The Honest Field Guide®

Weed, reefer, blunts, dope, tea, pot, herb. All these terms were often used to hide what you were smoking because it was illegal. Until now. Marijuana is now legal in the United States, and everyone is going wild because of it. But our conversation today is about ownership, family business, self-determination and the irony of being one of the only American Black-owned farms in the US that bought b...

Danny Wirtz, fourth generation owner of one of the most famous and successful hockey teams in US history, The Chicago Blackhawks and also the head of many of the Wirtz family private businesses. Including his work with his foundation, The Chicago Blackhawks Foundation, Danny has revolutionized they way his family engages with the community, uses technology for insights and growth and creates wealt...

Reggie Jackson aka "Mr. October," Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee, shares intimate stories for the very first time, during an in-person interview to JinJa Birkenbeuel, The Honest Field Guide, about his journey from childhood, to a New York Yankee, to becoming the first professional ball player turned entrepreneur while he was still playing ball, back in the 70s, during a tumultuous tim...

All of our entrepreneur lives, we've been told "If you don't grow, you will shrink, and if you shrink you will go out of business." Or, "Always be closing." Or, 'Always be growing." As a result, we've battled and fought our way to at least make ourselves look like what Tom Hanks wanted: TO BE BIG. From paying high rent for corporate spaces, getting augmented staff for presentations and meetings, g...

Being an owner, operator, chef, creator and manager in the restaurant business is really, really tough. The money is always tight, customer's tastes change, and rent always rises. In Chicago, the business is painfully competitive but most of all, the dining experience can be positively brutal for the owner but also for the customer. Not at Wishbone Restaurant, a Chicago staple in part put on the m...

Popcorn captivates the imagination. From baseball games, to the movies, to amusement parks. It's the best snack there is. But Berco's Popcorn on Chicago's Northside created a trademark flavor and blend named "Billion Dollar Popcorn, The World's Most Expensive Popcorn." Matt Bercovitz, the founder and creator will take you through his unlikely journey from his days bored as hell in college but guid...

How do you get people eat plant-based? Invent a restaurant with a super cool name, trendy menu item titles and above all, juicy, savory and topped with traditional ingredients burgers! Slutty Vegan restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia is America's first, Black- and women-owned vegan burger joint. Founded by serial entrepreneur Pinky Cole, it has become the country's most popular  and sought-after s...

When the lightning rod of a powerful and scalable idea strikes you on your head as you are chilling in a hot tub in paradise with your super smart business colleagues, you'd better get out of the tub quick, gather your dollars, your family and friends, and launch. That's exactly what Steven Galanis, the co-founder of Cameo did by taking to market, the first ever video autographing app designed to...

The 70s. The Golden Years of Chicago: When the streets were gritty, full of character, vibrant, and the politics were dirty. In walks William Marovitz, a successful private sector lawyer at a big Chicago law firm born from a legacy of family attorneys, with his future secured forever. But William, now known as Billy The Bull, was a creative at heart with a spirit of artistic wanderlust. At the rig...

Are you building your business to position it for sustainable wealth? How are you feeling about your personal brand and what it says to potential clients? What is required to move through mainstream business spaces so you feel safe and ready to take on the business world? We interview founder Angelina Darrisaw, CEO of C-Suite Coach give us strategies for success. Listen in as she discusses moving...

So you want to be an entrepreneur huh? You want to leave your job, or maybe not even take job at all. Quitting your day job to realize your dream takes an extraordinary feat of courage, resilience and support from your family and community. Yes, of course it looks glamorous, exciting, even sexy. The parties, the flashy backdrops, the events, speaking on stage, professional product photos, group sh...

Money. Something that many entrepreneurs may have lots of, little of, or worse, not talk about at all. How to make money, how to track money, how to ask for what you are worth, and how to learn about what you worth as you fight through your entrepreneurship journey are topics we cover during this deep dive conversation about money. Francilia WIlkens Rahim discussing how she raised almost a billion...

How does it feel when you are on your own and you realize that you may not become the person you thought you were because you made one stupid mistake? The crazy thing is, entrepreneurship itself is all about dreams and hustle and stupid mistakes and backstabbers and cracking business (and sometimes race and gender) codes in order to survive and thrive. James E. McMillan, who works with artists whi...

A story about how sensuality, beauty, creativity and unexpected delight can be brought to fruition for corporate and personal spaces typically not considered "brandable." Teri Johnson, founder of The Harlem Candle Company, shares her international journey from the babysitter of future astronauts to creator of custom candles filled with memories of a bygone era of art, music, storytelling and the e...

We have a love/hate relationship with American supplier diversity programs. They don't work for everyone. But what are they really designed to do? And for who? Must businesses go through a "diverse" door to earn big business? Why was it invented anyway? Do we need have supplier diversity programs anymore in the age of social networking? Who is WE anyway? Let's break down the premise that the only...

There is a train of thought that you must be creative to be an entrepreneur in today's accelerated business environment. We believe this to be an absolute truth. Storytelling, creating designs, inventing names, logos, brand style and writing copy for social media and advertising are super skills that all entrepreneurs *must* have in order to start and launch a business and compete against giant br...

Kathy Cheng is an innovator in the sustainable and ethical fashion space in Canada. She is a worker's advocate for veteran and new talent in the fashion and textile industry. Her private company Redwood Classics is growing and leading the natural textile industry. Kathy's voice is tapped often because she places action on her calls for diverse hiring practices. Listen in and learn about Kathy's fa...

How do you create business opportunity when you are invisible and starting a new business? What does it take to be prepared for it when potential success arrives at your doorstep? How do you find the courage to turn down a "golden parachute" during an economic downturn? Learn from Grammy-award winning producer, songwriter, entrepreneur and author of "Southern Discomfort" Tena Clark as she talks wi...

Why do we entrepreneurs and small business have to network? Do we always need to be selling ourselves? What is networking and why now more than ever does it matter? You ask yourself: Do I *really* have to go to that event tonight? What will I gain? I'm really shy. I'm scared. Will I know anyone there? I need to take a friend so I won't be alone. The challenge for all of us, is that the only way we...

You have a business. You are trying to create a brand. Not just for your business, but for your personality. You know that customers need to know who they are buying from. They want to feel a connection with the "brand" and you now understand from everything you've been reading, and the personalities you've been studying - YOU are the brand. Yikes. But you have to put yourself out there, expose yo...

The morning after... you just attended a super inspiring "I'm going to do it all!" training workshop. You left bouncing out of the room, slapping hands. Patting yourself on the back. You realize upon waking up in the harsh sunshine, you thought you were doing pretty good with your business. Making money. You got customers. Walking on sunshine, you know. But you've been so busy working *in* your bu...

Are you are a small business owner, freelancer or entrepreneur drowning in all of the digital choices that now seemed to be required to run your business online? Are you frozen with inertia because you don't know what you don't know and it seems like other businesses are winning the internet? Personal and business digital branding, Google Ads, YouTube, Google Analytics, content, search engine opti...

Before you quit your job, plunge into entrepreneurship or decide to start your own business, hear from co-hosts JinJa Birkenbeuel, CEO of brand strategy and management consulting agency Birk Creative and Esther Ikoro, the agency's content strategist, talk about pitfalls, share horror stories and then warn you about the potential liabilities of running a business. After you've listened to this epis...

When you are a small business or entrepreneur, what is it to be motivated? Who has motivation? Who needs it? And where can you find it in order to keep moving forward in your business? JinJa Birkenbeuel, CEO of Birk Creative and Esther Ikoro, Content Strategist for Birk Creative try to find out between the two of them which is more motivated (LOL), how to create lists and even find external signal...

Twitter can be tough to use effectively for business when you are a B2B company. The channel is newsy, political and highly entertaining, with trending topics seemingly irrelevant to B2B companies, and sometimes based on unfamiliar hashtag campaigns. So what is a professional services company to do? Well, help is on the way! Professional services companies should be using Twitter to create brand a...