This week, in episode 193, Sarah Segal takes Paul Downs and Jay Goltz through her recent QuickBooks nightmare. Right before tax season, Sarah ran her P&L, and it showed a profit of $250,000—but she knew right away that that couldn’t be right. I

Dashboard: The Right to Start a Business

5 days ago 20m 49s

This week, Victor Hwang, who is founder and CEO of Right to Start, talks about what he and his organization are doing to bring down the barriers that make it harder than it has to be to start and build a business. Among other things, we discuss

The Art of Building a Real Estate Boutique

11 days ago 56m 1s

This week, in episode 192, special guest Jenelle Etzel, who majored in weaving, tells Shawn Busse, who majored in ceramics, why she believes attending art school and managing a punk rock band were perfect preparation for building a thriving rea

Dashboard: Is the Era of Free Marketing Over?

12 days ago 22m 45s

This week, Shawn Busse talks about how much harder marketing keeps getting, especially for do-it-yourselfers. The cost of everything keeps going up, and the likely returns keep going down. As Shawn points out, it’s even getting expensive to adv

Do You Take This Man to Be Your Business Partner?

18 days ago 53m 4s

This week, in episode 191, Liz Picarazzi, Jaci Russo, and Laura Zander talk about what it’s been like building a business in partnership with a spouse, and they all agree on some important things. For one, they all say that, had their husband b

I Took My Eye Off the Numbers

25 days ago 50m 49s

This week, in episode 190, Jay Goltz tells Shawn Busse and Jaci Russo that, while he’s always been good with numbers, he’s never really enjoyed tracking his finances. It’s not what drove him to start a business, and over time, he stopped paying

Dashboard: Why Gene Marks Is Happy to Pay Swipe Fees

26 days ago 21m 10s

Gene addresses the big legal settlement in which Visa and MasterCard have agreed to cap the fees they charge merchants for five years. He explains both why many merchants are disappointed in the settlement and why he’s perfectly happy to pay th

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Business

Mar 26th, 2024 47m 20s

This week, in episode 189, Paul Downs, Jennifer Kerhin, and Liz Picarazzi discuss the challenges couples face when one spouse is building a business. Liz says it was important to let her husband know that she spent years working on a business p

Dashboard: How Would You Spend $5,000 on Marketing Now?

Mar 25th, 2024 19m 17s

Obviously, there’s no one-size-fits all answer to that question, but this week Shawn Busse offers up a slew of smart considerations and guidelines to help business owners come up with an answer that makes sense for them. A couple of Shawn’s poi

I Need a Business Model

Mar 19th, 2024 47m 5s

This week, in episode 188, we offer you a taste of the 21 Hats Live event we held in Fort Worth two weeks ago. It’s a different kind of event where there are no speakers, only participants. It’s pretty much a three-day, peer-group session for b

Dashboard: You’re Still Using a 20-Year-Old CRM?

Mar 18th, 2024 24m 11s

This week, Gene Marks tells us it’s time to update your clunky old technology. There was a time when he understood why owners said they were sticking with the old stuff because it wasn’t broken and they didn’t want to endure the pain of transit

Man, I’m Glad We Didn’t Do an ESOP

Mar 12th, 2024 53m 38s

This week, in episode 187, Matt Hoying, president of Choice One Engineering, explains to Shawn Busse and Jay Goltz how he created a DIY employee-ownership plan for his firm. Some 10 years ago, Matt’s predecessor as president tasked him with sel

Dashboard: John Arensmeyer on What Business Owners Need Now

Mar 11th, 2024 21m 9s

This week, the founder and CEO of Small Business Majority talks about whether he heard what he wanted to hear in Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, what he makes of recent court rulings asserting that the Minority Business Development Agen

Can Jimmy Beans Wool Sell Yarn on LinkedIn?

Mar 5th, 2024 46m 27s

This week, in episode 186, Shawn Busse and Laura Zander discuss what exactly Laura’s job should be. She’s CEO, of course, and she’s been focused on acquisitions and growing the business, but she’s never really found someone to take over the big

Dashboard: Our Man on AI’s Bleeding Edge

Mar 4th, 2024 20m 26s

This week, Gene Marks offers to boldly go where no business owner has gone before. Few of us need to be convinced that artificial intelligence will be transformational, but even fewer of us have the time, energy, and capability to keep checking

Managing Your Tasks, Your Credit Cards, and Your Anxiety

Feb 27th, 2024 40m 11s

This week, in episode 185, Jay Goltz, Jaci Russo, and Sarah Segal talk about whether it’s finally time for Jay to enter the brave new world of task-management software. That’s, in fact, what his two kids in the business are encouraging him to d

Dashboard: When Is It Time to Panic?

Feb 26th, 2024 28m 1s

All businesses have ups and downs. This week, Tracy Bech, CEO of Starboard Collectives and co-author of the “60 Minute CFO,” offers some guidance on when to ride out a slow period and when to take action. Plus, she also talks about how she’s bu

That Would Put Me Out of Business

Feb 20th, 2024 53m 18s

This week, in episode 184, Mel Gravely, Liz Picarazzi, and Jaci Russo talk about how they set prices. Jaci explains why she refuses to respond to requests for proposals. “We have not participated in a single RFP in 15 years,” she says, “and we

Dashboard: Gene Marks Tries a Digital Marketing Test

Feb 19th, 2024 22m 13s

This week, Gene tells Loren Feldman about a little experiment he ran recently in which he boosted a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that was designed to send people interested in his book on customer relations software to a landing page o

‘I Had to Fire the Guy’

Feb 13th, 2024 49m 54s

This week, in episode 183, Paul Downs, Jay Goltz, and Sarah Segal talk about sexual harassment and where you draw the line with employees. Is it sexual harassment for one employee to ask another for a date? Is it sexual harassment to ask twice?

Dashboard: What Can We Learn from Boeing?

Feb 12th, 2024 22m 49s

This week, Shawn Busse, who soon will be boarding an Alaska Airlines plane made by the Boeing Company to attend the 21 Hats Live event in Fort Worth, finds lessons for smaller businesses in Boeing’s struggles. For one thing, there’s always dang

Why Would You Want to Own a Business?

Feb 6th, 2024 42m 23s

This week, in episode 182, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Jennifer Kerhin respond to a somewhat depressing view of business ownership offered by an investor who buys businesses for a living. That view, essentially, is that for most owners, buildin

Dashboard: Just Ignore Those New 1099 Rules

Feb 5th, 2024 29m 17s

That, at least, is what Gene Marks is planning to do. Gene tells Loren Feldman that the new rules, which are scheduled to take effect in March, would have a profound impact on many businesses, including his—if they are actually enforced. But Ge

Have We Been Too Generous With Employees?

Jan 30th, 2024 50m 1s

This week, in episode 181, Mel Gravely, Jaci Russo, and William Vanderbloemen talk about the possibility that, after several years of the Great Resignation and the labor shortage, some owners may have given away the store. We all know the risks

Dashboard: Is Microsoft Copilot Pro Ready for Prime Time?

Jan 29th, 2024 19m 43s

This week, Gene Marks tells Loren Feldman that while he’s excited about all of the great stuff we will eventually be able to do with artificial intelligence, business owners should stay away from Copilot for now. As with a lot of Microsoft prod