What’s new is new, but what’s old can be timeless. We can get obsessed with new ideas in business. An innovation. A technology. A new place to put cheese on pizza. But sometimes, a good business model is sourcing an old idea and bringing it back. As the salesman's famous closer goes, "Nobody ever regretted buying quality." That’s especially true in fashion, which we'll get to. And it’s true in farming too. When you look behind the American food distribution system, it’s kind of (pardon the pun) ...
Jul 25, 2023•28 min
There’s a well documented nursing shortage in the U.S. When Shelley Henry first started nursing, it was pretty common for one nurse to manage 10 patients. Today, it’s closer to 20. We tend to think of the nursing shortage as something impacting hospitals and primary care. But the shortage is impacting end of life care, too. Hospices need nurses, and it’s getting harder to find them as demand for hospice and palliative care is growing. Shelley spent 20 years as a hospice nurse and learned the ins...
Jul 18, 2023•28 min
Leadership is a big deal in business. It’s actually a business all its own: Companies big and small operate executive training programs and the world’s most successful entrepreneurs write best-selling books about how they got to the top and what it means to be a real leader in business. But what about being a leader in your community? That takes a different kind of training. Enter the Leadership Institute of Acadiana , and its Executive Director Katrena King . LIA operates several programs desig...
Jul 10, 2023•28 min
You know the cliche: Knowledge is power. Even Alexander the Great had a tutor while he conquered the known world. It helped that it was Aristotle. A good education is a strong indicator of future success in business and in life generally. So it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s a vibrant industry out there in preparing people for getting ahead in school. Modern education throws a lot of tests out at you. Want to go college? Take the ACT. Want to go business school? Take the GMAT. And that’s o...
Jun 19, 2023•28 min
Let’s say you’ve accomplished all of your professional goals. You’re at the top. Business is good. Life is good. What do you do? How about…something completely different? Success breeds success, but it can also stir up an appetite for new challenges. For high achievers, that can lead them to keep climbing after they’ve pushed that boulder all the way up the hill. For Michele Ezell, the last mile of that climb was the pandemic. Michele and her husband opened Tsunami Sushi , the OG sushi restauran...
Jun 13, 2023•28 min
Americans are going to get a lot older over the next 30 years. That’s not just an obvious statement about aging: the share of senior citizens in our country is projected to get much, much bigger. Researchers think seniors will account for 25% of Americans by 2060. It’s a population shift often referred to as the Silver Tsunami. The impact of that change is on us now. And it’s putting a lot of pressure on the healthcare industry. There’s greater demand for care-giving services and treatment for c...
Jun 05, 2023•28 min
There’s plenty of demand for the good life. Who doesn’t want a taste of luxury or indulgence? And certainly, we indulge a lot in South Louisiana. "You only live once" could be easily the state motto. Why not? We’re blessed to have plenty of good life to indulge here. So much so, that we yearn for it when we’re gone. For all those expats out there — and there are plenty — a taste of home means seafood. And it doesn’t get much more indulgent than oysters. Oysters The dirty secret of oysters, Boyer...
May 23, 2023•29 min
Over the last few decades, we’ve come to understand the role of private enterprise differently. There’s a call to be corporate citizens, and responsible ones at that. Responsibility can be good business. It’s part of why big energy companies have begun to shift their marketing and their products toward sustainability. Think of it this way: You need a planet to run a business on. We’ve even put a number on it because…capitalism. The World Bank estimated in 2011 that the combined value of the Eart...
May 16, 2023•28 min
What does it mean to invest in a community? Big economic development projects are usually sold that way. And if you’re cynical, it can sound a bit like hot air. If a big company puts a new factory in your town, it might bring jobs, but the investment is for the company and its shareholders. Okay, but that’s not a bad thing. That’s capitalism. But community investment has long been the purview of philanthropy. The dawn of big philanthropy was tied to robber barons. Names like Carnegie and Rockefe...
May 09, 2023•29 min
Americans spend about 300 hours a year in a car. That translates roughly into about 14,263 miles annually, at least according to a few minutes of Google research. Take the specifics with a grain of salt but nobody would would dispute that we do a lot of driving. Yes, traffic is bad in Lafayette, but mostly compared to how we think we ought to be living in a medium-sized town, not necessarily by a universal standard. By comparison, picture Atlanta during rush hour, or Los Angeles any time. But, n...
Apr 17, 2023•29 min
The more we learn about the human body, the less we seem to actually know. Medicine is always playing catch up with its own science. And more and more, the industry is moving toward individualized care, armed with metrics that help us stay on top of our wellness. What if we could catch a problem before it happens? If that’s the goal, we’re not talking about preventative medicine; we’re talking about predictive medicine. Marc Landry launched Healthy Heart Clinics and Cardio Care after he lost his...
Apr 10, 2023•29 min
Dancing is a big part of our Acadiana culture. People in Acadiana dance like nobody’s watching; specially when everybody’s watching. But dance can be more than an expression of tradition or culture. It can be therapeutic. You can look at a couple dancing as a microcosm of their relationship or you can look at yourself dancing as a way of getting in tune with your body. “Whatever the issues are in a relationship, they’re gonna come up through dance,” says Caroline Helm. Caroline Helm Huval is a s...
Mar 21, 2023•28 min
Acadiana is a culture obsessed with itself. That’s not unique, really. Regional pride is a thing in most places, wherever you go. A strong cultural identity — or more precisely, identities — can create a powerful market for artists who can tap into it. The ability to sell on social media or through e-commerce has only extended that reach. And that goes for pretty much any medium. There’s the more classical approach of an artist, like Herb Roe . Herb is best known for his rich, textured and detai...
Mar 14, 2023•31 min
When you’re a designer, you’ve often got one customer: the one right in front of you. And you’ve got essentially one product: the one you’re making. With every job, you’re building both your reputation and your portfolio. But here’s the kicker. If you’re doing custom work, then your customer is also your boss. No pressure. But pressure — and lots of it — is how diamonds are made. Jewelry makers like Steve Credeur are tasked with making not just something beautiful for their customer-bosses, but ...
Mar 07, 2023•29 min
How do you convince a customer to buy a service they don’t know they need? That’s often the steepest hill to climb for businesses that offer improvements on existing products. If solving a problem is the surest path to success, then satisfaction in the market can be a real hurdle. But if what you do works that much better than what’s available, you’re bound to blow the competition away…or maybe blast it away. Greg Free is in the media blasting business. His company, General Abrasives , is unique...
Feb 21, 2023•28 min
Let’s say you want to own a business, but you’re not sure what kind. A clever idea is probably a good place to start, but believe it or not you don’t have to have your own concept or business model to own your own. You could own a franchise. Franchises are everywhere in the American marketplace — think of ubiquitous fast food brands like McDonalds or Jimmy Johns. It’s a $500 billion industry representing 750,000 individual franchises. Owning a franchise solves a number of problems for entreprene...
Feb 14, 2023•28 min
What’s the point of working yourself stiff if you can’t take it with you when you go? Younger folks in the American workforce get it. Maybe wealth and power aren’t what they’re cracked up to be if we’re all gonna give it up when we cross into the great beyond. If Baby Boomers were work-a-holics, and Gen-Ex’ers the slacker generation, then Millennials and the generations after them have become the work/life balance generations. And that can mean leaving the runaround of a steady job. Quitting can...
Feb 07, 2023•29 min
There’s a lot more to retail than selling something a customer wants. More and more, customers want experience. They want to feel like they’re buying into something — a lifestyle, an ethos, a trend. Smart retailers, of course, know their customers. Really smart retailers know their customers better than they know themselves. Curation, then, is the name of the name. Even with a treasure trove of marketing data available at your fingertips, selecting what you sell is still a challenge. That’s how ...
Jan 24, 2023•28 min
Variety is the spice of life. Right? Well, in Louisiana spice is the spice of life! Or maybe flavor. It’s beyond cliche that we like things spicy here. Although most cooks and chefs will tell you we like things well-seasoned. No surprise then, that seasoning is a big business in this area. There are no shortage of homegrown seasonings or seasoning companies. Every family has their own favorite blend. So why not have a blend you can make on your own — and make a buck off of? Brothers Troy and Zo ...
Jan 17, 2023•28 min
Let’s talk about space. Not outer space — although we might get to that later — but the spaces we live and play. On Earth, it’s a limited resource. Which makes it ideal for a business venture. You might find yourself standing in front of a strip of vacant land and say to yourself, "How do I turn this into something that makes money?" Or you might say, "What if it was still…space?" In a nutshell, that’s what happened with Moncus Park — if you gloss over some classic Lafayette political purposes. ...
Jan 10, 2023•28 min
There’s a lot of business that happens in your home. More and more, it’s become the center of commerce. And that’s not just because of big delivery services. It takes a lot of products to run a home. The essence of American consumerism is convenience. We’re all thrilled to spend a buck to do it the easy way. Think about it: When was the last time you changed your oil? Sure, you could do it. But that would take an hour. There are all kinds of chores we need to do and, like changing oil, forget to...
Nov 21, 2022•27 min
Yoga is crazy popular in the United States. And over the last decade, it’s only gotten more popular. In 2021, 34 million Americans took a yoga class. That’s up 15 million from a decade earlier. And the industry has adapted to Western exercise habits. It’s not a strictly spiritual practice here. It’s a way to build muscle tone and balance. It’s also a very competitive industry. Dozens of yoga studios have come and gone in Lafayette over the years. Toni Heinen spent much of the last decade as a Pi...
Nov 15, 2022•27 min
The goal of pretty much every business is to grow. It’s the beating heart of capitalism. But scaling up is complicated. The bigger you get, the bigger the problems get. And it’s not a 1:1 ratio. The learning curve can get steeper and steeper as your operation adds new locations, new employees, new revenue streams. Growing pains, however, are a good problem to have. Yes, the struggle is real. But if you’re doing it right, so is the payoff. Corey McCoy and his partners at Kitchen on Klinton learne...
Nov 08, 2022•28 min
"Be yourself." It’s what we’re all taught from an early age. When you get a little older you find out the world around you doesn’t make that so easy. Taboos are stubborn. And even as we get more comfortable talking about sensitive or personal subjects — it can feel daunting to open up. That’s where the idea of “safe space” comes in. It’s maybe a more common practice in psychotherapy and counseling. But it’s emerging in public spaces too. And just in time. The world isn’t getting less complicated...
Oct 25, 2022•30 min
It’s beyond a cliche at this point to say that folks in Acadiana have a special relationship with food. Whole towns are defined by their food festivals. You’ve got your gumbo festival, your rice festival , your sweet potato festival , your crawfish festival - in the case of Delcambre - your shrimp and petroleum festival . Of course, that’s thinking about food as culture or as commerce. More essentially: Food is nourishment. You can’t live without…and some might say you can’t really live with it....
Oct 17, 2022•29 min
Selling or buying a house can be a slog. And that goes for both real estate agents and folks in the market. It’s an industry ripe for revolution. Many have tried. And the results have favored one side of the transaction over the other. The MLS — multiple listing service — added tremendous value to the role of the real estate agent. Then Zillow came along and empowered the buyer and seller. Barret Blondeau wanted to find a way to empower both . Barret’s startup platform Falaya — like Atcha-falaya...
Oct 11, 2022•28 min
What do you actually want to be in your life? As a kid you can dream about being an astronaut or brain surgeon or sports superstar. As an adult it’s not so easy to answer that question, and it's especially difficult if life has thrown you a curveball and if you’re navigating trauma or hardship. In that case, when you're struggling to put one foot in front of the other, "Purpose" might be the last thing on your mind. But purpose might be the thing you need most. That’s Kandice Bateast’s theory. B...
Oct 04, 2022•29 min
Most customers are looking for value. They want the best product they can get at the best price. And the best price usually means the cheapest. No one haggles up. In the jewelry business it kind of works the other way. Diamonds aren’t just precious; they’re priceless. "Priceless" is another word for "expensive." Consider the tradition of spending three months pay on a diamond engagement ring. The whole concept is about measuring how you love someone by how much you spend on them. In that environ...
Sep 27, 2022•28 min
Don’t believe what they tell you. Life has a second act. In fact, some lives have three acts or four or five or maybe nine if you’re a serial entrepreneur. The heart of business is creativity: the desire to make something new. The twist is that you want to make money on it. But for some entrepreneurs, the goal is bigger than that. Noble pursuits are much easier to pursue if you’ve already struck gold. In other words, folks some folks pursue passion projects instead of retirement. And they do tha...
Sep 20, 2022•31 min
Here’s a not-so-fun fact: A family of four wastes $2,200 worth of groceries every year. Fortunately, there’s a tasty way to solve that problem. Leftovers. Leftovers put the Thanksgiving turkey in your turkey sandwich, or the Chinese takeout in your fried rice. Well, how about making a burger out of yesterday’s gumbo? Wait, what? Susanne Duplantis describes this as “Thinking outside the icebox.” Susanne is a blogger and cookbook author who reheated her career in the restaurant industry into a bra...
Aug 15, 2022•28 min
