Small Business Show

Can you work from anywhere? Is your dream to create a business that can be managed from Thailand, Europe, Florida and anywhere in-between? If so, you need to meet the folks from Jumpanzee. Join us on episode 117 of the Small Business Show! After spending years working for Ginormous Corp, David Denning and his wife Elle wanted to own a business that would give them the flexibility to live anywhere on Earth for months at a time. Jumpanzee, a branding, design and web management firm, allowed them to do just that. After spending time discussing the challenges of running your business from an island, we jump into a discussion of distinguishing yourself in a crowded marketplace without getting into a race to the bottom on pricing, how to manage customer expectations and understanding that you can’t be everything to everyone and still be the best at what you do. It wouldn’t be a Small Business Show interview without finding out about David’s “best” mistake that taught him some powerful

We’re strong proponents of finding something you love to do and creating a business around it. Lance Lewsader had such a great time getting out of an escape room attraction a couple of years ago that he decided to create his own and Bolt NWA was born! Bolt NWA is an Escape Room Experience where customers have one hour to find clues, solve puzzles and work together to escape the room. Bolt has three rotating concept rooms, including Locked!, The Vault and Day Dream. Lance and his team have created a successful business while getting involved closely with their community to serve multiple “bottom lines”. We start the show with your co-hosts Shannon and Dave getting educated about the Escape Room phenomenon, a fast growing attraction that is increasing in popularity around the country. Lance spends some time discussing Bolt’s history and how they have grown the business quickly, while connecting with their local community and charity organizations. Not content to just enjoy fast growth of

Are you using video to market your Small Business? What problems does it solve and how about problems it can create? Join us today on the Small Business Show where we meet Adam Rahn of Droi Media to find answers to these questions and learn about Adam’s journey from freelancer to Small Business owner. Adam shares his surprise at just how many “hats” he is now wearing to get his business up and running and how to manage those non-billable hours that can eat up your time as a Small Business owner. Dave and Shannon suggest diving into the EMyth book to learn more about working “on” your business instead of always “in” it and developing an org chart, even if your name fills every job duty. We also spend some time talking about ways to promote yourself as an expert in your community, how to say no to new business when it is not in your (or your clients) best interest and what methods work well for communicating with new clients. Winding up the show, we focus on the importa

Have you been trained in Human Resource management? Things like legal hiring practices, at-will employment, harassment policies and employee manual development? We didn’t think so. HR issues can plague small businesses of all sizes, especially once you hit the magic 50-employee number that activates all kinds of regulations and requirements. You need some help! Today on the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon meet and talk to Kelly Loudermilk, founder of BuildHR, a human resource outsourcing and consulting firm that can make your Small Business life much better. Come along for the discussion and learn how a few quick questions at a Rotary function set Kelly on the path to launch her own Small Business to help other business owners succeed, while not having to worry about their HR compliance issues. We touch on topics including recognizing your own expertise to create a business, why you need an employee manual and best practices during the hiring process – because you just never know if that que

In your Small Business, do you value being told when you are wrong? Would you like to have a Revenue Stack that generates cash from multiple sources? Do you know what the Scotty Principle is? Join us on Episode 113 of the Small Business Show for these topics and more! We all love it when we’re right. But as you know, Dave and Shannon love hearing about mistakes, the “wrongs” that teach us all so much. Are your employees or colleagues comfortable telling you when you’re wrong? Do you encourage it? Dave spends some time on the show explaining a new policy he’s enacted to be sure this happens in his Small Business. During the past year, we’ve discussed Scott Adams’ book and his Talent Stack concept. Shannon takes the stack concept and applies it to Revenue, discussing concepts to insure you’re not relying on just one source of cash to fuel your Charmed Life. We’ve invited some excellent guests to join us on the Small Business Show in the near future to discus

We often ask our guests on the Small Business Show to tell us about their biggest mistake in business, as well as what advice they would have given themselves if they could go back to when they were just getting started. A very common response: Better accounting, better bookkeeping! On today’s episode, we are thrilled to have Justin Sisley of Digidern Bookkeeping as our guest to discuss the how and why of keeping track of your cash, as well as lessons from his own business experiences. The show begins with a discussion about what makes a good bookkeeper, how NOT to choose one and what to look for when searching for someone to help guide your accounting decisions. We quickly move into business strategy topics such as pricing your services, replicating yourself to grow (can you?) and the best marketing practices for service and consulting businesses. As the show proceeds, we get back into some accounting basics, such as not doing your own payroll and how critically important it is to keep up with your boo

Today on the Small Business Show, we discuss the launch of the Apple Market Forum, Dave’s new business venture with longtime colleague, Paul Kent. Shannon gets a chance to quiz Dave about the impetus for starting AMF and some of the juicy details behind the concept for the event that will be held this summer in Silicon Valley. During the course of the show, we discuss some critical aspects of partnerships including differing skill sets, mutual expectations and managing different types of communication. Other topics include finding an expert in a different field than your own to partner with, limiting the launch size of a new business and developing no-nonsense, clear communication with your business partners. We wrap up the show with a discussion about feeling nervous or apprehensive can be a good thing and the trick of insuring your success (or failure) by your thoughts. Join us today for these topics and more! Then jump over to the Small Business Show Support Group to share your comments. Chapters/Tim

What’s in a name? Everything when it comes to your company or brand! As founders, owners and stewards of Small Businesses, we all know how important your company or brand name is. Joining us today on the Small Business Show, Mike Pile, Founder of Uppercase Branding discusses his own business as well as sharing tips and methods for coming up with great names. Mike discusses how prioritizing tasks and projects when you are the boss can be one of the most challenging adjustments after leaving a corporate job, along with being sure to disconnect at the end of the day to keep your creative juices flowing. We then move on to discussing how Uppercase got its start and what marketing methods worked the best for them. You might be surprised to hear what traditional methods produced the best results. Later on the show, we spend time talking about how to come up with a great name for your business or brand with some examples of good and bad. Listen in to your co-hosts Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean and then post y

We began episode 109 of the Small Business Show with a plan to chat with Bob LeVitus about his new book, Working Smarter for Mac Users. We talked about the book of course, but we also covered a treasure of information about being a “Solopreneuer” for 20+ years and how creating discipline techniques can be a path to success. Bob considers himself to be “virtually unemployable” and perhaps that has opened the doors for him to become an author with over 80 books to his name, a regular contributor to the MacObserver and a tech columnist for the Houston Chronicle. We jump right into one of the most critical issues to being successful when working on your own: being disciplined enough to get the work done on and done on time. Bob uses the Pomodoro technique that blocks out 25-minute time-frames with no interruptions to keep on task. Join us today if you find yourself easily distracted and have trouble getting things done – there’s some great tips that we think will benefit all of

Problems – we all work on solving them every-single-day. Maybe the solution to a problem is the entire reason for your business to exist in the first place? Today on episode 108 of the Small Business Show, join Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean as they focus on problem solving for your Small Business. Here’s some of the good stuff we covered on the show today: Tips to get you and your customer on the same side when trying to solve a problem – a critical maneuver to remove the “us and them” mentality when problem solving. Managing customer expectations to avoid problems in the first place. How to deal with problems when your Small Business is the customer. Getting past the automated systems to work with real humans. Using Google Docs to document, share and track access to your problem. Using storytelling to get people on your side that can help solve your problem. And much more! Join us on the Small Business Show and then click over to the Small Business Support Group to share your t

What if you were tasked with taking a thriving brick and mortar business with an established clientele and transitioning it to an ecommerce business selling a completely different product line to a new demographic? How would you handle the stress of trying to keep existing customers happy while attracting new customers to grow the business? Sara Beznicki and Isabelle Tan jumped into this situation in 2015, leaving the corporate world to successfully launch A Gilded Leaf to find new customers and growth, while protecting the companies existing customer base. Join us today on the Small Business Show to hear about how the company sells on multiple marketplaces and converts customers to direct purchasing from their website, how independent user testing helped to change their website design and how focusing on specific customer groups rather than just sheer numbers has helped the business grow. After the show, join in on the conversation on the Small Business Support Group!  Chapters/Timestamps: 00:00:00 Small Bu

How many tasks are you “managing” at one time? How effective are you while doing those things and how does multitasking impact your creativity? Join us this week on episode 106 of the Small Business Show and find out how your hosts deal with the urge to instantly respond to Slack posts and Messages. Dave brings up the concept of Spotlighting vs. Multitasking after Shannon explains his typical method of quickly jumping in and out of many different tasks during the day. We also discuss ways to push back on distractions and how to bring back some of that missing downtime in your life. Finally, since the guys love “Spotlighting” from one topic to another, you’ll here about the concept of allocating as much time to the news as it impacts your life. This proportional allocation can help to put things in perspective. So, turn off all those distractions and listen in to this episode of the Small Business Show! Chapters/Timestamps: 00:00:00 Small Business Show #106 February 15, 2017 00:0

The thought of even pretending to fail is anathema to your hosts on the Small Business Show. However, Dave came across the concept of the Pre-Mortem and the guys go all-in today to see how it works. “A pre-mortem — also known as a premortem — is a managerial strategy in which a manager imagines that a project or organization has failed, and then works backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure of the project or organization.” Can you see why this kind of freaks us out? Your Purveyor’s of Positivity, your Champions of the Charmed Life don’t like to let the concept of failure get in the way of their ideas. This has worked for both Dave and Shannon for decades, launching new businesses and letting new ideas develop before they get squashed by negativity. But, we think this Pre-Mortem idea has some real value and on this episode of the Small Business Show, we turn the tables and tear into our own show using the pre-mortem technique. So, how did we do? Listen in to fin

If you had the choice, would you continue the traditions of a multi-generational business that provided decades of support for those that came before you? Or would you turn things upside down and commit to growing the business and challenging yourself (and your company) to embrace new technology, new customers and a new workforce? If you are a Small Business Show listener, we think we know what your answer is. Join us today as we spend some time with David Oliva of RD Appliance Service as he describes the journey from a self-employed entity founded over 50 years ago to a fast growing company that embraces change and challenges traditional methods to become the very best they can be. During our interview, we covered a ton of great Small Business topics such as working with your spouse, expansion with new employees, raising your prices and finding a new high-end service niche and much more. Listen in to episode 104 of the Small Business Show, then jump over to the SBS Support Group on Facebook to share your com

Jay Gentile has a passion for saving time, his clients as well as his own! What began as a mobile product repair business, led to SEO and web design and finally into application development and the BoosterBots family of marketing apps. Join us today on the Small Business Show and learn how Jay made the transition from his first two businesses to ultimately creating a company that gives him the reward of helping people succeed along with the freedom and flexibility to lead his own Charmed Life. During the interview, we discussed leaving the corporate world to begin a new business, learning about SEO and PPC advertising to help clients and then using it to grow his own company and why following his interests has been so important. We then jump into discussing the importance of telling your personal story when marketing your company, how to offer long term support on products sold with a one-time fee and sticking to niche markets where you can have a big impact. Listen in to learn about BoosterBots success and m

When Tyler Merritt noticed that his good friend was running a growing appliance repair business with no software to track accounting, schedules or workers, he did what good friends do: he offered to help build a customized application for the business. The guys spent about a year putting together the app and since they figured that most small service businesses had the same problems, they decided to launch Field Harmony to help service companies manage all aspects of their operations.  The goal was to help their own business, contribute to the success of others and then use the revenue from Field Harmony to “purchase our time back from the world”. On this episode of the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon spend time learning about Tyler’s journey and what it took to get Field Harmony from an idea to an actual product that could be sold. We discuss partnerships, marketing, trusting your employees, the importance of asking potential customers if they would actually use your solution and much

What’s more difficult? Starting up a new company or taking over and changing the culture of a 4th generation small business? Join us today on the Small Business Show with our guest Rick Stuart from Listo, a company founded in 1921! How would you handle taking over and managing employees that have known you since you were a kid? What about “updating” the culture of a company almost a century old? Would you rush in and be in a hurry to make changes to take advantage of current market opportunities, or would you take your time before you started making changes? Dave and Shannon explore these questions and more on today’s show. During the conversation with Rick, we learn about the importance of pivoting into new markets (sound familiar?), going “low-tech” and getting smaller to grow. Listen in to learn about how Rick adapted himself and his small business to keep it moving beyond the first 100 years. Chapters/Timestamps/Stuff Mentioned 00:00:00 Small Business Show #101 January

Welcome to the 100th episode of the Small Business Show! As they begin 2017, Dave and Shannon take a look back at some of the highlights from last year in the advice and how-to categories. Your hosts revisit tips and tricks from 8 of their favorite episodes and wrap up the show with a reminder about finding ways for your business to enrich your personal life. Join us today and then share your story on the Small Business Support Group! Chapters/Timestamps 00:00:00 Small Business Show #100 January 4, 2017 2016 Year in Review: Advice/How-to 00:01:13 Small Business Support Group 00:02:32 Ep52 – Executive Summary – Get ready to do yours. Then share with us! 00:07:15 Ep55 – The Sammy Hagar show! – Learning from Sammy to make your customer feel like they are the most important to you. 00:09:25 Ep57 – Slack – you need to be using it if you are not already. 00:12:35 Ep65 – Scott Adams’ “How to Fail at Almost Everything & Still Win Big” – Definitely the most men

As we wrap up 2016 with our last Small Business Show episode of the year, Dave and Shannon take a look back at some of the highlights of their favorite interviews from the past 12-months. Join us today we we revisit some of these moments that stuck with us! Chapters/Timestamps: 00:00:00 Small Business Show #99 December 28, 2016 00:02:06 Year in Review Interviews 00:03:06 Ep79 – Greg Mercer of JungleScout – Still one of my favorite interviews of the year. 00:08:25 Ep89 – Harald Sinow – Still impressed by his victory lap 00:10:09 Ep56 – Paul Goodman/PuraVida – The Beer Test in action! 00:14:07 Ep61 – Bob Grewal of Seapoint Business Advisors – selling your business. 00:16:10 Ep83 – Paul Downs & “Boss Life” 00:18:42 Ep63 – Bryan O’Connell from Meras Engineering – managing growth and finding and advisory group 00:21:10 Ep77 – Tim Cote – Commonwealth Foreign Exchange. – Another beer test success story – killer execution

What would happen if a favorite business that you visit often suddenly began introducing political comments in the mix of their marketing or posting political signs in their store. Would you respect their right to do so, even if you disagreed with their politics? Join Dave and Shannon on episode 98 of the Small Business Show as they discuss the pros and cons of mixing politics with your Small Business. The discussion begins with Shannon discussing one of his favorite, daily news sites that has recently begun introducing political links and commentary into their daily content. Can you successfully mix your political beliefs and your business? Maybe that attracts customers to you or maybe it’s a disaster? Your hosts try to look at all angles of this topic as well as throwing in a few tips about creating your Charmed Life along with your Small Business. Listen in and then share your thoughts on our Facebook Small Business Support page! Chapters/Timestamps: 00:00:00 Small Business Show #98 December 21, 201