Business Brain – The Entrepreneurs’ Podcast

One of the most trusted people in your life can be a huge help with your Small Business success – your spouse! But, there’s some important details to work out to insure success when working together. In this episode of the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon share their experiences working with their spouses and their tips for maximizing the benefits while minimizing potential proble...

Has your Small Business lost it’s edge? Has your past success enabled people to slow down the pace of work? How do you beat back complacency and invigorate your team to take on new challenges and grow your Small Business? Maybe hiring a consultant will do the trick – someone to evaluate your team from the outside and offer an unbiased opinion and tips to shake things up. Should you enc...

Welcome to episode 92 of the Small Business Show! On today’s show, we spend some time getting updated on Shannon’s social media business experiment that he started back in June. The goal was to start a new business solely using social media and selling apps on an iPhone. No computer and no website. So, how’s it going? Listen in for more detail, but a quick snapshot looks like thi...

How do you find topics for your Small Business blog and social media posts? Would you like to be able to tie in your content with what people are already searching for online? Sounds pretty cool, but maybe expensive? Yes, and no. It is cool and it’s free! Dave and Shannon get the Small Business Show started today with a discussion about Google Trends and how using timely search data can not...

You’ve heard us talk about the flexibility vs. freedom of being a Small Business owner many times on the Small Business Show. But what if you actually did have the freedom? Freedom as in “I just sold my business, and now what?” kind of freedom? Our guest last week, Harald Sinow talked about taking a year off (that’s t-w-e-l-v-e full months, folks) to reconnect with his fami...

How easy was it for you to make the transition from doing the day-to-day work in your Small Business to teaching others to do it so you could focus on the business? Harald Sinow, co-founder of MacStation in Vancouver, realized that he needed to change his focus from being the best worker to being the best teacher if he wanted to grow his business. Join us today on the Small Business Show to learn...

Are you involved in every decision that your employees make? Would you like to grow your business, decrease headaches and free up some much needed time? We thought so. Today on the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon discuss how “not to be in charge” all the time and empowering your employees to make the right decisions. Dave shares some stories about being so concerned about communi...

On this episode of the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon talk about the development of the Small Business Facebook Group , what went wrong at the beginning and what is going right with the Group after making some (much needed!) changes. We discuss how Small Business owners are using the new group to get critical feedback on their websites and apps, how a political discussion really can be prod...

As we all enjoy the Political Theatre that is our current Presidential Election, Dave and Shannon decide to focus this week’s topic on Politics and how it can (and will) impact your Small Business. Join us as we discuss Dave’s “crazy theory of politics”, looking at the “why” instead of just the “who” when hearing a political message and how to deal w...

  As Small Business owners, when posting to public social media, what are some things you should look out for? What comments could come back (maybe years later) to cause you headaches, legal problems and money? Dave and Shannon discuss some examples of what NOT to post on social media and that leads into a discussion about Mistakes as Opportunities. When a supplier makes a mistake, Shannon ex...

Welcome to episode 84 of the Small Business Show! Join us this week as we spend some time following up with our recent interview with Small Business owner, NYTimes.com blogger and author , Paul Downs. Dave and Shannon then jump into a discussion about being “patently unemployable” and how identifying yourself as such can give a boost to the successful launch of your Small Business. Oth...

How prepared are you for the challenges of running your small business? What energizes you to make it through tough times and just how transparent are you (and should you be) to your employees and everyone else that you discuss your business with?  If you felt like your business was about to shut down, could you imagine reaching out to the New York Times with an offer to share the experience with...

As Small Business owners, we’re always hustling and sleep can often be a casualty of the “up late, up early” workflow. What do you do when your brain just won’t shut down long enough to get some much needed sleep? Listener Elias asks Dave and Shannon for advice about disconnecting enough to fall asleep. Their suggestion might surprise you! You’re an expert in some thi...

How to you stay healthy and keep your energy level up while you are hustling to make your Small Business a success? Join Dave and Shannon for episode 81 of the Small Business Show to hear about how these two have managed while starting and growing multiple small businesses. Before we jump into health and energy, we start the show with a quick discussion of encryption and why it’s so importan...

Join us today for episode 80 of the Small Business Show where we spend some time discussing our recent interview with Greg Mercer of JungleScout ! Dave and Shannon both agree that Greg is a “career escape artist” and has created a unique business to take advantage of missing data and support in the Amazon FBA marketplace. We also talk about the difference between failing often as a Sma...

Today on the Small Business show we are joined by Greg Mercer of JungleScout ! Greg shares his story of “escaping employment” to become a small business owner, first by selling wholesale products on Amazon, then developing private labeled goods to distinguish his company with quality products and customer service. Along the way, Greg realized that he could really use some software that...

Join us for this week’s edition of the Small Business Show! Dave and Shannon spend some time going over their interview with Tim Cote of Commonwealth Foreign Exchange from the last episode and then quickly jump into some of their core beliefs about how to succeed with your Small Business: Convince yourself (lie if you have to!) that you are a rock star, that every small success you have will...

How many business ideas have come from a group of people sitting around over a few beers? Must be thousands, maybe millions, right? But when you look beyond the idea stage and see how many of those folks actually executed on one of those ideas, the numbers drop exponentially. This week on the Small Business Show, we get to spend time with one of those guys that has executed and built a wildly succ...

Welcome to episode 76 of the Small Business Show! This week, Dave is back from Europe and shares some time saving strategies that are good for travel as well as in your daily business. We then get an update from Shannon about his social media business experiment (spoiler alert: it’s working!) and we spend a few minutes sharing Scott from DC’s experience with community banks and why he...

On this week’s episode of the Small Business Show, one of our hosts is starting a new business. But, there’s a twist! They have vowed to do things completely different than they have in the past by focusing solely on social media for promotion and to sell their products only using apps on their phone. Listen in and then stay tuned to find out if this experiment will be a profitable one...

It’s time for a Rant! Specifically, Small Business Show co-host Shannon Jean has had it with a new bank that does a poor job of managing customer expectations. After Dave calms Shannon down, we dig deeper into ways to manage your customers expectations so you can be a hero to your clients as well as your employees. The discussion leads us into the dreaded Terms and Conditions document and ho...

How often are you getting patted on the back as a Small Business owner? Not enough, we know. On episode 73 of the Small Business Show, Dave and Shannon discuss developing a “Success List” that you can refer to when things get tough (because they always do), to remind yourself of just how awesome you actually are. By measuring your success in small steps, you’ll achieve larger vic...

Live Easy with John Moran of Vaya Island What’s your small business story? Do you promote your geographic location as a strength? Do you promote your authenticity? How do you find the influencers to help you grow your Instagram presence? Join us for episode 72 of the Small Business Show to find the answers to these questions and more! John Moran from Vaya Island joins us this week for the Sm...

What technology products and services does your Small Business need to succeed? Computers, phones, software and more – essential tools for starting and running your business.  Join Dave and Shannon on episode 71 of the Small Business Show to learn more! For the first time, both of your hosts are on the West Coast, recording the Small Business Show together! We leave Skype behind for this sho...

This is NOT how to handle change in your Small Business! Welcome to Episode 70 of the Small Business Show! This week we do a quick follow up on Facebook advertising with comments from Dave about ads for the Gig Gab podcast and their interview with Jan Hammer . You’ll hear about some inexpensive ways to get started with Facebook ads and how to keep tweaking your ads as you start to see result...