Introduction

Hello dear reader. It’s been a while.

When the boys at Adventures in Businessing asked me to come back and do show notes, I initially resisted. Since AIB stopped recording a few months ago, I’ve been working on an emu farm up state. It’s been really peaceful. Contrary to popular belief, the emu is a very serene creature.

Since you are reading this prose, obviously I decided to come back. What drew me away from my zen emus? Unfortunately I was just a volunteer on the emu farm. And there weren’t technically any emus. And by volunteer I mean squatter. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with some local authorities and the owner of the farm.

I’ve been able to do a lot of soul searching in the past few months, and I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m no longer the cynical, snarky notes writer that you’ve come to know and love. Hopefully you can learn to love the new, more centered me.

Well, that’s enough about me for a bit.

Cue the Thin Lizzy; the boys are back in town.

The Show

There isn’t really a topic for this episode. I’m sorry.

Jeremy discusses a troubling rash.

Kevin removes his mouth.

Rob has started brushing his teeth on a dentist recommended schedule.

James reacts to the craziness around him.

Our Recommendations

James’s recommendation is for a book called Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success. It’s about sleight of hand magic, but James suggests that you can learn a lot about manipulating the attention of your audience, whether that’s an audience for your magic show or your brand.

Kevin revels in the fact that the University of Tennessee Volunteer football team defeated the University of Kentucky Wildcats. He went to the game, and his tip is that you can trade your tickets to scalpers for better seats. Of course, you should proceed with caution, and none of us here at AIB condone illegal activities.

Rob’s tip and trick is a weight loss plan that he’s used to lose over 60lbs. Optavia is a meal planning and diet company that will send you pre-packaged snacks and meals to help you lose weight. The trick, though, is that you’re eating mostly fuel every few hours throughout the day, small snacks that keep you going, but not a full-size meal. It’s been really helpful for Rob, so you should check it out maybe.

Jeremy recommends that you buy a Hardwick blazer, a somewhat expensive suit jacket made in Cleveland, Tennessee. It’s high quality and will last you a while. It’ll also make you look fancy.

Introduction

I was going to start the notes for this episode off with a joke about Jeremy not being on the show, but let’s face it, that’s the normal at this point. The real joke would be if Jeremy actually showed up to record one week. James has done us all a massive favour and kept the original intro, rather than switching to Rob and Kevin’s acapella version. James also has been torturing his son by putting ointment in his eyes for the past week or so.

The Show

The hosts open the show discussing the recent Bonlife experiment with going cashless. Lots of people that have never been to the coffee shop have lots of negative opinions. Rob wants to know how Bonlife plans to handle negative feedback, and James reiterates the experimental nature of business. Do you like America’s Got Talent? Because James does. His love of the show is actually a bit concerning. In order to introduce today’s main topic about business in ethics, James gets into some AGT conspiracy theories. (AGT is how real fans refer to the show) Is it unethical for businesses to run “sales” that aren’t really “sales?” Should retailers drive conversions with calls to action like “sale ending in 1 hour” if that sale never actually ends? If you want to hear what these dufuses have to say, you should listen!

Our Recommendations

James doesn’t have a recommendation. His life is full of the dull and mundane. Maybe if you have a really cool tip or trick, you could throw it James’s way. I think he’d appreciate it. Kevin recommends that you don’t buy stock in Helios & Matheson Analytics, Inc. (HMNY). The parent company of Movie Pass has sunk into penny stock territory after several quarters of losses. As of this writing, it’s less than two cents per share. Mostly I think that this recommendation was a jab at James for buying in when the stock was at a little over four cents. Rob’s tip and trick is the YouTube Kids app. Are endless summer days of kids crying “I’m bored” getting you down? Do you just need a little more “me” time to drink a beer or go fly fishing? If any of those sound like you, Rob suggests that you fire up the YouTube Kids app and let them go to town. Unlike the regular YouTube app, YouTube Kids has filters to ensure that children aren’t exposed to violent or suggestive content. I’d caution parents that the app is also full of videos of children opening surprise eggs. Like. Hundreds and thousands of videos. Why do children like watching other children open surprise eggs??!?

Introduction

When the James is away, the rest of the hosts of AIB will play. In a very strange turn of events, James is the only host missing from this episode. That’s right, there’s a Jeremy, but not a James. In his absence, the hosts decide to create a Jamesisode, or an episode dedicated to James. What follows is a bit weird and unconventional. Especially the intro.

The Show

To kick off the Jamesisode, Rob asks the hosts what they did with James this week. Jeremy’s been in Dubai, so he didn’t do anything with James. Kevin continued to fire James from working on their new Ninja Shop project. Rob asks everyone how they met James. Jeremy talks about how he came to the church that James was pastoring at the local movie theatre. His family visited, and he thought James was great. Kevin met James at a different church where James was the assistant pastor. They got to know each other, became best friends, and tried starting lots of different businesses. Rob tells a story about how he met James at Bonlife, the local coffee shop that James now owns. James sat at the same table everyday and eventually Rob began talking to him about business stuff. With the How I Met Your James portion out of the way, the hosts discuss an experience at a local business and some of the lessons that entrepreneurs can learn from it. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a great experience. The hosts bring out a few points:

• It’s easy to muddle your vision when you are starting your business. Even if you start with a great concept, it can be tempting to enlarge your vision to the point of dilution.
• If your business has a retail component, make sure that your space is appropriate for your needs. Having a space that’s too large or too small will harm your business.
• Make sure that your core competency as a business comes through to your customers.

Our Recommendations

In a very Jeremy move, he recommends that you buy a Tesla. But not just that, he recommends that you use his special offer code to get you free charging for life. (Jeremy insisted that I put the bold on there.) Kevin recommends getting a James as a best friend. But you can’t have the James James. That one’s already taken. Find another James. I guess. Rob’s tip and trick is to get a Pop Socket. No, that’s not a dislocated hip or shoulder. It’s a cool newfangled handle for your smartphone. It sits on the back of your phone and telescopes outward to make a handle or a stand if you want one. Rob’s into all the cool kid trends.

Introduction

It might come as a shock to you, dear listener, but Jeremy of Jeremy Moore presents Jeremy Moore’s Adventures in Businessing with Jeremy Moore is on vacation. Again. The remaining hosts spend the opening of the episode commenting on Jeremy’s apparent mid-life crisis. He sold his business, bought a Tesla, and is taking a trip around the world without his family. I mean, it does sound like a mid-life crisis. Rob, Kevin, and James have a good laugh at Jeremy’s expense, but to be fair, he could have rebutted had he not been on his Rumschpringe.

The Show

In this episode, the hosts, minus Jeremy, discuss how to handle competitors. Rob regales us with the tail of two competitors: one he has loved, and one he has hated. Or, more correctly, one tolerates him with a modicum of professionalism, while the other is openly hostile, going as far as to warn possible clients not to use his services. He suggests that you should always deal with competition in a professional manner, and proves how professional he his by not giving the name of the local competitor that hates him. James and Kevin talk about how different competition is within the WordPress space. Apparently, they are friends with most of the forms businesses within their space. James even points out that Kevin is wearing one of their competitors’ t-shirts. All three regular hosts agree that you should focus on your own business, while keeping an eye on competitors. Kevin gives the analogy of driving a car: you have to keep your eyes forward to see where you’re going, but you always glance up in the rearview or side mirrors every so often. Treat your competition like they are your mirrors.

Our Recommendations

James wants you to use an app to help your kids learn to do chores around the house. Chore Monster helps you gamify the act of doing chores. Children can do chores for a chance to spin a wheel, earn monsters, win prizes, or earn toys. Man. These kids have it so easy. When I was a kid the only Chore Monster was my mom as the threatened to beat me with a belt if I didn’t do my chores. Rob’s tip is to cancel your Movie Pass if you haven’t already. He tells the story about how he once spent a few weeks sending faxes and reports to an empty building. He’s moved on to the AMC monthly movie pass. You might want to buy some Movie Pass stock, though. Rob thinks that it might rebound enough to make you some money. Kevin recommends that you listen to a show that Rob is often on called Man Up America. In case you didn’t know, Kevin is a pretty liberal guy, while the hosts of Man Up America have fairly conservative viewpoints. He claims that he doesn’t actually agree with the hosts on many issues, but enjoys the fact that they try to have an honest and intellectual debate. I wonder what that feels like? Anyone know of a show that needs someone to write show notes?

Introduction

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Rob is not on this episode of AIB. Through some misalignment of the stars, Jeremy is actually present, however, and so the show must go on. Rob’s absence must have flustered the group, because they skipped the witty banter about what happened in their week that usually opens an episode. I guess you’ll have to just skip to the next section and miss my snarky remarks about their introduction.

The Show

Today our hosts discuss what it takes to create wow experiences for customers. Maybe they should have started with something like, “How to create wow experiences for podcast listeners,” because they definitely haven’t figured that one out yet. Without Rob’s dulcet tones elucidating the audience with a story, James, Jeremy, and Kevin get the point rather quickly. I don’t know how to feel about the lack of Rob-story. The thought that I actually missed them on this episode makes me think that I’m suffering from some kind of Stockholm syndrome. If you’re out there, reading this, send help. Regardless of the business that you’re running, the hosts suggest, you can create positive experiences for your customers that can help them become rabid fans. They point to examples like Google and Apple, who tend to put time into the little things, like the product packaging, as well as the product itself. Jeremy relates a story, although not as well as Rob would have, about how Delta picked him up in a Porsche to help him make his connecting flight. That felt more like a humble brag than advice for how to create raving fans. Kevin suggests that the most remarkable customer service experiences he’s had are when businesses pay attention to the small details. TL:DR - Thoughtfulness is all it takes to create wow moments for your customers. Make use of small opportunities, especially those opportunities that aren’t very costly, like sending a handwritten note.

Our Recommendations

Last time, Kevin recommended a website to learn development called CodeCademy.com. Today he follows up that with a recommendation for another learning resource called Udemy.com. We get it. You want people to learn development. Sheesh. Can you come up with something original already? Do you believe in magic? Because James does. He clarifies that he doesn’t believe in voodoo magic, or spells, but sleight of hand and various mundane tricks. As he’s gotten back into learning new sleight of hand techniques and card tricks, James has realised that he can apply things to his businesses. For example, magicians don’t use the word distraction. Instead, they talk about attention management. I want to make fun of James for all this, but it kind of takes care of itself. Jeremy likes to have lots of cars at once. He especially likes new cars, and his recommendation is for a subscription that lets him get new cars more often. Volvo recently rolled out a program that allows you to lease a car for one to two years. The payment includes insurance, and you can trade the car in for a new one at the end of the term; think of it like a cell phone plan for cars.

Introduction

Rob’s story about nearly killing a child in his care dominates the intro discussion. Apparently, one of his son’s friends was hanging out at Rob’s house, which he’s dubbed the “cool house,” when he nearly slit his wrist. Rob tells the harrowing tail of driving the young man to the hospital. If you have children, please be wary about sending them to Rob’s house to visit. He leaves old machinery and sharp objects strewn about his house.

The Show

It’s Jeremy’s turn to drive, and so he decides to push the car off the cliff with Rob, James, and Kevin inside. As is usual with this podcast, the car plummets off the cliff and onto the jagged rocks of reality. On the way down, the hosts discuss how to test if a business idea is a good one, or just indigestion. Unfortunately, they didn’t ask that same question when they decided to start this podcast. James says that a good way to test ideas is to ask how many times it comes up in conversation and his own thought process. Creating things for your own business consumption is also a great way to make sure that ideas are worthwhile. Jeremy says that a good idea can be adjacent to your current market. If you have a current user base, you may be able to figure out what they are asking for and deliver a good solution. Kevin suggests that it can be a good idea to find a crowded space and try to figure out what providers in that space aren’t doing well. He states that you can get this data by finding where the customers in the space gather and listen to their complaints and suggestions. Thankfully, this show is one of the shortest AIB episodes on record.

Our Recommendations

If you’ve always wanted to become a code jockey, Kevin has a great recommendation for you. He’s been using CodeCademy to learn a new programming language and says that he’s really enjoyed it. There are courses for learning nearly any programming language that you might be interested in. I don’t know how many listeners to AIB want to learn to develop, so that seems like a bit of narrowcasting to me. Do you like listening to podcasts? Are you looking for some fresh new content recommendations? I mean, if you’re listening to AIB, you probably need to find some good podcasts to offset this one. Rob thinks you should listen to a podcast called iReckon by his friend Adam Lowe. iReckon is a podcast that organizes and presents data about controversial topics from a pragmatic conservative perspective. James recommends that you clean up your desk. Seriously. That’s his recommendation. It seems a bit presumptuous on his part to assume that your desk needs a good cleaning. James says that he thinks much better when his desk is clear of clutter and junk. I’m not sure that he’s ever had a clean desk, though. So, take his advice with a grain of salt. Just don’t spill that grain of salt on James’s desk. This episode, Jeremy passes responsibility for giving his recommendation to his youngest son. Ben recommends that you go and watch Antman & The Wasp. I don’t want to make fun of Ben, so I’ll just leave this one there.

Introduction

Rob and the guys have been busy cleaning house and merging businesses. Kevin gets a little crazy with the English language. Apparently he likes to verb his nouns.

The Show

This episode the hosts discuss mergers and acquisitions. I’ll just cut right to it; Jeremy is going to be joining Kevin and James at their company. They just dropped that on the listening audience and Rob at the same time. Kevin and James discuss acquring Ninja Forms plugins from collaborating developers as well as other software products within the WordPress space. Jeremy talks about purchasing coffee businesses and merging those with a software company, which makes perfect sense.

Our Recommendations

Jeremy recommends that you watch Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown episode about Houston, Texas. Normally, I’d make a joke here at Jeremy’s expense, but this is a very good episode of a very good show. If I asked right now what you know about Houston, you’d probably mention NASA or the Rockets basketball team or the Texans football team. Bourdain dives into the culture and diversity of eastern Texas in a way that you don’t always see. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Kevin recommends a podcast called In Our Time by BBC Radio 4. If you love to listen to old British people talk about history, you should check out this show. Personally, I think it’s really, really boring. Also, does Kevin need to take every opportunity to mention that he likes history and went to grad school? We get it, sheesh. If you wanted people to know that badly, you should have finished the PhD. James recommends an app for your mobile device called Google Photoscan that lets you take a picture of a picture so that you can archive older, analog photos. Rob recommends a podcast about two dudes who answer a random Craiglist ad and wind up doing a grown-up scavenger hunt. I know that sounds like the opening to a made for TV movie starring Liam Neeson, but Project SSA is about adventure and exploration. Adventure comes to those that say yes, or something like that.

Introduction

I’m afraid I’m going to have a hard time finding good goof material this episode; the topic is philanthropy and how to ingrain that into your business. James and Kevin have been busy with an eCommerce plugin that they acquired recently. Rob has been having an awesome summer, because he’s Rob.Jeremy has been doing nothing but vacation, and he has another vacation coming up soon.

The Show

In this episode, the hosts discuss how you can build philanthropy into your business. Rob gives an example of how the Alderman Group is going to be donating their time to local nonprofits based upon recommendations from their current clients. Rob claims all the credit for this awesome campaign which he’s dubbed Tag: You’re It!. James and Kevin talk a little bit about how they need to be better at giving as a business, although they do give their time and some money within the WordPress community. Jeremy talks about how BonLife makes decisions about which local charities to support with their resources. TL;DR - Don’t let giving to local causes be an accident. Work giving into your budget and create a plan for how you’re going to decide which charities you give to. It’s ok to give to a charity and get something in return, like exposure.

Our Recommendations

I refuse to label this section of the podcast “Tips and Tricks,” no matter how much Rob calls it that. Deal with it, Rob. Deal with it. Rob recommends that you listen to the Be the Kind podcast. See that Rob? It wasn’t a tip or a trick. You recommended that people listen to that show. Of course, Rob is in marketing, so I actually expected him to replace recommendations with something like one weird old trick. Rob is like a walking Buzzfeed. Anyway, Be the Kind is a podcast about kindness and people being awesome to their local communities. You can find it wherever you find great podcasts. Kevin recommends switching to GitLab from GitHub for your code repositories, especially if you’re a business. GitHub. GitLab. Why do tech people have to make up so many useless words? I mean, the word get already existed. Not to mention that git sounds like an English pejorative. It’s like leaving vowels out of words to be clever; you don’t need to do it. Apparently the Hub of Gits took down the Ninja Forms code repository a bit too willy-nilly for Kevin’s liking, so he recommends controlling the server where your code lives. James recommends finding local charitable events that you can use as both a way of giving back and team building exercises. Apparently James raced dragons in a boat when he worked at Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union. That helped his team get closer together and raised money, or something like that. Jeremy recommends the site charitynavigator.org. Their tagline is: Your Guide to Intelligent Giving. If you want to check out how charities spend your money before you give, you can find lots of details at this site. Again, I’d like to make fun of Jeremy here, but I’m coming up a bit short on material.

Introduction

James takes the helm again as the hosts dive into how they react to various changes within their respective industries. Time is divided between BR and AR, which of course means Before Rob and After Rob. If you’re in the 10%, you know what I mean. Rob’s been sending out lots of proposals, so if you’re looking for a podcast-happy significant other, send Rob a message. Kevin and James have been working on a new product/service that they hope to launch soon. As usual, Jeremy is not in town. He’s currently in an RV driving across the country on vacation. When he gets back in town, he’ll be around for a few days before going on another vacation.

The Show

Rob talks about Facebook Ad issues that his team faced recently. A big client had a lot of eggs in the Facebook Ad basket and was recently told that their ads could no longer run. The client represented a large portion of the business’s income, and so Rob and his team had to find solutions. Once again proving how evil Facebook is and how much better off you’d be just putting up billboards. Billboard advertising is the future! Think about all the free time people are going to have to look at billboards once cars begin driving themselves. Think about it! Kevin and James discuss the GDPR, a European privacy law that just went into effect and how their business has responded. If you’ve gotten a million emails telling you updated privacy policies, you can thank the GDPR. Ninja Forms added tools and functionality to help WordPress users cope with the new privacy initiative. Good for them; I don’t even want to be snarky about protecting my privacy. What I search for is my own business. On an unrelated note, I’ll be right back while I clear my browser cache.

Our Recommendations

Rob recommends that you get some skullmonkeys. Unfortunately, he doesn’t mean little crystal monkey skulls to sit on your desk. That would be really cool. But, no. Rob is referring to skullmonkey headphones, which he compares to “really broken in baseball gloves.” If you’ve ever picked up an old, worn baseball glove and thought to yourself, “man, I gotta have a pair of headphones made out of these babies,” then you’re in luck. If you wear contacts, Kevin suggests that you check out Biofinity contacts. He insists on referring to them incorrectly as “bio-infinity,” but they are indeed just Biofinity. Normally I like to make fun of Kevin’s recommendations, but these are really good contact lenses. I wear them myself, and I win staring contests with my five year old nephew all the time. James recommends a podcast about kindness produced by Rob called Be the Kind. It’s about kindness and finding good in a world that makes it really easy to focus on the negative. I’d say something snarky about that, but that sounds like the kind of podcast I’d love. I’m the most positive and uplifting person I know.

Introduction

Well folks, it’s been a good run. 18 Episodes isn’t too shabby. Someone done decided to let Kevin drive this thing, and to be honest, it’s a bit of a train wreck. No offence to Kevin; I’m sure he did the best he could. Sorry, not sorry.

For someone who floated naming the show after himself, Jeremy has been conspicuously absent for several episodes. Can anyone confirm that he’s actually alive? And when do the hosts start looking for a replacement? I mean, I know a snarky, humorous show notes writer that could be convinced to be on the show for the right amount of money. Get with my agent.

The Show

In this episode, the hosts discuss hiring your first employee. When do you know it’s the right time to hire? How do you find qualified people?

The hosts suggest that the time to hire is when you find that you don’t have time to do things that energise you. James calls these areas in which you have the most impact your “super powers.” Once you are doing more admin work or other stuff that’s outside your super power, you should think about hiring someone.

From the outside, Rob says that it seems like he always has what he needs. When it was time to hire his first employee, he knew someone who had just come available. When it was time for the next, he already had someone lined up. While this may seem easy, he says, it’s actually the result of cultivating relationships with awesome people.

James refers to this technic with a generic sports metaphor: “keep your bench warm.” By that he means to keep your eyes open in your circle of influence to see where your next hire may come from. Keep in mind that the person you hire may not currently be performing the same job that you would need them to. That’s ok. Both Rob and James suggest that it’s more important to hire the right person and then find a position for them.

Our Recommendations

Rob recommends a script writing program called Slug Line, and he teaches the rest of the podcast what a Slug Line is. Of course, yours truly already knew what a Slug Line was. In fact, I have a great spec script about a secret service agent who’s also a baker that falls in love with a nerdy librarian. I wrote it for Spielberg, but he wound up passing on it because of creative differences. If you’re a big time Hollywood producer or director, let me know. Then I can finally stop writing show notes for quick cash.

If you’ve got a lot of extra cash lying around, James has a great recommendation for you! Just go out and buy an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil, then download a program called Good Notes. That’ll let you replicate the usefulness of a notepad and pencil without the need to actually carry around the notebook and pencil. If you don’t have the money to invest in that setup, I’ll sell you an eyePad Pro, which is a legal pad with the eyePad logo at the top with a mechanical pencil attached via a string. You’ll get all the best parts of the Apple iPad: portability, ease of use, point and click interface, etc. without spending all that money. Just $79.99 each.

Kevin decides to get super nerdy and recommend that you play a tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons. He claims that it’s a great way to be creative and cooperatively tell a great story. We all know that D&D, as the kids call it, is really just Fantasy Football for nerds. Apparently nerds like Kevin think that D&D, and tabletop games like it, are mainstream enough to recommend them on a podcast about business. I remember when nerds were polite and kept that stuff to their mom’s basements. Rob volunteers Kevin to run a D&D game for you if you are in the southeastern Tennessee area.

Introduction

Rob is driving this show, but it seems like someone should have told him that before the show actually started. James celebrated his son’s fourth birthday, as well as the fifteenth anniversary of WordPress, by giving his son a video game and immediately hogging it. He tries to make it sound like his son wanted him to take all the turns, but we know the truth, James just wanted to play the old school video games. Kevin bemoans the week of meetings and product discussions that he and James both just came out of. They both seem to have needed the three day weekend. I’m not sure it made this podcast any better, but you can’t win them all. Rob talks about taking time out of his work schedule for family and plugs a family-friendly hotel/waterpark in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He had to ultimately get permission from one of his employees to allow himself to go on vacation. I was going to make fun of that, but once I typed it all out, it seems a bit sad.

The Show

This week, the hosts discuss ways of keeping yourself mentally and physically fit. Kevin kicks things off by talking about how playing basketball is therapeutic for him. When he’s playing he can just turn off his brain and play by instinct. If you’ve ever seen him play, you’d definitely assume his brain is turned off. Let’s just say that there’s a reason Kevin’s favourite song is I Wish. Surprisingly, Rob doesn’t bring up fly fishing or movies. He kind of misses riding a motorcycle because he could focus on the ride, but his fear of a gruesome death keeps him from riding these days. If you have anxiety issues, you may think you’re having a heart attack. Rob says that when he has panic attacks, he has a checklist that reminds him that he isn’t actually dying. So, I guess do that? James relates that he doesn’t feel a lot of stress consciously, but that his body has been creating and healing ulcers for years. He also got a really cool irregular heartbeat, but no, he doesn’t feel stress at all. Meditation comes up again as a great way to maintain balance and mindfulness, although it doesn’t seem to have reminded James about all those ulcers. Physical activity is also mentioned as a necessity to handling what is ultimately an extremely stressful occupation. Although, I don’t think anyone on this podcast is going to be running any marathons anytime soon.

Recommendations

If you like to garden, Kevin recommends using a drip irrigation system to water your plants. This allows you to water at the roots, which can cut down on the amount of moisture and fungi. Oh, yeah, and Kevin says that God doesn’t know how to water plants. I don’t know if there’s a specific law on the books that deals with blasphemy against God’s gardening abilities, but I will say that several major religions feel that God’s got a pretty green thumb. James recommends a book dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and founders stay sane by Sherry Walling called The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together: How to Run Your Business Without Letting it Run You. He’s suggested this one before, and it should be reiterated that Sherry is actually qualified to give good advice on the topic of mental health and stability. If you’re still reading this, you should probably just stop and read Sherry’s book instead. I promise you’ll get more out of it. Can you smell what Rob is cookin’?!? If you live in Cleveland you probably can, because Rob loves fish. You may have guessed that from his several dozen mentions of fly fishing, but I just wanted to confirm. In what sounds like a very sketchy multi-level marketing scheme, Rob wants you to buy your fish from vitalchoice.com. Yes, he knows that it sounds like a site your aunt buys stock in because some guy on her favourite news channel told her to, but he claims it’s a place to buy fish online. Specifically, Rob wants you to eat Salmon.

Introduction

Welcome back to the AIB show notes! I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. If you get that reference, you’re doing better than James, who isn’t what I’d call a “Potterhead.” As you have probably guessed already, Jeremy is missing again this week. It turns out that Thanos is a comic book character created for Marvel Comics, so what he does in the Infinity War was just for pretend. I guess those rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated. This episode is all about un-business, the things that the hosts do to relax.

The Show

Since this is an episode about hobbies, you can bet that Kevin talks about his hobby-horse, woodworking. James has recently discovered his own hobbies of close-up magic and card collecting. Rob and James go down a very weird rabbit trail of David Blaine conspiracy theories. Well, just one theory, really, the one that says Mr. Blaine has been possessed by a Satan. Apparently his wizardry is such that Rob feels the only possible explanation is demonic possession. When he’s not pivoting, Rob loves to fly fish. He suggests that fly fishing is so multi-faceted that you’ll enjoy it even if you don’t like murdering fish. Do you like making things? You can tie flies. Do you like drinking while operating a boat? You can drink and float down a river. Do you like to be out in nature? Where do you think they fish? Kevin tries not to get teary-eyed while discussing his new hobby of gardening, and Rob tries to help him explain why growing vegetables that are probably going to be chucked anyway is so meaningful. Perhaps in order to connect with Rob and Kevin on a natural level, James makes up a story about growing up in the country. Of course he insists that it’s completely true, but, like Kevin and Rob, I have my doubts. Finally, Kevin and Rob try to decide which Harry Potter wizard house James belongs to. Rob is pretty insistent that James would be Ravenclaw, while Kevin maintains that he would be Gryffindor. This is the kind of hard-hitting journalism and discussion that I’ve come to expect from this show.

Our Recommendations

Do you want to get into woodworking? Yeah, me neither, but if you DID want to risk cutting off useful appendages just to make Christmas gifts that family members are probably going throw away, Kevin has a recommendation; buy a jigsaw. For less than $50 at most home improvement stores, you get a saw that can make most of the cuts you need for small-scale projects. Jigsaws are also handheld tools, and so they take up very little space in your garage or other workspace. If you’re a playing card nut like James, you might like his recommendation, playingcarddecks.com. Specifically, he likes their Pip Box Subscription, which is a fancy way of saying Deck of the Month club. Every month a curated number of playing card decks will be sent to your door. Talk about convenience! I’m just kidding, that sounds awful. I can’t wait till we hit the cultural backlash against subscription services. You can get a subscription service for literally anything you consume. It’s a bit ridiculous. I’ve saved the best recommendation for last. AIB’s very own Rob Alderman has offered to take our five listeners fly fishing. All you have to do is make your way to South Eastern Tennessee and reach out to him. Of course, this recommendation would be a lot better if Rob were willing to pay your travel expenses. Now that I think about it, Rob may just be a lonely fly fisher. Maybe this is just a sad man’s cry for friends.

Infinity War spoilers! Turn back if you haven’t seen the movie yet. I have some bad news. It would seem that our normal show notes writer was in the half of the galaxy who turned to dust. Yup. Thanos done un-made ‘em. As the search for a new writer gets under way, let me catch you up on this week’s podcast.

Major talking points:

• Building a brand starts with product
• GoDaddy as a case-study of bad brand management
• Actually interacting with your customers can help you learn what they need and want
• Being a part of your customer’s culture can be as important as what you are selling

Recommendations:

• Jeremy recommends payroll solution gusto.com
• James recommends the bacon bowl, especially if you want to eat a lot of cheese and other meat.
• Rob suggests a really interesting game called blackbox.
• Kevin suggests taking advantage of telemedicine, the ability to interact with a doctor via video chat.

Introduction

Jeremy just keeps breaking records by being present for a miraculous third show in a row. It’s almost like he wants to do this podcast thing! Speaking of Jeremy, he takes a turn in the driver’s seat and is at least able to manage avoiding talking about balls. He also promises to have the podcast done in under thirty minutes, but I don’t think he keeps that promise. We should probably mention the fact that Jeremy has a board of directors. Not his company, but him personally. A personal board of directors. He goes to them when he needs to make big life decisions and gets their input; it’s unclear whether or not these board members get veto power or if they own stock in Jeremy™. According to Jeremy, this group helps him keep his life on track. I only need one seat on my board of directors, and it’s filled by the big man upstairs.

The Show

Today’s show is all about mentoring and being mentored. The hosts assert that both being mentored and mentoring others is an important part of the entrepreneurial journey, forcing you to both grow and teach at the same time. Jeremy states that it’s best to have a specific time and place for mentoring to happen properly. Like his own version of Tuesdays with Morrie, Rob tells a story™ about travelling around with an old man through Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Like the Mitch Albom of the healthcare industry, Rob learned from his mentor, even though he was radically different than himself. Rob continues by throwing shade at the entire Baby Boomer generation for not mentoring people because they had a very “I got mine” attitude. Generation X, he contends, is full of loving, caring people who want nothing more than to pass along what they’ve learned. Way to be, Rob. I still love you, mom. Kevin’s fairly quiet on the topic, but when Jeremy asks him about his mentoring experiences, he explains that his PhD advisor is probably his closest experience. You went to college, we get it already, you don’t have to keep bringing it up. Sheesh. How do you know if Kevin was working on a PhD? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you James laments that he is getting older and doesn’t have much of a mentor or mentee relationship in his life. In the end, he suggests that listeners learn from his mistake and become very intentional about creating those types of relationships. To butcher the words of Sir Paul, “In the end, the mentoring you make is equal to the mentoring you make,” or something like that.

Recommendations

If you’re in the market for some swag, Jeremy has just the place to check: egrandstand.com. What started as a brewery-focused glassware company has expanded to become a great source for apparel and other marketing crap as well. Do you like watching...your users as they click their way through your website? Apparently Kevin does. His recommendation this week is for a service called Fullstory, which allows you to anonymously record and view user sessions on your site. Generally speaking, this is used for marketing purposes to make your site more usable, friendly, and profitable, but Kevin relates a story about using it for troubleshooting a specific bug. Sounds a bit too big brother for my liking. If you would like to get an MBA, but you don’t have the time, money, or drive to do a traditional college program, have no fear! James’ recommendation can help you out, CNBC’s The Profit is a show about entrepreneur and businessman Marcus Lemonis trying to save failing businesses. James likes the show because Marcus shows that the same business principles of having the right people, product, and process apply to any type of business. I think that if you watch enough episodes, you get a printable PDF that you can hang on your wall like a college degree. If you did get an MBA, you probably have a lot of student debt, so Rob’s recommendation may be able to help you out. He has been using an app called Every Dollar, which helps you save by planning in spending every dollar you bring in, rather than leaving it hanging in the aether. Spending into savings is intentional, rather than seeing what you have left over. If you need to find extra places to spend said dollars, feel free to send some my way.

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

Bonjour! Good to have you back. Have you ever forgotten to click the “record” button when you and your friends get together to record a podcast? Don’t worry; James hasn’t, either. Jeremy introduces this episode’s topic, “How do you test and measure new business ideas or products?” He opens the discussion by stating that he’s fired some people in the last forty-eight hours. Maybe some of you took him up on the offer to hire him as a freelance executioner? If you haven’t, he seems willing and ready to fire people for you; you should get in touch. The group talks about various ways to test and experiment with business ideas. Kevin and James shared about a new product experiment that’s currently in development. Of course, they didn’t give any details, which made it a bit boring, to be honest. If you’re absolutely looking for some nuggets out of that part of the conversation, James suggests that one way of testing ideas is to see if your current user base has a problem that the idea solves. Jeremy also observes that one method of deciding is a simple risk versus reward examination. Rob tells a story, surprise, about someone who is really smart giving him a packet of documents explaining where The Alderman Group should go in the future. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned this mysterious figure, and he was a bit dodgy when asked if it may have been a future version of himself, al a Back To The Future II. This mentor explained that a good way to think about expanding your business is asking: “What are we paying for that we could do better?” If you know your industry, chances are you know enough to be dangerous in adjacent or ancillary industries that support yours as well. This shadowy “maybe future Rob” mentor seems really smart. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t future Rob… Somehow, Rob gets to the topic of playing ice hockey; apparently it’s really important to skate “where the puck is going rather than to where it is.” Eventually he relates that he spent an hour or two a day for the past several months considering where his business should go and arrived at his infamous “pivot.” What is this “pivot” you ask? Well, stop asking, because Rob ain’t telling. There are secrets all over this podcast. I feel like I’m listening to a much less interesting version of Serial. Jeremy tries to save us from the hockey analogy by interrupting Rob and asking about when it’s better to stay focused on what you’re doing well, rather than branching off into a new business venture. Jeremy introduced the topic and then most of the way through the discussion decides to play devil’s advocate and suggest that maybe you shouldn’t branch out into anything new after all. Kevin talks way too much in this episode, perhaps compensating for the fact that he was basically dead when the previous episode was recorded. I don’t think he’s been able to find a real balance yet. Hopefully he will soon, for all our sakes. Rob relates a heartfelt apology and gives us all a well-deserved lesson in being humble. To be honest, it makes all the other hosts’ recommendations seem a bit shallow in comparison. I decided to take some time to reflect upon how I can become more humble and less self-serving. I’m just kidding, you can find my rebuttal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEfSzUbh3s Jeremy phones in his recommendation this week with a shameless plug for a Wal-Mart plug for his phone. He must have been a Boy Scout because he takes the motto very seriously. Or at least he thinks that you should. To be fair, Jeremy is a very busy man and rolled up late to the recording, so perhaps his lack of preparedness should be expected. James recommends a blog on leadership by Chris Lema. I don’t have anything bad to say about Chris; he’s pretty awesome. He’s the kind of boss you really want: insightful, intelligent, good-looking, you get the picture. If you see an ad for “AIB show notes writer” on indeed.com, then you know where I went. Kevin suggests using a program for Mac called Moom that allows you to automate window arranging. If you struggle with getting all your program windows ordered, Moom may solve your problem. But, let’s face it, if you have that many windows open at once, you’re probably just goofing off anyway. Also, his recommendation is only for Mac OSX. Talk about lazy; he couldn’t even be bothered to research a Windows alternative? Typical.

Our Recommendations

• Rob: TIP - Embrace Humility
• Kevin: APP - Moom
• Jeremy: TIP - Be prepared?
• James: BLOG - Leadership Notes

Fun Sized Teasers

[playlist type="video" images="false" ids="171,170,169"]

Show Notes

Hey! You came back! I’m not surprised or anything; just being friendly. We’ve all had to deal with awful coworkers or employees. In this episode, our hosts dive into the world of employee conflict. What do you do when you don’t get along with an employee? Worse yet, what do you do when an employee doesn’t get along with the rest of your team? Those aren’t rhetorical questions, Rob seriously wants to know. Feel free to shoot him an email. Just google The Alderman Group. You’ll find him. During the discussion, James describes how he and Zach, an employee of his company, can get into talks that escalate into heated arguments. At the end of the day, James calls Zach a younger version of himself, which I guess means that he likes to argue with himself? Or he hates himself? Or he’s projecting? I’m not a licensed psychologist, so I don’t know how to properly interpret that. I can barely spell psychologist. Ok, fine, I used spell-check. Out of all the hosts, Jeremy seems to have had the most recent experience with dealing with problem employees. His solution? Just fire ‘em all and start over. That’s what he’d do. At the risk of sounding too serious, Jeremy does give some good advice about making sure that you allow employees who aren’t a good fit to find something that is a good fit for them. On a related note, if you need to fire someone, I think Jeremy may be available to consult. Rob tells a story about Strength Finders™, a job that he wasn’t the right fit for, and how sometimes it’s better for employees and businesses when they discover they are no longer a fit. It took someone on the outside to question why he remained at a job that was making him miserable. Of course, if you don’t like your job, it’s probably much better if you get God to get you fired, like Rob did. Just let God deal with all the little details. Let go, and let God. If Kevin is your favourite host, and let’s face it, he probably is, this won’t be your favourite episode. The team does their best to keep him awake, but Kevin possibly has a cold. Or the flu. Or maybe he’s dying of some exotic illness. Should he have come into the office just to talk over Rob’s nice story about prayer and specific flavours of Evangelical Christianity? Probably not. Is this episode better off because of his Nyquil-induced fugue state? Arguable. Are the show notes better because of his altered consciousness? Absolutely. Overall, you get the feeling that the entrepreneurs are trying to make themselves feel better about firing people. Most of the talk is focused on how letting employees go is often better for the business AND the employee, but definitely for the employee. Want to know the worst ways to fire employees? You’re in luck! Towards the end of the episode, James reads his inaugural top 4 list about this very topic. I don’t want to spoil anything, but James’ list seems to lean a bit towards the left. He throws shade at Wal-Mart for giving raises while closing several Sam’s Clubs without warning and calls out the president for firing someone with a tweet. The whole thing seems like FAKE NEWS to me! James’ list has always been FAKE NEWS. I’ve always said it. James’ Lame List, that’s what I’ve always called it! Kevin recommends getting someone else to do your job for you. Jeremy recommends not working at all. Hmm. There may be a pattern there. James thinks you should listen to a podcast by Jon Acuff, while Rob suggests using an app on your phone to interface with a fax machine. Apparently he encounters a lot of fax machines.

Our Recommendations

• Kevin: TIP - Get a virtual assistant
• Jeremy: TIP - Take more downtime
• Rob: APP - FaxBurner
• James: PODCAST - Creative Slide with Jon Acuff

BONUS

[caption id="attachment_165" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] World's Largest Side Hug-SCL[/caption]   [gallery link="none" columns="2" size="large" ids="166,167"]

Welcome to the show notes! Thanks for stopping by. Do you like to talk about guns? Because 1/4 of the Adventures in Businessing podcast does! James, Rob, and Kevin attempt to steer the conversation about business ethics away from the second amendment, while Jeremy keeps trying to give the wheel a hard spin toward the craggy shores of political division. We briefly discuss Wal-mart and Dick's Sporting Goods' decision to not sell rifles to people under the age of 21. The crew successfully maneuvers the ship through those choppy waters and into the harbour of business ethics, where they run aground on the jagged rocks of reality. Ok. I think I've tortured that metaphor enough. Should businesses get involved in social issues? If they should, what responsibilities do they have? Is corporate activism the future of change? Do people care what their favourite soda brand does with their profits? Should they? Remember when that bakery wouldn't bake a cake for a same-sex couple? We're nothing if not topical and timely. If you don't remember, don't worry, Rob has a story about it. Rob is a libertarian. He thinks that the free market could solve all the world's problems. That's not hyperbole; I promise! Most of the hosts agree that the government shouldn't be involved in deciding which customers a business has to do business with, but obviously there are abusive cases that do need to be legislated. Can the free market solve the problem of the jerk baker? Out of nowhere, James brings the podcast back to how businesses, specifically Kabbage, are responding to the Florida shooting, and Jeremy suggests a Remington sponsorship. Rob suggests that businesses should be concerned with making the world a better place because it's better for business. He uses Facebook's recent content changes as an example of how the market normalises. Initially businesses, and the market, dipped after the strategy announcement. They recovered as businesses dug into the new Facebook content focus. At the end of the day, you're tied to the business decisions you make, and you have to sleep at night. Jeremy discusses Bonlife coffee and its focus on sustainable practices. They've backed off it a bit because most people don't want to be reminded that there are poor people in the world while getting their morning caffeine fix. Kevin pretends to be a dirty consumerist pig who just wants to drink his sugar water. James, Kevin, and Jeremy recommend books, while Libertarian Rob recommends an Orwellian wrist device that sends all your data to the government. Bonus: If you want to hear the funniest thing ever, listen to this podcast at slow-speed. I promise you won't be disappointed. :)

Our Recommendations

• Kevin: Delivering Happiness - Book
• Rob: Fitbit. You can choose your own version, but we linked to the Charge 2.
• Jeremy: Start with Why - Book
• James: All things Profit First - Book, Podcast

When you are good at something it's natural to think the next step is to start a business doing that thing. Is that the right choice for everyone? Are there challenges and caveats you need to keep in mind? In this episode of Adventures in Businessing, Kevin, James, Rob, and Jeremy explore these questions and more.

Our Recommendations

• Jeremy Moore: InnerGuide
• Rob Alderman: Clear
• Kevin Stover: Tip - Remove Facebook...
• James Laws: missinglettr (aff)

James, Rob, and Kevin are at it again and this time they're discussing a some hard truths of entrepreneurship...

• Rob calls out the Gary Vaynerchuk gospel of hustle.
• Kevin questions Apple's brand strength.
• Rob thinks you are a terrible photographer.
• James makes a case for having the right idea... late.
• James, Rob, & Kevin discuss the weight of being the decision maker.
• James reminisces on the television show Wings and has a Joe moment.

Recommendations

In each show we've started wrapping up with some tip, trick, product, service, or resource to help you in your own entrepreneurial journey. This weeks recommendations are...

• Kevin: Book - The Art of Scrum
• Rob: App - Overcast.fm
• James: Book - The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together: How to Run Your Business Without Letting it Run You

For this adventure, the hosts minus Jeremy describe some of the biggest changes they’ve made in their businesses over the years. Rob gives some awesome advice using a hockey analogy, Kevin tries to take credit for James’ great intuition, and James explains how we accidentally increased our monthly revenue by $40,000. Talk about burying the lead...

Recommendations

• Rob: The War of Art
• Kevin: The Forest App
• James: Full Story