Introduction

Have you seen Avengers: Infinity War yet? If you haven’t, why are you listening to this dumb ole podcast. Go watch this movie! Those of you still hanging around are in for quite a treat; you get to hear THE Jeremy Moore in a record-setting two podcasts in a row. I’m not saying it’s good, but he is present! That’s right! The Vanmaster has managed to make it to two consecutive podcast recording sessions. Will he make it a turkey? I’m not holding my breath. Before we jump into the show, I want to give you a bit of an explicit language warning. Usually Kevin earns the coveted iTunes explicit tag with a random cuss, but today Rob opens the show with a pretty tawdry discussion of balls.

The Show

Rob takes his first turn helming the good ship AIB and immediately runs it aground in the bay of balls. As an entrepreneur, how do you make sure important tasks get carried out in your day-to-day? Thankfully, Rob switches the “spinning plates” metaphor, but I fear the damage is already done. Kevin recommends picking two to three projects that are mission critical and making sure that each one moves forward every day. This is quite a bit easier since he has a James to take care of a lot of the little stuff. Jeremy takes that idea and breaks it down into selecting two or three rocks or milestones a day. Then, if you get one of those rocks done, you can feel good about yourself. Jeremy is obviously a man who believes in aiming for the stars and hitting the moon. James explains that he and Kevin are using Trello to help organize what they need to get done on a daily basis. It sounds like Kevin needs to start doing a better job of pulling his weight; poor James winds up doing a lion’s share of the admin stuff around the Saturday Drive office. (I promise James didn’t pay me to say that. That being said, hit me up on Venmo, James.) Rob pulls from the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, suggesting that the best way to decide what to do on any given day is to select the thing that you dread the most. The theory is that if you’re avoiding it, it’s probably best to get it out of the way.

Our Recommendations

If you’re in the mood to listen to some other, probably more entertaining podcasts, Kevin recommends checking out MaximumFun.org, a podcast network dedicated to shows about comedy and pop culture. Some of his favorites are My Brother, My Brother, and Me, Bullseye, and The Flop House. If you’re looking for quality content, and honestly, if you’re reading this, your taste may be questionable, head on over to MaximumFun.org. While you’re over there, ask if they need a highly qualified individual to write show notes. Do you love apps? How many apps would you say that you download to your phone every day? The answer: not as many as James. By the time I’ve finished these show notes, James has probably downloaded thirteen apps and deleted fourteen of them. Today, he recommends the Drafts app, which tries to simplify quickly taking notes. The biggest selling point seems to be that when the app opens, you have a new note immediately without the need to navigate. How do you send money to friends and bandmates? Rob praises the Venmo app as “much better than PayPal.” Welcome to 2018, old man Rob. He also has to humble brag about being in a band and playing the local Bacon Festival. I’d love to go to a festival dedicated to bacon; thanks for rubbing that in my face, old man Rob! Jeremy recommends Hugh MacLeod as a source of pithy and inspirational quotes and graphics. If you love business and memes, I guess this Hugh MacLeod dude will be right up your alley. I prefer to get my quotes the old fashioned way, from my crazy uncles Facebook posts.

Intro

Buckle up for a whopper of an intro full of stories, humour, and fun. Well, at least one of those. In this episode Kevin not-so-humble brags about visiting Iceland. Apparently he’s going with a company called Adventures with Geeks, which will be mentioned again in the recommendation section. Rob sounds like he’d really like to go; look for his GoFundMe page coming soon. Rob takes a deep dive into the world of Live Action RolePlay, LARP. Apparently he desperately wants to “scare some nerds,” which makes him sound like an extra from a DirecTV sequel to Revenge of the Nerds. What drove James to become a vigilante? What terrible, unspeakable horror formed his specific hatred of LARPing? Stay tuned true believer, for this episode reveals his dark origins. (Soon to be a major motion picture written by Rob Alderman and Kevin Stover. I hear Guillermo del Toro is interested in directing) ‘Nuff said! BTW, Jeremy’s still mia.

The Show

Welcome to AIB Theatre. Today’s show, Why Won’t it Blend or Appliance Un-plugged, is brought to you by Ninja Blender. It features a harrowing tale of customer support gone awry. Will Charles, played by Kevin, be able to get support for his problems? Zach, played by James, does his best to assist. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing James and Kevin already have jobs, because the reviews aren’t kind. This begs, or at least passive-aggressively mutters, the question, “How do you handle trouble clients?” James, Rob, and Kevin dive into this topic in today’s episode. Rob suggests staying humble with clients and being willing to apologize for the situation, even if you aren't taking responsibility. Often, clients just want to be reassured that you hear them, and they are usually willing to talk about why they are upset. If they aren’t willing to talk about it, then maybe they aren’t your client. According to Kevin, setting expectations is also super-important. Whether you run a product or services business, letting customers know what to expect up front can avoid a lot of confusion and pain later. That’s why I write these show notes as honestly as I possibly can; I want the reader to know what they can expect from this podcast. The hosts also discuss the idea of intervening on behalf of employees when a client becomes abusive or aggressive. Rob suggests that the customer isn’t always right, but they should always be treated with respect. I don’t even have a joke about that. That’s just a good policy. In the end, James proclaims that it all comes down to communication. So, there you go. You don’t have to listen to this episode now. With clients, with your friends, with your spouse, just communicate better.

Our Recommendations

Rob recommends an article from NPR way back in 2010 that explores how a mother’s pitch and tone soothe babies and how that same science can apply to adults. He likes to use his voice to hug clients when he’s not allowed to hug clients, which doesn’t sound creepy at all. I’m not sure how good the science in the article is, but Rob’s voice definitely puts me to sleep. Kevin shills for Adventures with Geeks, a company that organizes retreats for those who work in or around the tech industry. One of their upcoming events is an adult summer camp, and judging by the description, I would say that the people behind it got to attend “regular” summer camp instead of “Christian” summer camp. I think Christian summer camp ended more teenage relationships than...whatever teens are into these days. I may be a bit out of touch with teen culture. James decides to completely subvert the point of recommendations by recommending something that you literally cannot yet consume. He hawks his yet-to-be-named podcast about parenting, specifically dads reviewing children’s books. At the time of this writing, the podcast has still yet to be named, much less recorded. I will say this though, it will be refreshing to finally hear a middle-class, middle-aged white man telling people how to parent.  

Intro

While most businesses would pride themselves on producing great products, providing great services, or just generally making a profit, the good people at Saturday Drive know what’s really important, bananas. Yeah. You read that right. Rob opens this episode by describing how much the community loves the fact that the Saturday Drive crew eats bananas. The word that’s spread isn’t how great their products and services are. Nope. It’s the fact that they buy fruit. Did you know that anyone can just walk up and buy fruit? You can’t make this stuff up.

The Show

Jeremy’s out of town, again, and so James, Rob, and Kevin dive into the world of company culture without him. During his previous hiatus, I reported that Jeremy was in the Mediterranean, but that was a mistake. I can confirm this time, however, that he his indeed basking on the sunny shores of either Italy or Greece. Maybe both. Can I get in on the company culture that involves travelling to far-flung destinations every other week? Kevin pulls back the podcast curtain by explaining that it’s only been a few days since the hosts recorded the previous episode. Turns out, not much has changed in the three days between episodes. If both of your marketing companies were sponsoring, and speaking, at a local conference about social media, you’d probably know about it, right? Well, Rob didn’t. He uses his birthday as an excuse, and then jumps into how that’s a good example of their company culture. They are a small team who works fairly independently. With Rob’s astonishing attention to detail, that’s probably a good thing. When the hosts do get into the meat of the topic, they share that every company has a culture. Often, this culture isn’t created intentionally. James tells about how sarcastic the Saturday Drive office can be, tracing its roots back to the early days when it was just Kevin and him. It seems obvious that James and Kevin really wanted everyone in the same office so that they could be mean to them. The laid back atmosphere that existed when it was just the two of them continued to hang around after they hired employees, and that eventually caused problems. The experience and knowledge that James and Kevin had that allowed them to break up their work however they wanted wasn’t passed along effectively. If you aren’t careful, James warns, the culture that you accidentally create can cause inefficiency and lack of focus. Of course, James is just so darn sarcastic, who knows if he’s serious. If you want to make Rob happy, invite him to a place that has a fridge stocked full of sodas. That’s apparently all it takes. If you fill it, he will come. Throw in some bean bag chairs while you’re at it. Have you ever wondered why James and Kevin decided to call their business Saturday Drive? Me neither, but they’ll be sure to tell you; it’s because they like to drive around and talk about stuff. Most of their good ideas come from riding around in a car listening to Tracy Champan.

Our Recommendations

Kevin has mentioned before that he has trouble sleeping, and his recommendation is for a meditation app called Headspace. James chimes in with a different suggestion for a meditation app. James uses his passion for this meditation app Breathe to sneak in two recommendations this week. In all fairness, it’s pretty clear that he’s more passionate about his meditation app than Kevin. Rob suggests that you listen to a podcast about directing movies called The Director’s Cut. It features directors who are at the top of their game interviewing other directors about movies you may or may not have seen. I’m going to start putting “Rob recommends something movie related” in the same category as “Rob tells a story.” If you read these notes in the future, just assume that Rob tells a story about a movie he saw anytime he discusses anything. That’ll save us both some time. When James picks up a new service or technology that he likes, he tends to be an evangelist. Sometimes this fades pretty quickly as he realises that the service or technology isn’t really useful. Sometimes he decides to stick with a service. This week, he recommends Grasshopper, a service that sounds like a special cell phone for old people. In reality, the service gives you a phone number that will ring to any number of cell phones, as well as a voice mailbox. If you don’t really have a use for a landline phone, Grasshopper may be a good choice for you.

Introduction

Jeremy’s back! And he brought alcohol! This episode is brought to you by chocolate bourbon. If you’ve ever wanted to drink a brownie, just mix some chocolate bourbon with your cola of choice. It’s probably not a good idea to give these guys liquor that tastes like candy before they record an episode. If you pay attention, you can catch the moment it hits Jeremy. Think of it like a buzzed Where’s Waldo. I don’t know if you’re aware or not, but Jamesplaining is when James breaks something down so that you can understand it. Does that make sense? Sorry. I just Jamesplained Jamesplaining.

The Show

In this thrilling adventure, the hosts set out to discuss different ways of organizing businesses. Jeremy sets the stage for the hosts to talk about their experiences with different management structures and which structures they currently employ, but it quickly apparent, however, that the real discussion is about Holacracy. Do you want to know about a hot business organizational methodology from 2014? If so, you’re in the right place! To kick things off, James does his best to butcher the opening story from the book about Holacracy in which the author describes a harrowing plane flight. James’ rendition his harrowing as well, but for different reasons. With the formalities out of the way, everyone jumps into discussing what Holacracy is. God bless them, the hosts do their best to describe Holacracy, so here’s the definition I copied from Wikipedia:

Holacracy is a method of decentralized management and organizational governance developed by HolacracyOne, in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested in a management hierarchy.

Jeremy and Rob use boring ole’ traditional management structures, so they spend much of this episode asking about Holacracy. James and Kevin implemented Holacracy nearly eight months ago, and they share some of their experiences. These include both the good and bad of Holacracy, although they feel like overall it’s been a good experience. They throw around buzzwords like tensions, governance, tactical and such. If you don’t know what those are, don’t worry, James will Jamesplain it. Kevin relates that some of the biggest challenges that they’ve faced in the implementation process have been cultural, getting employees into a place where they feel comfortable addressing their tensions. Holacracy, James Jamesplains, is not designed to handle HR issues out of the box. This can be another challenge of using Holacracy; it describes how you improve how you get your work done, but the system assumes you have people in the seats that want to do the work. At Saturday Drive, James and Kevin created an HR app for Holacracy to enable employee growth and to address performance issues. At this point, I’m not sure the word app means anything. At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, you can’t call everything an app! I thought it was a computer thing. Now you can get apps for your refrigerator!

Our Recommendations

In what could be seen as a selfless plug to get himself some more credit card points, Jeremy recommends that you sign up for an American Express. He suggests that you only spend as much as you can pay off every month. I mean, it’s really not very veiled; Jeremy is trying to get you to sign up for a card so that he can get some bonus points (Aff). Rob recommends an app called Over that lets you put text on images and stuff. Rob likes the fact that he can quickly make “sharables”, which is totally a real word, on the fly, especially using client’s photos. It sounds like a fancy meme generator, and personally, I prefer memegenerator.net. If you want more information about Holacracy, James recommends the book Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World by Brian J. Robertson. I mean, you probably would have gotten there on your own; Google is a thing. James also confirms that listening to audiobooks is a valid method of consuming books. Kevin’s recommendation is a book called User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton and Peter Economy. I mean, one of the author’s name is Economy. You can’t go wrong with a book about a business topic written by a guy with Economy in his dang name!

Welcome to the show notes! I usually like to open with a snarky comment, but let’s face it, not even I can be on all the time. Let’s keep this one serious. Jeremy is somewhere in the Mediterranean, soaking up the sun and speaking Greek while James, Rob, and Kevin work away in the podcast mine. Fittingly, rather than being a meandering discussion about a single topic, this episode is made up of lots of advice nuggets for entrepreneurs and those that want to start their own business. Kevin and James have been up to their old tricks again: working together closely on a new business project. They both seem to enjoy it. Of course, it’s super top secret, though, and they still won't just tell us what it is. Well, that didn’t last very long. Rob has been writing a script for a university’s capital campaign. It’s hard to make a joke about capital campaigns. Rob has also decided that he’s too good for show prep. James kicks things off by suggesting that you should “do something you love, or don’t do it at all.” Great. I guess I don’t have to pay my mortgage anymore! He continues, “becoming an entrepreneur just because you want to work for yourself is a bad idea.” He claims he’s not suggesting that you should love everything about your business, but you should love most of it. Kevin’s first piece of advice is to find a partner; not everyone is designed to be a solopreneur. If you don’t think you’re cut out to start up things on your own, maybe you should find someone to take the journey with you. Rob suggests that this is a good fit for Kevin’s AIB nickname, The Fixer, which makes him sound like a direct to dvd movie starring Steven Seagal. Trust me, Kevin is no Steven Seagal. I doubt that Mr. Seagal has Kevin’s crippling social anxiety. However, if you are like Kevin, getting a partner can also help you avoid being the face of the company, so there’s that. Rob’s turn with the proverbial advice pick uncovers a vein about being the expert when approaching clients. If someone is hiring you to produce a product, or even to give them advice, it’s ok for them do disagree with your vision. If they do, however, it may be a good idea to suggest that they examine why they’ve paid for your expertise. You probably won’t find fulfillment being someone else’s yes man, even if they are paying you for it. Rob tells a story. I think I’m just going to omit the phrase: Rob tells a story in the future. If I ever write anything about Rob, assume he’s telling a story about it. This particular story is about his kids deciding to sell slime to their elderly neighbors and tricking the neighboring kids into thinking that they should sell their crayon scribbles as art. The hosts also opine about the need to create routine, especially in regards to exercise. At least they aren’t wrong about that. Both Rob and Kevin suggest that you should find a hobby outside of business. Kevin talks about his woodworking hobby. He seems to do that a lot. He also likes to mention his “workshop.” It’s a garage man. It’s a garage. Just stop it! Apparently, the “workshop” is a great place to transition from work to being at home and “present with his family.” Rob’s hobbies are fly fishing and Magic: The Gathering. He says that he enjoys both for different reasons: fishing is an escape to free his brain from thinking, which I’m not sure is as big a deal as he thinks it is, and MTG is a way for him to strategize outside of business. He must be doing pretty well over at the Alderman Group, because those are both really expensive hobbies. $320 for a playset of Force of Will? No thank you! The hosts discuss the spiritual nature of getting in touch with the classic elements. It all sounds a little too new-agey for me. I mean, I like classical Greek philosophy as much as the next person, but you’re tricking fish into biting a hook so that you can pull them into a world made of suffocation or you’re cutting down and a living thing to build a skeleton to hold books made of other trees that were cut down, chopped up, and smashed together. James has a much more concrete suggestion of a social media podcast. They do science with social media concepts, testing which ideas work and which ideas don’t. Apparently they have degrees in social media science, which sounds exactly like the major I’d expect of a professional football player.

Our Recommendations

• Kevin: TIP - Have a non-business hobby
• Rob: TIP - Have a non-business hobby
• James: PODCAST - Social Media Lab