that, had their husband been just another employee, he probably would have been fired. All three say that in their relationships, they are the gas that drives the business, and their husband is the brake that sometimes keeps them out of trouble and sometimes frustrates their entre...
Apr 09, 2024•53 min•Ep. 191
This week, in episode 190, Jay Goltz tells Shawn Busse and Jaci Russo that, while he’s always been good with numbers, he’s never really enjoyed tracking his finances. It’s not what drove him to start a business, and over time, he stopped paying close attention. But now, after seeing his inventory levels and some big expenses get out of control, he’s diving back into the numbers and pretty much serving as his own chief financial officer, something he says he should have been doing all along. Plus...
Apr 02, 2024•51 min•Ep. 190
Gene addresses the big legal settlement in which Visa and MasterCard have agreed to cap the fees they charge merchants for five years. He explains both why many merchants are disappointed in the settlement and why he’s perfectly happy to pay those swipe fees when his big-ticket clients pay with a credit card. Plus: Gene discusses the new IRS tax rules you should know about and how the bankruptcy code has made Chapter 11 less of a defeat and more of a strategic tool for small businesses.
Apr 01, 2024•21 min
This week, in episode 189, Paul Downs, Jennifer Kerhin, and Liz Picarazzi discuss the challenges couples face when one spouse is building a business. Liz says it was important to let her husband know that she spent years working on a business plan before leaving her corporate job to start her first business. Paul explains why, when times have been tough, he hasn’t always shared the bad news with his wife. And Jennifer says too many couples planning for one spouse to start a business focus on bes...
Mar 26, 2024•47 min•Ep. 189
Obviously, there’s no one-size-fits all answer to that question, but this week Shawn Busse offers up a slew of smart considerations and guidelines to help business owners come up with an answer that makes sense for them. A couple of Shawn’s points: If you haven’t done so already, spend the money getting to know your customers better. Plus: it’s important to understand why digital marketing works for some but not for others.
Mar 25, 2024•19 min
This week, in episode 188, we offer you a taste of the 21 Hats Live event we held in Fort Worth two weeks ago. It’s a different kind of event where there are no speakers, only participants. It’s pretty much a three-day, peer-group session for business owners, where we share challenges and insights and make connections. There were 25 of us, including most of our podcast regulars. For me, the highlight was an exercise that Chris Hutchinson of the Trebuchet Group facilitates. He calls it a “Fish Bo...
Mar 19, 2024•47 min•Ep. 188
This week, Gene Marks tells us it’s time to update your clunky old technology. There was a time when he understood why owners said they were sticking with the old stuff because it wasn’t broken and they didn’t want to endure the pain of transitioning it. But those days are over, says Gene. If you have any hope of selling your business or passing it on to the next generation, it’s time to act. Plus: Why Gene thinks most owners need to get out of their offices more. And why he opposes a ban of Tik...
Mar 18, 2024•24 min
This week, in episode 187, Matt Hoying, president of Choice One Engineering, explains to Shawn Busse and Jay Goltz how he created a DIY employee-ownership plan for his firm. Some 10 years ago, Matt’s predecessor as president tasked him with selecting an ownership structure that would engage employees and help Choice One be as successful as possible. That sent Matt on a mission of discovery in which he researched the pluses and minuses of every structure he could find—including employee stock own...
Mar 12, 2024•54 min•Ep. 187
This week, the founder and CEO of Small Business Majority talks about whether he heard what he wanted to hear in Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, what he makes of recent court rulings asserting that the Minority Business Development Agency must support owners of all races, and what he makes of the growing demand from businesses for more immigration.
Mar 11, 2024•21 min
This week, in episode 186, Shawn Busse and Laura Zander discuss what exactly Laura’s job should be. She’s CEO, of course, and she’s been focused on acquisitions and growing the business, but she’s never really found someone to take over the big role she used to play, which leads to these questions: Should she go back to being her own chief marketing officer? Or does she need to go out and spend real money to hire one? And then, toward the end of the conversation, Laura actually devises a plan on...
Mar 05, 2024•46 min•Ep. 186
This week, Gene Marks offers to boldly go where no business owner has gone before. Few of us need to be convinced that artificial intelligence will be transformational, but even fewer of us have the time, energy, and capability to keep checking on which AI apps and platforms are worth using right now. Which is why Gene Marks has given himself precisely that assignment. This week, Gene reports back on what he found when he explored OpenAI’s GPT store for business owners. Did he find lots of usefu...
Mar 04, 2024•20 min
This week, in episode 185, Jay Goltz, Jaci Russo, and Sarah Segal talk about whether it’s finally time for Jay to enter the brave new world of task-management software. That’s, in fact, what his two kids in the business are encouraging him to do. As it happens, Jaci and Sarah have tried most of the project-management tools out there—Monday, Basecamp, Asana—and they kind of love them, but with one caveat: They can be a lot of work. Which is all Jay needed to hear. After that, we talk about the ch...
Feb 27, 2024•40 min•Ep. 182
All businesses have ups and downs. This week, Tracy Bech, CEO of Starboard Collectives and co-author of the “60 Minute CFO,” offers some guidance on when to ride out a slow period and when to take action. Plus, she also talks about how she’s building an AI tool to help with financial analysis and when it makes sense to hire a fractional CFO.
Feb 26, 2024•28 min
This week, in episode 184, Mel Gravely, Liz Picarazzi, and Jaci Russo talk about how they set prices. Jaci explains why she refuses to respond to requests for proposals. “We have not participated in a single RFP in 15 years,” she says, “and we won’t under my watch.” Mel explains how his construction company manages to get work despite always being among the highest-priced bidders (which is why he never gets government jobs). And Liz tells us what happened when she was forced to raise prices beca...
Feb 20, 2024•53 min•Ep. 184
This week, Gene tells Loren Feldman about a little experiment he ran recently in which he boosted a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that was designed to send people interested in his book on customer relations software to a landing page on his website. X reported that the post was a big success. But was it? Gene offers a slightly profane rebuttal. Plus: He also talks about three Jeff Bezos quotes that he believes can change how you run your business, and he explains how companies can commi...
Feb 19, 2024•22 min
This week, in episode 183, Paul Downs, Jay Goltz, and Sarah Segal talk about sexual harassment and where you draw the line with employees. Is it sexual harassment for one employee to ask another for a date? Is it sexual harassment to ask twice? Does it make sense to have a policy of zero tolerance? Or is it better to leave room for discretion and judgment? The conversation was sparked by a recent situation Jay experienced with an employee who had been with the company for almost three decades, h...
Feb 13, 2024•50 min•Ep. 181
This week, Shawn Busse, who soon will be boarding an Alaska Airlines plane made by the Boeing Company to attend the 21 Hats Live event in Fort Worth, finds lessons for smaller businesses in Boeing’s struggles. For one thing, there’s always danger when combining the cultures of two different companies. Plus: Shawn, whose company, Kinesis, has been a certified B corp since 2016, talks about whether the certification is losing its luster.
Feb 12, 2024•23 min
This week, in episode 182, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jennifer Kerhin respond to a somewhat depressing view of business ownership offered by an investor who buys businesses for a living. That view, essentially, is that for most owners, building a business is a daily knife fight of long hours, unexpected risks, slow growth, and meager returns. In this episode, I read most of the investor’s observations to Shawn, Jay, and Jennifer, and get their reactions, which hit upon a bunch of issues that ar...
Feb 06, 2024•42 min•Ep. 179
That, at least, is what Gene Marks is planning to do. Gene tells Loren Feldman that the new rules, which are scheduled to take effect in March, would have a profound impact on many businesses, including his—if they are actually enforced. But Gene’s not convinced that’s going to happen. Before you relax, though, Gene’s even more worked up about the new guidelines coming from the EEOC regarding harassment in the workplace. Very few businesses, he says, are prepared for what’s coming. One warning: ...
Feb 05, 2024•29 min
This week, in episode 181, Mel Gravely, Jaci Russo, and William Vanderbloemen talk about the possibility that, after several years of the Great Resignation and the labor shortage, some owners may have given away the store. We all know the risks of not offering employees enough. What are the risks of offering too much? How do you even know when you’ve crossed the line? The owners also discuss why this might be a good time to consider acquiring other businesses. “I think this is a time to double-d...
Jan 30, 2024•50 min•Ep. 181
This week, Gene Marks tells Loren Feldman that while he’s excited about all of the great stuff we will eventually be able to do with artificial intelligence, business owners should stay away from Copilot for now. As with a lot of Microsoft products, Gene says, you just don’t want to be an early adopter. Plus, Gene explains his not-completely-obvious fraud-prevention strategy: Make your people take vacations.
Jan 29, 2024•20 min
This week, in episode 180, Jay Goltz, Jennifer Kerhin, and Liz Picarazzi discuss their efforts to get a better grasp of what drives their profits. They ask how much of their finances they should manage themselves. And how much should they rely on an accountant or a fractional CFO? When does delegation become abdication? Jennifer says she’s benefitted from hiring a fractional CFO who has taken an active leadership role, including setting up a database that helps Jennifer see in real time whether ...
Jan 23, 2024•49 min•Ep. 180
