Monday Morning Radio

From the time she was in high school, Janine Stange was touched by our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner , and all it represents. So she began singing it, and singing it, and singing it, right into the record books. Now known as the National Anthem Girl , Janine has performed the Star Spangled Banner publicly thousands of times, in all 50-states, in venues from Madison Square Garden to Arl...

We all can't be rich in life, but by relying on some well-established business protocols, we all can be much healthier than we are today. That's the premise behind Jill M. Ginsberg 's new book, " Self-Made Wellionaire ," which draws on her background as an MBA, serial entrepreneur, and former corporate brand manager to show overworked business owners, professionals, and do-it-all working moms how...

After 33 years as an IRS tax collector, Richard M. Schickel and two of his former IRS colleagues have written a tell-all book intended to help small business owners and others defend themselves from the harsh tactics of the IRS. What to Do When the IRS is After You is not a book the IRS wants you to read or to own. Why? Because it is brutally honest about the vindictive nature of the IRS, and what...

Having spent more than 10,000 hours coaching senior executives and their teams to greater performance, Allan Milham concluded that genuine curiosity is the core trait that separates successful leaders from the pack. Together with Guy Parsons , a lean manufacturing consultant to companies such as BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman , Milham is helping Corporate America redefine the role of owner/CEO f...

Every president since Teddy Roosevelt has been the guest of Denver's iconic Brown Palace Hotel & Spa , except two (Calvin Coolidge and Barack Obama). Wizard Academy co-founders Roy & Pennie Williams are among the list of distinguished guests whose names grace the venerable logs of the hotel's register. Built in 1892, the triangular-shaped Brown Palace is the crown jewel of Rocky Mountain luxury ho...

Until March of this year, Raymond Hennessey served as the editorial director of Entrepreneur Media, publisher of Entrepreneur magazine. He was one of the nation's top small business journalists. This week, Ray sits for a candid X-It Interview with Dean Rotbart , host of Monday Morning Radio and executive editor of NewsBios.com . Ray is now Chief Innovation Officer at JConnelly , a respected New Yo...

Peet's Coffee & Tea has grown from a single retail shop at Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, California, into an $800 million, 240-store chain now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Dave Burwick , president and CEO, ascribes the success and longevity of the coffee roaster and retailer to "scaling the smallness" – a method that allows businesses to remain true to their founding principles, while constant...

You may think you have little in common with a pig farmer and butcher in upstate New York, and you'd be right, unless you value great customer service, superior products, passion, perseverance, and profits. Heather Sandford has carefully packaged each of those qualities into her store, The Piggery , which helps explain why there are often lines of customers snaking out the door of her farm-to-tabl...

Sarah Hassenger is a successful entrepreneur, making and selling quality handcrafted bowties that are so popular they've been included in the swag gift bags distributed at the Primetime Emmys and MTV Movie Awards . Celebs who proudly own Sarah's products include Ryan Gosling (and George), Amanda Seyfried (and Finn), Rachel Ray (and Isaboo), and Alison Sweeney (and Jorge and Winky). Oh…. Yes…. did...

If you love larger-than-life personalities, you’ll enjoy hearing Dave Thorell ’s colorful reflections on his career at KRVN 880 Rural Radio  in Lexington, Nebraska. Farmers and ranchers in the Midwest consider Dave Thorell as much a part of their daily routine as milking the cows, watering the crops, and planting seeds. Later this year, Dave will be inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Hall of...

Jeffrey Biers , who heads Pittsburgh-based All Season Productions , is an entrepreneur and aspiring filmmaker who has written the script and intends to play the lead character in a new Spiderman fan film. The catch: Jeff is swinging into more obstacles than success at the moment. As many an entrepreneur can attest, pursuing your dreams can at times seem like a scene from a horror film. This week o...

It’s been almost exactly 140 years since Alexander Graham Bell first phoned his assistant, beckoning, “ Mr. Watston – come here – I want to see you .” While the telephone is decidedly old-school, it is still one of the most prominent and important conduits for business. Charlie Fusco specializes in turning each and every call from, or to, a business prospect into a brand-building exercise. Charlie...

Do you worry that your business might be going belly-up ? Just launching a business means you're not a yellow-belly , although most entrepreneurs do have a propensity to bellyache . Are you detecting a pattern here? Well, belly-up to the bar and share a few belly laughs this week on Monday Morning Radio as Dr. Per-Olof Hasselgren , a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School , shares his coll...

The former deputy speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly, a diehard Democrat, and a prominent New Jersey Republican businessman are on a bipartisan campaign to get more private businesses to give their employees partial ownership of their companies. As Upendra Chivukula and Veny Musim view it, the only way to save capitalism is to exponentially increase the number of capitalists. Their new book,...

How’s this for role reversal – Gen X and Baby Boomer business owners stand to learn a lot from (…wait for it) – Millennial business owners. That’s the conclusion of a survey of 600 American small businesses conducted for The Principal Financial Group , a Fortune 500 financial services company based in Des Moines. Amy Friedrich, a senior vice president at The Principal who helps oversee the Index,...

Celebrity endorsements are not just for giant consumer-products brands anymore. Many small businesses are discovering the sales magnetism of celebrities who talk up their products – whether in advertisements or social media posts. Evan Morgenstein , president and CEO of CelebExperts , specializes in matching celebrities with businesses – including startups and not-ready-for-prime-time companies. H...

For decades, Sears stores in Miami stocked snowblowers in their garden centers, even though no one ever bought one and it hasn’t snowed in Miami since 1977. That, says Steven D. Goldstein , a former Sears senior executive, results from management disengagement – an ailment that plaques many owners and senior executives. Steve, who has been a top executive at several Fortune 500 companies, is an ev...

Success has killed more than a few companies that had plenty of orders, but not enough affordable funding to finance sufficient inventory. Sean De Clercq and his company, Kickfurther , solve that age-old problem. Kickfurther is a unique business-funding marketplace in which investors – rather than taking equity in a company – actually purchase a share of its inventory. In exchange, the investors g...

The big party is on today in Lexington, Nebraska, as the town and nearby residents gather to celebrate 65 years since local farm radio station, KRVN , began broadcasting. There is no other radio station in America comparable to KRVN, which is owned by more than 4,000 Nebraska farmers and ranchers. How in this day and age a rural AM radio station that concentrates on commodity prices and weather fo...

When most Americans think of doing business with China, they think of outsourcing American manufacturing jobs. But that’s not the big opportunity according to Mark Matsumoto . “Why  buy  from China when you can  sell  to China?”  Many small and mid-size businesses today are making jumbo profits by exporting products and services to China and other Asian Pacific markets. Thanks to modern technology...

Robert Gerlach , a global expert on organizational creativity, has taught companies such as Microsoft , Samsung and BASF the fine art of inspiring creativity. Based in Stuttgart, Germany, Robert’s company – iQudo , recently conducted a landmark survey in the U.S. to discover the secret ingredients of company-wide creativity. The results were not what anyone expected. This week on Monday Morning Ra...

Each year, Stratfor – which is based not far from the Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas – issues its much-anticipated predictions for what we can expect in the coming year on a geopolitical front – and how developments in areas such as the Middle East, Russia, and China will affect global economics. That includes the impact on commodity prices, the value of the U.S. dollar in global markets, and con...

For a residential and commercial architect, Mark Grisafe has an unusual business motto: Advise, Advocate & Collaborate . It’s an unconventional approach that over the past decade has helped him grow his Long Beach, California, firm – M. Grisafe Architect – into a thriving business. While many professionals shun taking advice from their clients – think lawyers and accountants, for example – Mark ac...

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain! Perhaps . But Audrey Hepburn’s My Fair Lady transformation from a lowly Cockney flower girl to a gentile society lady with impeccable speech is anything but authentic. It’s not that such a speech makeover isn’t possible, it’s just that the fictional professor of phonetics Henry Higgins doesn’t use the correct methodology. Ita M. Olsen , this week’s gues...