Podcasts about SMB

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2021 21:17

You might have heard someone tell you to “protect your yes.” Meaning, you should not feel obligated to agree to do things, participate, or take something on that you truly don't want to do. If it doesn't fulfill you in one way or another, why do it? In business, sometimes you can't protect your yes, though. Sometimes, if you don't say yes, you don't have customers. But you can't say yes to everything… Or can you…?“We did just about anything,” Paul Rathnam says. “I said no to nothing. Like my dad taught me growing up, just say yes to everything and figure it out later. So, I often quoted things like plumbing and stuff. I had no clue how to do it. And then I'd go to the plumbing store and ask them how to do it. And they kind of have somewhat of an idea anyway, the story of my life. Rantham is the owner of ModPools, a multi-million dollar company that builds swimming pools out of shipping containers. And, as you can tell, he took saying yes to a whole new level. But while Paul was busy saying yes, throughout his life, he heard a lot of nos. And even though his just-say-yes strategy eventually paid off, saying yes to everything had its pitfalls. We'll get into all of that on this episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Exceeds Expectations: Throughout your life, people will place expectations or limits on you. But you should never let what other people think dictate where you wind up. Even if you lack certain skills in one area does not mean you can't be brilliant somewhere else. Find your passion and let that guide you beyond what anyone else thinks is possible.Yes To All: Saying yes to every request is a strategy that many entrepreneurs have tried. When you say yes, you gain business and accounts. But if you say yes, you have to be willing to do all the work necessary to do the job properly, otherwise you'll be left with not just dissatisfied customers, but a bad reputation as well.All It Takes is One: Whether it's an idea, a design, or a word of encouragement, sometimes all it takes to keep going is one small thing. When you are on the brink or struggling, that one small thing could be right around the corner. Persevere and be open to wherever that one spark could turn into a wildfire.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

132: Solutions-Based Selling with Microsoft's Briana Stimmler

Sales Success Stories

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2021 63:07

Briana Stimmler is the top Solutions Advisor in the top Unmanaged Accounts Team within the SMB segment at Microsoft out of Fargo, North Dakota. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Briana is a helper by nature; she wants to help her customers solve whatever pain points they may be facing. She is a driven, competitive, life-long learner looking to guide her customers by presenting them with tips, solutions, and best practices.

Best Boyz?: Super Mario Bros

Let Me Tell You About...

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2021 149:59

The fellas get Midwest-normal'd and watch the Super Mario Bros. Movie from 1993. A total flop turned cult classic!In professional wrestling, kayfabe /ˈkeɪfeɪb/ (also called work or worked), as a noun, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged.We watched the Super Mario Bros. movie (a special workprint release that you're not allowed to have!) and had a blast! Listen in to this special Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style episode to a .mkv file that the workprint community actively tries to prevent you from having.Check out the website for links to our shows on iTunes, GooglePodcasts and Spotify► https://lmtya.simplecast.com/► https://spoti.fi/2Q55yfLPeep us on Twitter► @LetMeTellYouPDOfficial Discord► https://discord.gg/SqyXJ9REmail or call me bby and leave a voicemail► letmetellyouabouttt@gmail.com► ‪(413) 206-6545‬/////// SHILL CORNER ///////► https://www.patreon.com/LMTYALMTYA shirts!► https://represent.com/lmtya/////// SHILL CORNER ///////

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Super Mario Bros. - Legend of the Seven Scripts

Let Me Tell You About...

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2021 106:34

The Super Mario Bros. movie came out in 1993 to an audience that was baffled, confused and unsure of what to think about the finished product. Which was exactly how everyone working on the movie felt through its history!Tad and Joe cover the history of the super mario bros movie and the seven scripts it went through during production! It's an interesting look at what happens to a movie full of talented people doing great individual work but the danger of too much AND too little oversight!From a light hearted princess bride fantasy film to the gritty BladeRunner-esque sets of the final release. From the swarmy one-step-from-fratricide Mario Mario to the plumbing enthusiast ladies man Mario Mario. From the light-hearted and carefree Luigi Mario to the... still carefree Luigi Mario.Check out the website for links to our shows on iTunes, GooglePodcasts and Spotify► https://lmtya.simplecast.com/► https://spoti.fi/2Q55yfLPeep us on Twitter► @LetMeTellYouPDOfficial Discord► https://discord.gg/SqyXJ9REmail or call me bby and leave a voicemail► letmetellyouabouttt@gmail.com► ‪(413) 206-6545‬ /////// SHILL CORNER ///////► https://www.patreon.com/LMTYALMTYA shirts!► https://represent.com/lmtya/////// SHILL CORNER ///////Tags: podcast,dnd,dungeons and dragons,revival dnd,dungeon master tips and tricks,rpg,tabletop,realplay,lmtya,let me tell you about,homestuck, storytelling

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Two SBA Businesses for Sale - Heather Endresen of Live Oak Bank - e53

Acquisitions Anonymous

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2021 48:23

Guest is Heather Endresen, Director, Search Fund Lending at Live Oak Bank. This week, we discuss two deals for sale relevant to SBA lending (Small Business Administration loan programs). Enjoy! THANKS to our sponsors: SMBash.com - Join us in Orlando, FL for one-on-one interaction with others who focus on buying, operating, and investing in the SMB and Micro-PE space. Tiny Acquisitions - Where the BEST tiny projects are acquired. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dealtalk/support

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Episode 77: VCT Champions + G2 Gozen Greatness & EX SMB Coach Tanizhq

VALORANTING

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2021 143:56

Hark, the trumpets of war from Champions blows in the distance! Players are already quarantining and possibly driving themselves mad like Boaster and Patiphan, but at least the group stages have been drawn and we can get down to speculating matchups and groups of death (It's group D btw). We also had @tanizhq of ex-Heretics and ex-SMB coaching fame come by to give an incredibly candid and illuminating interview, and lastly we take a look at just how G2 Gozen was able to secure victory in the latest Game Changes EMEA tournament! Live on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/dnpeek) every Tuesday at 2pm EST. Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dnpeek), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/dnpeek/), and check out our website (https://www.dnpeek.com/).

Building a Nationally-Distributed Brand with No Industry Experience with Rod Johnson, Co-founder of BLK & Bold

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2021 18:43

We've seen it time and time again — entrepreneurs build a business driven by an existing passion for a product or service. They then leverage that knowledge of an industry's pain points to find new and exciting ways to innovate within it. But we've also heard stories of the exact opposite. The entrepreneurs with absolutely no industry experience that fight tooth and nail to break into a market they know nothing about.The cofounders of Blk & Bold fall into that latter camp, building an online coffee company with zero knowledge of coffee roasting, no experience making a D2C website, and a nearly nonexistent interest in specialty coffee.They dove into their industry blind, but they saw a market gap ripe with opportunity - an opportunity that could not only drive business value but create meaningful social impact. “We knew we wanted to do good,” Rod Johnson says. “We didn't want to just build a business to line our pockets and go sit on a beach and drinking drinks with umbrellas. We want to do something else. We want to make sure that we can have profound impact. We just didn't know profound would manifest into working with Ben and Jerry's and Congresswoman and Corey Bush. That was definitely not on my vision board. And I just want to continue to avail myself to be a servant making black and bold a servant to those opportunities.” Johnson is the Co-founder of BLK & Bold. Before founding the company, he admits to preferring tea over coffee, but when his friend — and now co-founder — came to him with an idea for a new kind of coffee company, Rod knew it was a vision he couldn't ignore. So how did Rod and his co-founder break into the 102 billion dollar US coffee market with no knowledge of the industry? How did they make Blk & Bold stand out among competitors? And how have they turned their own experiences growing up into a social good mission that's impacting the nation? Find out all that and more on today's episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Create Synergy with other Do-Good Brands: Serving the community and giving back through your business can result in unforeseen benefits, including the opportunity to work with other great brands that care. There is a lot of synergy behind building a community around doing good, and when you partner with others, your reach is expanded exponentially. Natural Curiosity Can Compensate for Know-How: Even if you're not an expert in a field that you're interested in starting a business in, you can still do it! Interest and curiosity will take you down all of the right rabbit holes to fill in your knowledge and become a subject matter expert in your industry. Plus, experimentation will allow you to learn by doing, and maybe even find a way of doing something that no one else in the industry has thought of because they have blinders on.Unseen Value of Long-standing Co-founder Relationships: The depth that comes from having a long-standing relationship with your co-founder can really come into play and shine when times are tough. A deeper personal understanding as to how the other person deals with unforeseen circumstances or hiccups can lead to better advice, powerful encouragement, and quicker solutions.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

What the Holidays Mean for SMB's Featuring Kiel Harkness

Amazing Business Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2021 30:17

The Opportunities and Challenges Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB's)Will Face This Holiday Season Shep Hyken interviews Kiel Harkness, Head of Global Marketing and Business Intelligence at UPS Capital®. They discuss how SMB's can compete with giant brands when it comes to problem resolution for delays, theft, and problems during the holiday season. Top Takeaways:  The holidays are upon us! What does it mean for SMB's – and businesses of all sizes? That was the main focus of the interview. UPS commissioned research to find out what really matters to both small to medium business owners and their customers. Here's some good news, some challenges, and some opportunities. · Almost two-thirds of SMB's are going to make up to 20% of their sales during the holiday season. · Two-thirds of customers will spend at least $100 on SMB's during the holiday season. · 80% of businesses that were surveyed said that they are worried about inflation. Whether it is on the cost of production or their price point. · SMB's are 26% more worried about the delays, damage, and theft of the shipments than labor shortage. · Over 40% of SMB's say that they see an increase in porch piracy during the holidays. · 44% of consumers said that the lack of a strong problem resolution on a stolen or damaged goodwill cause them not to shop with an SMB again. · 35% of consumers said that it's a huge motivator for them to spend more with retailers who will guarantee the replacement of lost or damaged items. Quote:  "44% of consumers said that the lack of a strong problem resolution on a stolen or damaged goods will cause them not to shop with an SMB again." About:  Kiel Harkness, Head of Global Marketing and Business Intelligence at UPS Capital®. He led the Digital Transformation of UPS Capital US Domestic Go-to-Market. Supported rebranding of core digital offering and proposition. He manages and directs global UPS Capital Digital Marketing and Digital Properties, Channel Marketing, Business Intelligence, Product Development, Communications and Advertising, and International Field Marketing teams. Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How to Hire an Attorney for Your Acquisition

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2021 35:53

Themes from the interview with @SMB_Attorney: Absolutely necessary: a good lawyer What to look for References? Reviews? Hmm, difficult What you'll pay Don't be afraid to negotiate price Do they need to be in the same location as your deal? You don't want to sue Indemnification: Get familiar with it Official episode page & full show notes at AcquiringMinds.co:How to Hire an Attorney for Your Acquisition

UTD Podcast #33 – The Most Obscure Questions in Scuba Diving Vol. 8 – LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS

UTD Scuba Diving Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2021 47:40

Recorded live at the DEMA show in Las Vegas, Jeff and Ben answer your questions with a standing room only live audience:Does the color of an SMB matter?Can you use an uncompensated regulator on your argon bottle?Why is the long hose on the right post?When should you ditch your weights?This, and much more, live from Las Vegas!

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Buying a Therapy Practice & Selling for Millions

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2021 55:22

Themes from Neil's interview: Growing a mental health practice from $615k/year to $2M. How working in your acquired business (not on it) can save you Owning a business with your spouse Equipment leasing as a solution to keeping overhead costs low To sue or not to sue (the seller, post-acquisition) Preferring businesses for sale rather than cold outreach to owners When to sell a fast-growing business Reach Neil at:@neilsaidwhatOfficial episode page & full show notes at AcquiringMinds.co:Buying a Therapy Practice & Selling for Millions

The roadmap ahead for Square Banking with Luke Voiles

Tearsheet Podcast: The Business of Finance

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2021 35:53

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm your host, Tearsheet's editor in chief, Zack Miller. This following is part of a new series we're running. It's called the Big Bank Theory, and it's all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is bank with the brands they love. Through embedded finance, people are increasingly turning to companies they frequent often -- could be a big retail player like Walmart or SMB accounting software like QuickBooks -- to plan, store, and move money around. The following series includes content from Tearsheet's The Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. We had three full days with the top companies and professionals defining what banking looks like today and into the future. We heard from large incumbents like Bank of America and startups like Current. Zack 1: Square is one of the next generation technology companies that is absolutely part of the fabric of the future of banking. With a seller ecosystem of millions of merchants and the popularity of its Cash App, Square received a banking license in 2021. I spoke with Luke Voiles, the firm's newly appointed general manager of banking. I've spoken to Luke in the past, where he led Intuit's foray into embedded finance and lending. We discuss Square's roots and ethos, diving into the firm's founding story. Luke shares where the firm sees opportunity to provide financial services for its users -- now and into the future. Here's my talk with Square's Luke Voiles.

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Authenticity Over Everything with Michael Chernow, Founder of Kreatures of Habit

Leadership Beyond Borders

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2021 21:59

In a book there are chapters that, together, create not just a story, but an entire world or reality that you can transport yourself into. Each of our own lives is made up of similar chapters that form the whole story of who you are and what you have become. Entrepreneurs often take elements of their own story and inject them into the businesses they start and the work they do. Few have done that as well as Michael Chernow, the founder of multiple businesses, including The Meatball Shop, Seamore's, and now, Kreatures of Habit.“Authenticity is not duplicable right?” Chernow says. “No one can take your authenticity away from you and you can't create it. You can't just fabricate it. It either is, or it's not… The business of businesses is storytelling, and also the business of businesses is relationships, two things that I believe wholeheartedly in. If you're not able to tell a story with your business, it's not good. Human beings for hundreds of thousands of years have always sat around a fireplace and told stories and listen to stories and some of the best times in my life, right? Like those moments where you're engaged and, you know, someone's telling a great story and people are laughing and crying and those are the moments in life that really make memories. And so how do you do that with a business?” To understand who Michael is, you have to peel back his layers. And with each layer you uncover, you realize that Michael's unique life experience, his likes, interests, hobbies, and routines, they not only make up who he is, they reveal the throughline that runs across all of Michael's business ventures. He has woven together not just one story, but many in a way that is authentically Michael. And we're getting into all the layers right here on The Journey.Main Takeaways:Finding Lasting Inspiration to Start a Business: If you have a deep connection with the purpose behind the business that you're creating, you may have an advantage as you hit the market and launch. When you have personally felt the need for what you're solving, you can bring a solution to life authentically. The mission or purpose behind your company will shine through the products and marketing tactics and carry you through tough times. Authenticity Matters as a Founder: Founding a business will take everything from you — all your time, energy, and abilities. Approaching all of it with an authentic reason for “why” will give you a strong foundation to build from. When you and your resources are stretched thin — as they often are in a start-up — you can't fake it or mask your feelings about what you're doing. IF you are personally connected to the why of the business, you can share that enthusiasm through your work and your team will be more likely to buy in and work through cchallenges. Serial Entrepreneurship vs Founding and Staying: What it takes to found a new business isn't always what it takes to keep running it. Some people are more drawn to going through the process of getting a new company built, staffed and launched than to sticking with a passion project for your whole life. There's no right or wrong way to found a company, but know where your skills and passions lie and if you're hankering for the next start-up project, maybe serial entrepreneurship is for you! ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

432: Three Tumbleweed Temptations

LINUX Unplugged

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2021 62:32

Can we live with openSUSE Tumbleweed? We try three different builds and prepare ourselves for our journey into SUSE land. Our setups, what we liked, and what we still need to figure out.

Post Pandemic- A look at the web presence of SMB's across Europe

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2021 60:00

When foot traffic stopped in March 2020, Small and Medium Businesses had to become digital. Even though before March 2020, most local businesses had a presence on the web, and they knew that presence was necessary, they recognized that having a poor presence was almost like having no presence at all. But then the pandemic came, and SMBs finally understood their web presence was critical and that they needed to focus on the customer experience and engagement online. With the lockdown in place, it was the only way they could engage with their customers during the lockdown. But what happened to SMB's online presence after the pandemic propelled them into the future? How do they look now? Are they and continuing to improve as things return to normal? SIINDA, The Search and Information Industry Association of Europe, along with Duda, one of the top leading professional website builders and Insites, a top web intelligence company, decided to conduct a study. They took a look at thousands of SMB's across Europe to see how their web presence has changed since the pandemic. In this episode, they talk about what they found.

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The Argument for Self-Funded Search

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2021 66:10

Themes from the interview with Jordan & Robert: Self-Funded Over Traditional Buy Bigger Turning $200k into $4M+ How Much Money You'll Need Be Prepared to Move No Deal Experience? No Problem What Makes a Good Searcher Reach Jordan & Robert on LinkedIn: Jordan Carter Robert Graham Official episode page & full show notes at AcquiringMinds.co:The Argument for Self-Funded Search

Is Your Firewall Actually Protecting You? What Should You Be Doing?

Craig Peterson's Tech Talk

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2021 84:27

Is Your Firewall Actually Protecting You? What Should You Be Doing? New stats are out this week. So what's the number one vector of attack against us? Our Firewalls. And they're failing. So, what's going on. And what can you do about it? [Automated transcript follows] [00:00:16] And of course, I'm always talking about cyber security, because if you ask me that is one of the biggest problems we have in business. [00:00:27] Today. Well, yeah, you got to find employees. In fact, uh, it's almost impossible to find them in the cyber security space as well. And it's been hard for years. So I try to keep you up-to-date here. We've got boot camps that are coming up and you are really going to like them. We've been working on some supplemental materials for it. [00:00:47] And of course these boot camps are always free, so you can join it. You can have your friends come and learn the. Basics. It's not one of these high sell things. Right. I, I got a little letter in the mail this week saying, Hey, you can come and get a free steak dinner. And of course it's kind of like a timeshare, right? [00:01:09] Jay, you have to listen to the pitch. Yes. Stay over. On us. And you are going to be sitting there for four hours listening to this crazy pitch that's going on. That's not what my bootcamps are. Anybody that's been to. One of them will tell you we work on it. I explain it. You know what you have to do, how you have to do it, the wise, the winds, the wherefores. [00:01:35] So if you would like to learn more for yourself, Make sure you sign up Craig peterson.com sign up for my newsletter. And when a bootcamp is coming up, I will be sure to tell you about it in the newsletter so that you can attend. And it's important to, to understand that this is yeah. Aimed at business, the, these boot camps, but almost everything businesses have to do or shouldn't be doing the same thing applies to you in your. [00:02:08] So, if you are a small business person, if you're someone who has some it experience, and you've been assigned to worry about cyber security, this is for you. If you are a very small business and you're kind of the Jack of all trades, and you've got to worry about cybersecurity, this is for you. And I just got. [00:02:31] This week from someone on my email list who is retired and she was talking about her husband and her, they don't have any kids, no errors. They're trying to protect their financial investments. And of course I responded saying, Hey, I'm not a financial investment advisor, but I can certainly give you some cyber security input, which I did. [00:02:53] And you can ask your questions as well. I'm more than glad to hear them. And you probably, if you've sent them in, you know, I always answer them now. My big man, a few days might take me a week, but I will get around to it. And I try and respond to the emails. Sometimes I answered here on the radio show or on my podcast, but usually it's via email me. [00:03:17] At Craig peterson.com. And of course, that's also on my website, Craig peterson.com. And that's also my name Craig Peters on.com. So let's get into the firewall thing. When you have a network, you are connecting that network to your computers, maybe. To your security cameras, to your printers that you have, maybe there's a lock system. [00:03:44] Maybe there's more, all of this stuff is interconnected and it's all rather well and good. You can have a whole lot of fun with it, but it is not as particularly good if you can't get out to the internet. So what do we do? We hook our network, whether it's home or if it's business to the internet. Now, you know, all of this stuff so far, right? [00:04:06] You're following me. The internet is actually inter connected networks. In case you didn't know, there are now millions of networks that are connected on the internet. There are core networks out there. We were my company like number 10,000. I think it was, uh, a S an R a S number autonomous system. So we were fairly early on. [00:04:32] And of course, as you know, I've been on the internet in various forums since the early 1980s and helping to develop the protocols, but it is important to remember it is an interconnected network of networks. You might ask why? Well, the bottom line is you aren't connecting your network with other networks that have malicious software on them. [00:04:58] Maybe they're just poorly configured. Maybe they're causing a denial of service attack effectively because there's so badly configured. But whatever the case may be, you are still exposed. If you look at the traffic that's coming to your router. So your router is sitting at the edge of your network connected to your internet service provider. [00:05:19] So it might be Comcast or Verizon or a whole slew of others. But your network is connected via a router. Then the router knows how do I get my data from the input to the output or from the output to the input, if you will upstream and downstream data, that's what the router is for. And if you look at the data on your router and most of us can't, but if you were able to, what you will see is hundreds of thousands of internet packets coming to, and from your. [00:05:55] Router your endpoint every day. Usually these are bad guys doing what are called scans. They do port scans. They're primarily looking for services. So what do you, do you have a firewall now in many cases, you'll get a device from your Janette service provider that has a router built in and has a firewall built in, and it has wifi. [00:06:19] All of this stuff, all built in together makes life all nice and warm and fuzzy and Catalina, doesn't it. But in reality, it's not necessarily a good thing to have it all in one, because you're definitely not going to get the best of breed and router or firewall or wifi, but that's a different story. What is that firewall for that router? [00:06:41] Of course, it's getting all this internet traffic and anything that's on the internet that is. I'm trying to get to you is going to go through the. And anything that you are trying to send up to the internet, like for instance, to try and get a web page or something is also going to go up through that router. [00:07:02] So how do you protect yourself time? Was that there wasn't really much of a way to protect yourself. And frankly, there weren't a lot of reasons. To try and protect yourself. And the internet was just this wonderful open thing, lots of fun and played around a lot. Back in the early nineties, it was, it was just a joy in the late eighties to, to be connected up to the internet and then bad guys started doing bad things. [00:07:30] We took the concept of what you have in an automobile and applied it to the. If you're driving your car, your in the passenger compartment and that passenger compartment is hopefully warm in the winter and cool in the summertime. And you are protected from that big mean nasty engine that's in front of you, or if you're driving an electric car from those mean nasty batteries that are probably below you in that car and what's between you and the. [00:08:04] Of course a firewall. And the idea is to keep the nastiness of that engine, all of the heat, the oil, the grime, the wind, everything else is associated with that engine. Keep that away from you so that you can now drive that car just comfortably in that controlled climate of the passenger compartment, that concept was then applied to the inter. [00:08:30] And in fact, I designed and implemented one of the first firewalls ever made way back when and the firewall in the internet Partland is very similar to the car in the car. You have some protrusions through that fire. Don't you, you you've got a steering wheel. How does that get up to the front of the car? [00:08:53] Well, it goes through the firewall and around that steering wheel, of course there's some EBDM, some rubber type stuff that helps stop anything from coming through right next to that steering column. Same, thing's true with the brake pedal and the gas pedal. At least it used to be. Nowadays, it's so much of this as drive by wire, that the only thing going through the firewall is a wire and there's no mechanical linkage. [00:09:24] Unlike my car, which is a 1980 Mercedes-Benz diesel. Where yes, indeed. Direct linkages to everything. So the firewall in the cars protecting you from the nastiness in the engine compartment and the firewall, when it comes to your internet is doing something very similar. Think about your house for a minute, you have a house with doors and windows. [00:09:53] I would hope. And a chimney and maybe a couple of other protrusions that are going outside of the house. Well, you have some similar problems and when it comes to the internet and when it comes to the firewall, With your house, sir. Sure. You could post a guard out front, a whole series of them. You've got a dozen guards out front and they are all guarding that front door. [00:10:19] But if no, one's watching the back door, if no one's paying attention to the windows, there's still ways for the bad guys to get in. And that's what we're going to talk about. How does the internet firewall tie into this analogy of cars and the analogy of your home? Because it's a very important point when you get right down to it. [00:10:44] We need to understand this because the number one tactic reported this week by MITRE and Cisco is exploitation of public facing application. So I'm going to explain what that is. What's your firewall can do for you and what you should do for your firewall. A stick around. We've got a lot more coming up. [00:11:09] I want to invite you to go. Of course, right now, online to Craig peterson.com. Once you're there, just sign up for mind's newsletter. Simple Craig peterson.com. [00:11:25] This week, we found out what the top five tactics are that are most frequently being used by bad guys to attack us. This is done by MITRE and Cisco systems. Number one, public facing applications. What does that mean? [00:11:42] We've been talking about this report, but really what we've been delving into is how data flows on your network, whether it's a home network or maybe it's a business network, how does this whole mess work? [00:11:58] And when miters talks about the biggest problem here, 91% of the time being what's called an exploit of a public facing application, what does that mean? We went through the basics of a firewall and a router. So all of the data coming from the internet, coming into the router, then handed to the firewall. [00:12:24] Any data going out, goes into the firewall. And then the. So that's the pretty simplistic version. And of course the firewall on your network does a similar thing to the firewall in your car. It stops the bad stuff, at least it's supposed to, but your home and your car both have different ways of getting. [00:12:48] Past the firewall in the house. It's your doors and your windows in the car. Of course, it's where the steering column goes through where the brake pedal and the gas pedal go through the clutch, all of that stuff that perch, um, permeates, it goes through. That firewall. And of course, you've probably, if you're been around for awhile, you've had leaks coming through your firewall and, uh, you know, how poorest they can be sometimes. [00:13:18] Well, we have the same type of thing on our internet firewalls. Every home has doors and what we call the doors in on the internet is similar to what they call them. On the, in the Navy, on the water, the reports. So think about a porthole in a boat, or think about a, a door, a port, which is the French word for door. [00:13:45] What happens on the internet? For instance, if you're trying to connect to Craig peterson.com, you are going to connect to a specific port on my server. So the address typically, uh, is going to be resolved by DNS. And then once it gets to the server, you can connect to port 4 43. You might try and connect to port 80, but I'll do a redirect, but that's neither here nor there. [00:14:12] So you're going to connect to that port four 40. So my firewall has to say, Hey, if somebody is coming in and wants to get to port 4 43, which is called a well-known port, that's the port that all web server. Listen on. So if someone's trying to get to my port, my web server on port 4 43, let them in. But if someone's trying to get to another port, don't let them in. [00:14:48] Now there's multiple ways to respond or not respond. I can talk about that right now. That'd be for deep dive workshop, but the idea is. Each application that you are connecting to, or that your providing has. Part of the problem that we've been seen. And this is a very big problem is that people are not changing the administrative passwords on their machines. [00:15:20] So administrative passwords mean things like admin for the username and admin for the password on your firewall. So. Your firewall, if you have what's called when admin enabled, what that means is someone on the wide area network. In other words, The internet, someone on the internet or on the, when can connect to your firewall and control it. [00:15:51] This is, as you can imagine, a very big thing, and it is something that we cover in one of our workshops, explained it all and all of the details and what to do, but most businesses and most people have not properly configured their firewalls. When we're talking about number one, problem, 91% of the time being an exploit against public facing applications. [00:16:18] What that means is they could very well just be trying to connect to the administrative interface on your firewall. Unfortunately, they will often offer. Change the software on your firewall. So they won't just reconfigure. They'll just change it entirely. And they'll do all kinds of evil things. Again, we're not going to get into all of that and what to look for and what can happen. [00:16:44] But number one thing everybody's got to do, and I saw some stats this week as well, that made me want to bring the. Most people and most businesses about two thirds have not changed the default passwords on the hardware that they have. Now it can understand sometimes the kids confusing. No question about. [00:17:07] But if you don't change the password on something that's public facing, in other words, something that can be reached from the internet or again, the wide area network. I know there's a lot of terms for this, but something that someone else can get at from outside your network. And it's the default password like admin admin, you could be in a whole lot of. [00:17:35] So check that right now, please double check that triple check that because even if you have a router from a big internet service provider, again, like the Comcast Verizon's, et cetera of the world, they will almost always have it set up. So you can change that administrative password and Jewish. Now I, again, for clients, I have some different advice than I have for, for just regular users, but make sure you change that. [00:18:09] And here's the second part of the problem. What happens if you have a business and let's say you're not hosting your own website, like I've been doing for a couple of decades and how three 30 years, I guess now. Um, and so you've got your website hosted at some. Web height site, hosting place, you know, Gator or one eye and one eye and one or GoDaddy or whatever. [00:18:35] Okay. So, okay. That's fine. So let's not inside our network. Uh, w we don't worry about the security because that's the vendor's problem. Now we're talking about, okay, what happens. My users who need to work from home. This gets to be a very big problem for so many people, because work from home is important. [00:19:00] So what are you going to do? Well, basically in most cases, unfortunately, businesses are just exposing an application to the internet. So they might, they might. Terribly configured networks, where there is a direct connection that goes right to the files. So you connect to a port on their firewall and it immediately redirects it internally. [00:19:30] Remaps it to the file server. And some people are really, really clever. Alright. Or so they think, because what they'll do is they'll say, okay, well, you know, that, that normal port number. Okay. So I'm going to move. Port number. So you're going to connect to port 17, 17 on my firewall, and it's going to connect you to the file share on my file server so that people from home can just connect to port 17, 17, and ta-da, there are all the files and yeah, we're, we're using passwords, so it'll be okay. [00:20:06] It'll be fine. Um, but, uh, guess what it isn't for a few. Different reasons are we're going to be talking about those here in just a minute. Yeah, I want to encourage you right now. Take a minute. Go online. Craig peterson.com. You'll find lots of information there. I've got 3,500 articles, all searchable, Craig peterson.com. [00:20:32] But more importantly, make sure you sign up for my newsletter. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. So that you can keep up to date on everything that is important in all of our lives. [00:20:51] We're talking about firewalls at home at the office, what it means to have public facing services, really applications, people working from home. How can you make it easy for them and hard for the bad guy? [00:21:15] Many businesses had to quickly change the way their computers were set up because of course the lockdown and people working from home. [00:21:26] And, um, unfortunately. Many mistakes were made. And some of this, in fact, I'm going to talk a lot of this problem up to these managed services providers break, fix shops. My, my fellow information technology contractors, if you will, because they didn't know any. Most of these people have been computer people, their whole lives, right. [00:21:55] They played with PCs when they were young and they might've taken a course or two and wow. MCSC certified. Believe me, this is not something that a straight up MCSC or. And frankly, most of the it certifications can really understand or really handle the cybersecurity can be done, but there's so many things they overlook just like what I was just talking about, exposing a file server directly to the internet. [00:22:29] I mentioned, okay. While they thought it was going to be safe because there's a username and password, but there's a couple of huge problems here. Problem. Number one. When you're exposing a service to the internet, like for instance, the files server, you are exposing software that may have exploitable, but. [00:22:54] And again, going back to those stats from earlier this week, more than half of all of the systems that are out there are not patched to date. It's so bad that president Biden just ordered the federal government agencies to apply patches some as old as three years. So what happens now? Well, the bad guy scan, and guess what they found. [00:23:23] Port that you thought was just so clever because it wasn't the standard port number for that service. Maybe it's SMB or CIFS or something else. And, uh, they found it because they scan, they look, they see what the response is that tells them what type of a server sitting there. And then they try, well, let me see. [00:23:45] There's the zero day exploits, but why bother with those? Let's just start with the good old standard ones. And unfortunately, because so many machines are not patched up at all, let alone properly patched up. You, they end up getting into the machine. It's really that simple, just because it's not patched up. [00:24:08] How does that sound? Huh? Yeah, it's just plain, not patched up. It's not available for anyone to be able to use anybody to be able to access. Right. It there it's not restricted. So the passwords don't matter if you haven't patched your systems. And then the second problem is that. Are brute force attacks against so many servers out there. [00:24:36] And most of the time, what we're talking about is Microsoft, but, you know, there's the share of bugs kind of goes around, but Microsoft and really, they get nailed a lot more than most beet, mainly because they're probably the number one out there that's in use today, not in the server community, certainly, but certainly also in the. [00:24:59] It's been, you know, small businesses, that's all they know. So they just run a Microsoft server and more and more, you kind of have to run it because I, I get it. You know, there's so many apps that depend on the various functions that are provided by the active directory server at Microsoft and stuff. So we, we do that for our customers as well. [00:25:19] So are you starting to see why the brute force against a server will often get them in and the smarter guys figure out what the business is? And then they go to the dark web and they look up those business emails. Addresses that they have that have been stolen along with the passwords that were used. [00:25:43] That's why we keep saying, use a different password on every site because that stolen password now. Is going to be tried against your service, your, your file server. That might be there. You might be trying to have a VPN service that the people are VPN in from home. You might have remote desktop, which has been. [00:26:08] Abject failure when it comes to cybersecurity, it's just been absolutely terrible. So you might have any of those types of things. And if they've got your email address and they've got the passwords you've used on other sites, which they've stolen and they try them, are they going to work? Odds are yes, because most people, I got another set of stats this week. [00:26:36] Most people use the same password for every site out there or every type of site. So they might get a second, most common is they use one password for all of their social media sites. They use another one for all of their banking sites. So we cover this in some depth in our bootcamp so that you understand how to do the whole password thing. [00:27:03] And what I recommend is a piece of software called one password. I don't recommend that you just use one password for everything. I was misunderstood by someone the other day. You mean just w w I use one password for everything. Yeah, you do. And then I talked to them a little bit more because I thought that was an odd question. [00:27:24] And it turned out, he was thinking, you just have the one password, like, like, you know, P at sign SSW, zero RD. Right? You use that everywhere. No, there's a piece of software go to one password.com. That's what I recommend as a password manager. And I show you how to use that and how to use it effectively in my bootcamp. [00:27:48] Absolutely free. Just like the radio is free. I'm trying to get the information out to as many people as possible, but you gotta be on my list. Craig peterson.com. Make sure you go there. So I've explained the basics here of what happens. We have a door open or windows, open ports on our servers, on our firewalls at home. [00:28:15] And at work. So the thing to do, particularly if you're a business, but even if your home user is check that firewall configuration. And let me tell you something that probably won't come as a surprise. Most of these internet server. The providers are in the business to make as much money as possible. And cybersecurity is very much secondary. [00:28:40] They know they talk about it and they talk about software defined networks and things that sound really cool. But in reality, what they give you is. Configured very well and is going to expose you. So make sure you go in, they will set it up. For instance, if they're providing you with television services, they'll set it up so that they can just bypass your firewall and get into the cable box that they installed in your house. [00:29:09] Yeah. Obviously that's not something they should be doing because now they are opening you up to attack. What happens when there's a cybersecurity problem with the cable box? We've seen this problem too, with television vendors where they poke a hole out through your firewall so that they can then gather statistics and do firmer updates and everything else. [00:29:34] It's insane. It really is. These vendors are not thinking about you. They're not thinking about the consequences. It is a very, very sad situation, but now you know what to do and how to do it. Okay. I explained today, firewalls. I explained router. I explained ports, which should be open, which should not be open. [00:29:58] And the reasons why I even mentioned passwords, I get into that in a lot of detail in my bootcamp, Craig peterson.com to get on that waiting list. Craig peterson.com, just subscribe and you'll be kept up to date. [00:30:14] There has been a whole lot of discussion lately about Metta. You might've heard. In fact, you probably did that. Facebook changed its name to Metta and they're aiming for something called the metaverse. So what is it exactly and what's it going to do for or to you? [00:30:32] The metaverse oh my gosh. I had a great discussion this week about the metaverse this came out in, um, and originally anyways, in this novel called the what was it now? [00:30:47] A snow crash. That's what it was 1992, Neil. Stevenson or Steffenson. I'm not sure how he pronounces it, but in this book, which was a cyberpunk model and I've, I've always thought cyber punk was cool. Uh, is the metal versus an imaginary place that's made available to the public over the world wide fiber optics network. [00:31:13] And it's projected onto virtual reality goggles sound familiar yet. And in the. You can build a buildings park signs as well as things that do not exist. In reality, such as vast hovering overhead light show, special neighborhoods were three where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored and free combat zones where people can go hunt and kill each other. [00:31:42] Great article about this in ARS Technica this week. And, uh, that was a little quote from the book and from the article. Phenomenal idea. Well, if you have read or seen the movie ready player one, and I have seen the movie, but a friend of mine this week said the book is so much better. So I'm going to have to read that book, ready player one. [00:32:06] But in it, you have these people living in. Dystopian future where everything is badly worn down, the mega cities, people building on top of each other and they get their entertainment and relaxation and even make money in. Prison time by being inside this virtual world, they can go anywhere, do anything and play games, or just have fun. [00:32:39] One of the vendors that we work with at my company mainstream has this kind of a virtual reality thing for. I kind of a summit, so people can go and watch this presentation and I think it's stupid, but they, you walk in. And it's, uh, this is just on a screen. They're not using like those Oculus 3d graph glasses, but you walk into an auditorium. [00:33:13] So you've got to make your little avatar walked on. Dun dun, dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, and then go to an empty seat. And then you have to make your avatar sit down. Right? I, I have never played a game like this. I never played second life. Never any of that sort of thing. It was kind of crazy to me. And then I was doing a presentation, so I had to go Dundon then, then, then the, up onto the rostrum there and stand behind the podium and, and then put my slides up on this virtual screen. [00:33:49] It was ridiculous. I have a full television production studio here in my, in my lab. Right. And that's, this is where I do the radio show. This is where I do my television appearances. This is where I do pretty much everything. Right. And so what I can do is I can split screen with my face, with the desktop. [00:34:12] You can see my desktop, I can draw on it, circle things, highlight things or whatever I want to do. Right. But no, no, no, no. I was in their virtual reality. And so all I could do is. I have the slides come up. In fact, I had prepared beforehand, pre-taped it? A, the whole presentation, but I couldn't play that video. [00:34:37] No, no, no. I had to show a slide deck, you know, death by PowerPoint. I'm sure you've been there before. It's very, very frustrating in case you can tell for me, well, we've seen this type of thing. I mentioned some of the things like that. I'm in second life. I'm sure you've heard of that before. Sims is another one you've probably heard of before. [00:35:01] These types of semi metaverses have been around a very long time. And, and in fact, all the way on back to the nineties is Habbo hotel. G I don't know if you ever heard of that thing, but it was non-line gaming and social space. I helped to develop one for a client of mine back in the early nineties. [00:35:23] Didn't really go very far. I think it was ahead of its time. It's it's interesting right now, enter. Mark Zuckerberg. Do you remember a few years ago, mark Zuckerberg had a presentation. He was going to make this huge announcement, right? They bought Oculus. What was it? It was like crazy amount of money. And then he came in the back of the hall. [00:35:50] And nobody noticed he walked all the way up to the front and nobody even saw him because they were all wearing these 3d glasses. And of course, today they are huge. They are awkward and they don't look that great, the pictures inside, but the idea is you can move your head around and the figures move as your head moves, almost like you're in the real world. [00:36:13] And that's kind of cool and people thought it was kind of cool and they didn't see Zuckerberg because they all had these things on. And the inside was playing a little presentation about what Facebook was going to do with Oculus. Well, they just killed off the Oculus name anyways here a couple of weeks ago, over at Facebook about the same time that got rid of the Facebook name and went to meta. [00:36:39] The Facebook product is so-called Facebook and it appears what they are going to be doing is taking the concept of a metaverse much, much further than anyone has ever taken it before. They're planning on there's speculation here. Okay. So, you know, don't obviously I don't get invested. I don't give investment advice, investment advice. [00:37:10] Um, but I do talk about technology and, uh, I've been usually five to 10 years. I had so take that as well. They as the grain of salt, but I think what they're planning on doing is Facebook wants to become the foundation for Mehta versus think about things like world of Warcraft, where you've got the. Gain that people are playing. [00:37:39] And it's a virtual reality, basically, right? It might be two D, but some of it's moving into the three-dimensional world. Other games like Minecraft and roadblocks, they have some pretty simple building blocks that people can use network effects and play your creativity to make your little world and the ability. [00:38:04] To exchange and or sell your virtual property. That's where I think Mr. Zuckerberg is getting really interested now because if they can build the platform that everybody else the wants to have a virtual world builds their virtual world on top of. Man, do they have a moneymaker? Now? People like me, we're going to look at this and just poo poo it. [00:38:35] I I'm sure I'm absolutely sure, because it will be another 20 years before you really think it's. You know, some of these scifi shows have talked about it. You know, you can feel someone touching you, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. That's going to be very crude for a very long time. And now CGI is pretty good. [00:38:57] Yeah. You watch the movies. CGI is great, but that takes weeks worth of rendering time on huge farms, clusters of servers. So it's going to take quite a while. Looking at the normal advancement of technology before this really becomes real. Now there have also been us court cases over who owns what in bad happened with Eve online. [00:39:28] Second life where disagreements over player ownership of the virtual land created by the publisher, which was Linden labs. When. And I've also mentioned in the past how our friends over at the IRS have tried to tax some of the land that you own inside these virtual worlds. So ownership, do you really own it? [00:39:55] Does it really exist? What would non fungible tokens maybe it does. And these non fungible tokens are. Basically just a check, some verification, I'm really oversimplifying of some sort of a digital something rather lately. And initially it was mostly pictures. And so you had a picture of something and you owned that and you could prove it because of the blockchain behind it. [00:40:27] But I think this is where he's really interested because if he can build the base platform. Let the developers come up with the rules of what's it called it a game and come up with what the properties look like and how people can trade them and sell them and what kind of upgrades they can get. Right. [00:40:48] So let's nothing Zuckerberg has to worry about. Uh, Metta or Zuckerberg then worries about, okay. So how do we collect money for these? How do we check with the transactions? Uh, somebody wants to buy those sort of Damocles. How does that transaction work and how do we Facebook Metta? How do we get a slice of the act? [00:41:16] You got to believe that that's where things are going. And if they have the ability to make this base platform and be able to take characters from one part of a developer to another part of the developer, you could have worlds where Gandalf might be fighting bugs bunny. Right? Interesting. Interesting and Warner brothers, all these movie companies would probably be coming out with complete virtual reality. [00:41:49] So when you're watching James Bond, you're not just watching James Bond, you can look around, you can see what's happening. People sneaking up behind. And ultimately you could be James Bond, but that's decades away. I think a good 20 years. All right, everybody. Thanks for sticking around here. Make sure you go online. [00:42:11] Craig peterson.com/subscribe. Get my weekly newsletter. Find out about these free boot camps and other things that I have. So we can keep you up to date and keep you safe. [00:42:25] We already talked about Metta and their name, change the metaverse, but there's something else. Facebook did this last week that surprised a lot of users, something they started in 2010, but has been controversial ever since. [00:42:41] We had a pretty big announcement, frankly, this last week from our friends over at Facebook, not the one where they change their name and the. [00:42:51] Basically trying to create a metaverse platform. That's going to be the one platform that rules the world. Although those are my words by the way. But Facebook has announced plans now to shut down a decade old. Facial recognition system this month. We'll see what they do with this. If they follow through entirely, but they're planning on deleting over 1 billion faces that they have already gone through and analyzed. [00:43:26] You might remember. In 2010, Facebook had a brand new feature. It started announcing, Hey, did you know that so-and-so just posted your picture? Is this you? Is this your friend, is this sewn? So do you remember all of those questions? If you're a Facebook user back in the day? Well, they were automatically identifying people who appeared in digital photos and suggested that users or users tagged them with a click we're going to get to and admitted here. [00:43:57] Uh, and of course that then linked the Facebook account for. The picture that you tagged to the images and let that person know. And of course Facebook's ultimate goal is to get you to stay on long, as long online, as long as possible. Because if you're online, you are going to be looking at ads that are aimed primarily at. [00:44:18] Well, facial recognition has been a problem. We've seen it a worldwide. I just read through a restatement from the electronic frontier foundation, talking about facial recognition and the problems with it, how some people have been arrested based on facial recognition and held for over a day. We'll have cases where the police use to kind of a crummy photograph of them from a surveillance video sometimes also from a police car, in some areas, the police cars are continually taking video and uploading it to the internet, looking for things like license plates, to see if a car. [00:45:00] Parking ticket that hasn't been paid or it hasn't paid us registration all the way through looking at faces, who is this person? And some in law enforcement have kind of thought it would be great to have kind of like Robocop. You remember Robocop, not the ed 2 0 9. There was also in that movie. That's also very scary, but when they look at someone who's on a street at autonomous. [00:45:24] Pops up in their glasses, who it is, any criminal record, if there any sort of a threat to et cetera. And I can understand that from the policemen standpoint. And I interviewed out at the consumer electronic show, a manufacturer of. That technology, it was kind of big and bulky at the time. This was probably about six or eight years ago, but nowadays you're talking about something that's kind of Google glass size, although that's kind of gone by the wayside too. [00:45:54] There are others that are out there that you. Facial recognition. Technology has really advanced in its ability to identify people, but you still get false positives and false negatives. And that's where part of the problem becomes from they have been taking and they been private companies primarily, but also some government agencies they've been taking pictures from. [00:46:21] They can find them. We've talked about Clearview AI before this is a company that literally stole pitchers, that it could get off the internet. They scan through Facebook, Instagram, everywhere. They could find faces and they tied it all back in. They did facial recognition. On all of those photos that they had taken and then sold the data to law enforcement agencies. [00:46:49] There's an app you can get from Clearview AI. That runs on your smartphone and you can take a picture of someone in the street, clear view. AI will run that face through their database and we'll tell you who it is, what their, what their background is, where their LinkedIn page is their Facebook page, wherever it found them online. [00:47:13] Basically what they've been doing. Now Clearview had a problem here this last couple of weeks because the Australian government ordered them to delete all facial recognition, data belonging, to anyone that lives. In Australia. Now that's going to be a bit of a problem for clear view, because it's hard to identify exactly where people live just based on a photograph. [00:47:40] And the United Kingdom is also considering doing this exact same thing. Now, clear views have been sued. They violated the terms of service from Facebook and some of these other sites that I mentioned, but they did it anyway. And clear view was. To destroy all the facial images and facial templates they had retrieved about any Australian. [00:48:08] I think that's probably a pretty good idea. I don't like the idea of this data being out there. Well, if your password is stolen and we're going to be talking about that in our bootcamp, coming up here in a couple of weeks about how to determine if your username or your password is stolen. But, uh, and of course, if you want to get that. [00:48:29] Bootcamp and go to that. There's no charge for it, but you have to know about it. And the only way is to sign up. You have to make sure you're on my email list@craigpeterson.com. But what happens when your email address is stolen or your password, or both are stolen from a web. Oh, typically they end up on the dark web. [00:48:50] They sell personal identification for very little money. In some cases it's only a few dollars per thousand people's identities. It is absolutely crazy. So the bad guys are looking for that information, but you can change your password. You can change your email address, but if your facial information is stolen, Can't change your face. [00:49:18] If your eye print is stolen, you can't change your eye. I have a friend who's pretty excited because he got to go right through the security at the airport ever so quickly. Cause all they had to do was scan his eyeball. Well, that data is valuable data because it cannot be changed. And it can, in some cases be replicated. [00:49:41] In fact, the department of Homeland security and the transportation safety administration had the database of face print stolen from them in 2019. To about 200,000 people's identities were stolen, the face sprints. It's just absolutely crazy. And this was some, a vendor of us customs and border protection. [00:50:05] And it, it, you can't write down to it. I read the detailed report on it just now. And the report that came out of the federal government said, well, it went to a contractor who. Took the data, all of the face prints off site over to their own site. And it wasn't encrypted when they took it over there. But it does mention that it was taken from an un-encrypted system at customs and border protection. [00:50:34] So wait a minute. Now you're blaming the contractor that you hired because it wasn't encrypted and yet you didn't encrypt it yourself either. I, you know, I guess that kind of goes around, but they want to. They want your biometric information just as much as they want anything else. Think about your phones. [00:50:53] Nowadays, apple has done a very good job with the biometrics and the fingerprints and making sure that that information is only ever stored on the phone. It never goes to apple, never leaves the phone it's in what apple calls, the secure long term. And if you mess with it at all, it destroys itself, which is part of the problem with replacing a cracked screen yourself on an iPhone, because you're going to disturb that secure enclave and the phone will no longer work. [00:51:24] That is not true when it comes to many other devices, including most of your Android phones that are out there. It is. So if the bad guys have. Your face print, they, and they can create 3d models that can and do in fact, go ahead and fool it into letting you in that that's information they want. So why are we allowing these companies to like clear view AI? [00:51:52] And others to buy our driver's license photos to the federal government, to also by the way, by our driver's license photos, by them from other sites and also our passport information. It's getting kind of scary, especially when you look into. China has a social credit system. And the Biden administration has made rumblings about the same here in the U S but in China, what they're doing is they have cameras all over the place and your faces. [00:52:27] And they can identify you. So if you jaywalk, they take so many points off of your social credit. If you don't do something that they want you to do or be somewhere, they want you to be, you lose credits again, and you can gain them as well by doing various things that the government wants you to do. And. [00:52:49] And ultimately, if you don't have enough social credit, you can't even get on a train to get to work. But the real bad part are the users. This is a minority in China and China's authorities are using. Us facial recognition, technology and artificial intelligence technology. Hey, thanks Google for moving your artificial intelligence lab to China in order to control and track the users. [00:53:19] Absolutely amazing in the United States law enforcement is using this type of software to aid policing, and we've already seen problems of overreach and mistaken IRS. So Facebook to you're leading a billion of these frameworks. If you will, of people's faces biometrics. Good for them. Hopefully this will continue a tread elsewhere. [00:53:46] Well, we've talked a little bit today about firewalls, what they do, how your network is set up. If you miss that, make sure you catch up online. My podcast@craigpeterson.com, but there's a whole new term out there that is changing security. [00:54:03] It's difficult to set up a secure network. [00:54:07] Let's just say mostly secure because if there's a power plug going into it, there's probably a security issue, but it's difficult to do that. And historically, what we've done is we've segmented the networks. So we have various devices that. Maybe be a little more harmful and on one network, other devices at a different level of security and many businesses that we've worked with, we have five different networks each with its own level of secure. [00:54:38] And in order to get from one part of the network, for instance, let's say you're an accounting and you want to get to the accounting file server. We make sure your machine is allowed access at the network level. And then obviously on top of that, you've got usernames and passwords. Maybe you've got multifactor authentication or something else. [00:54:59] I'll make sense, doesn't it? Well, the new move today is to kind of move away from that somewhat. And instead of having a machine or a network have firewall rules to get to a different network or different machine within an organization. There's something called zero trust. So again, think of it. You've, you've got a network that just has salespeople on it. [00:55:25] You have another network that might have just your accounting people. Another network has your administrative people and other network has your software developers, et cetera. So all of these networks are separate from each other and they're all firewalled from each other. So that only for instance, at county people can get to the accounting server. [00:55:44] Okay, et cetera. Right? The sales guys can enter the sales data and the programmers can get at their programs. And maybe the servers that are running their virtual machines are doing testing on what was zero trust. It is substantially different. What they're doing with zero trust is assuming that you always have to be authentic. [00:56:11] So instead of traditional security, where, where you're coming from helps to determine your level of access, you are assuming that basically no units of trust. So I don't care where you're coming from. If you are on a machine in the accounting department, We want to verify a lot of other information before we grant you access. [00:56:38] So that information probably does include what network you're on. Probably does include the machine you're on, but it's going to all. You as a user. So you're going to have a username. You're going to have an ID. You're going to have a multi-factor authentication. And then we're going to know specifically what your job is and what you need to have specific access. [00:57:04] Because this follows the overall principle of least privilege to get your job done. Now you might've thought in the past that, oh my gosh, these firewalls, they're just so annoying. It's just so difficult to be able to do anything right. Well, zero trust is really going to get your attention. If that's what you've been saying. [00:57:23] But here's an example of the traditional security approach. If you're in the office, you get access to the full network. Cause that's pretty common, right? That's not what we've been doing, but that's pretty common where we have been kind of working in the middle between zero trust and this traditional you're in the office. [00:57:41] So you can potentially get it. Everything that's on the off. And if you're at home while all you have to do is access a specific portal, or as I've explained before, well, you are just connecting to an IP address in a hidden port, which won't remain hidden for. So maybe in a traditional security approach, the bouncer checks your ID. [00:58:08] You can go anywhere inside this club and it's multi floor, right. But in a zero trust approach, getting into the club, having that bouncer look at your ID is only the first check, the bartender or the waiter. They also have to check your ID before you could be served. No matter where you are in the club and that's kind of how they do it right now, though, they'll make a mark on your hand or they'll stamp it. [00:58:35] And now they know, okay, this person cannot get a drink for instance. So think of it that way, where every resource that's available inside the business independently checks whether or not you should have access to. This is the next level of security. It's something that most businesses are starting to move towards. [00:58:57] I'm talking about the bigger guys, the guys that have had to deal with cybersecurity for awhile, not just the people who have a small business, most small businesses have that flat network that. Again about right. The traditional security approach of all you're in the office. So yeah, you can get at anything. [00:59:15] It doesn't matter. And then you, you have the sales guys walking out with your client list and who knows what else is going on? Think of Ferris, Bueller, where he was updating his grades and miss days at high school, from his home computer. And you've got an idea of why you might want to secure. You are network internally because of, again, those internal threats. [00:59:40] So keep an eye out for it. If you're looking to replace your network, obviously this is something that we've had a lot of experience with. Cisco is probably the best one out there for this, but there are a few other vendors that are pretty good. If you want to drop me an email, I'll put together a list of some of the top tier zero. [01:00:02] Providers so that you can look at those. I don't have one right now, but I'd be glad to just email me M e@craigpeterson.com. We can point you in the right direction, but if you have an it person or department, or whether you outsource it to an MSP, a managed services provider, make sure you have the discussion with them about zero. [01:00:28] Now, when I'm looking at security, I'm concerned about a bunch of things. So let me tell you something that Karen and I have been working on the last, oh man, few weeks. I mentioned the boot camp earlier in the show today. And one of the things that we're going to do for those people that attend the bootcamp is I think incredible. [01:00:49] This has taken Karen so much time to dig up. Once she's done is she's worked with me to figure out what are the things that you need to keep tabs on. Now, again, this is aimed primarily at businesses, but let me tell you, this is going to be great for home users as well. And we've put together this list of what you should be doing. [01:01:15] About cybersecurity every week. And in fact, a couple of things that are daily, but every week, every month, every quarter, every six months and every year, it's a full checklist. So you can take this and sit down with it and, you know, okay. So I have to do these things this week and this isn't. Response to anything in particular, it does meet most requirements, but frankly, it's something that every business should be doing when it comes to the cybersecurity. [01:01:53] It includes things like passwords. Are they being done? Right? Did you do some training with your employees on fishing or a few other topics all the way on down to make sure you got some canned air and blew out the fan? In your workstations, you'd be amazed at how dirty they get. And he is the enemy of computers that makes them just fail much, much faster than, than 82, same thing with server. [01:02:22] So it is everything. It is a lot of pages and it is just check she'd made it nice and big. Right. So even I can read it. But it's little check marks that you can mark on doing while you're going through it. So we're doing some more work on that. She's got the first couple of iterations done. We're going to do a couple more, make sure it is completely what you would need in order to help keep your cyber security in. [01:02:50] But the only way you're going to get it is if you are in the BR the bootcamp absolutely free. So it was this list, or of course you won't find out unless you are on my email list. Craig Peterson.com/subscribe. [01:03:06] One of the questions I get asked pretty frequently has to do with artificial intelligence and robots. Where are we going? What are we going to see first? What is the technology that's first going to get into our businesses and our homes. [01:03:22] Artificial intelligence is something that isn't even very well-defined there's machine learning and there's artificial intelligence. [01:03:33] Some people put machine learning as a subset of artificial intelligence. Other people kind of mess around with it and do it the other way. I tend to think that artificial intelligence is kind of the top of the heap, if you will. And that machine learning is a little bit further down because machines can be programmed to learn. [01:03:54] For instance, look at your robot, your eye robot cleans the floor, cleans the carpet. It moves around. It has sensors and it learned, Hey, I have to turn here. Now. I robot is actually pretty much randomly drew. But there are some other little vacuum robots that, that do learn the makeup of your house. The reason for the randomization is while chairs move people, move things, move. [01:04:22] So trying to count on the house, being exactly the same every time isn't isn't exactly right. Uh, by the way, a lot of those little vacuums that are running around are also sending data about your house, up to the manufacturer in the. So they often will know how big the house is. They know where it's located because you're using the app for their robot. [01:04:47] And that, of course it has access to GPS, et cetera, et cetera. Right. But where are we going? Obviously, the little by robot, the little vacuum does not need much intelligence to do what it's doing, but one of the pursuits that we've had for. Really since the late nineties for 20, 25 years are what are called follower robots. [01:05:13] And that's when I think we're going to start seeing much more frequently, it's going to be kind of the first, um, I called it machine learning. They call it artificial intelligence who you really could argue either one of them, but there's a little device called a Piaggio fast forward. And it is really kind of cool. [01:05:34] Think of it almost like R2D2 or BB eight from star wars following you around. It's frankly, a little hard to do. And I want to point out right now, a robot that came out, I think it was last year from Amazon is called the Astro robot. And you might remember Astro from the Jetsons and. This little robot was available in limited quantities. [01:06:01] I'm looking at a picture of it right now. It, frankly, Astro is quite cute. It's got two front wheels, one little toggle wheel in the back. It's got cameras. It has a display that kind of makes it look like kids are face, has got two eyeballs on them. And the main idea behind this robot is that it will. [01:06:23] Provide some protection for your home. So it has a telescoping camera and sensor that goes up out of its head up fairly high, probably about three or four feet up looking at this picture. And it walks around your one rolls around your home, scanning for things that are out of the normal listening for things like windows breaking there, there's all kinds of security. [01:06:50] That's rolled into some of these. But it is a robot and it is kind of cool, but it's not great. It's not absolutely fantastic. Amazon's dubbing the technology it's using for Astro intelligent motion. So it's using location and mapping data to make sure that Astro. Gets around without crashing into things. [01:07:18] Unlike that little vacuum cleaner that you have, because if someone loves something on the floor that wasn't there before, they don't want to run over it, they don't want to cause harm. They don't want to run into your cats and dogs. And oh my maybe lions and bears too. But, uh, they're also using this computer vision technology called visual ID and that is used. [01:07:41] With facial recognition, drum roll, please, to recognize specific members of the family. So it's kind of like the dog right in the house. It's sitting there barking until it recognizes who you are, but Astro, in this case, Recognizes you and then provide you with messages and reminders can even bring you the remote or something else and you just drop it in the bin and off it goes. [01:08:08] But what I am looking at now with this Piaggio fast forward, you might want to look it up online, cause it's really. Cool is it does the following, like we've talked about here following you around and doing things, but it is really designed to change how people and goods are moving around. So there's a couple of cool technologies along this line as well. [01:08:35] That it's not, aren't just these little small things. You might've seen. Robots delivery robots. The Domino's for instance, has been working on there's another real cool one out there called a bird. And this is an autonomous driving power. Basically. It's a kind of a four wheel ATV and it's designed to move between the rows of fruit orchards in California or other places. [01:09:01] So what you do to train this borough robot is you press a follow button on it. You start walking around the field or wherever you want it to go. It's using, uh, some basic technology to follow you, cameras and computer vision, and it's recording it with GPS and it memorizes the route at that point. Now it can ferry all of your goods. [01:09:29] Around that path and communicate the path by the way to other burrow robots. So if you're out doing harvesting or whether it's apples out in the east coast, or maybe as I said out in California, you've got it. Helping you with some of the fruit orchards. It's amazing. So this is going to be something that is going to save a lot of time and money, these things, by the way, way up to 500 pounds and it can carry as much as a half a ton. [01:09:58] You might've seen some of the devices also from a company down in Boston, and I have thought that they were kind of creepy when, when you look at it, but the company's called Boston dynamics and. They were just bought, I think it was Hondai the bought them trying to remember. And, uh, anyway, These are kind of, they have robots that kind of look like a dog and they have other robots that kind of look like a human and they can do a lot of different chores. [01:10:33] The military has used them as have others to haul stuff. This one, this is like the little dog, it has four legs. So unlike a lot of these other robots that are on wheels, this thing can go over very, very. Terrain it can self write, et cetera. And they're also using them for things like loading trucks and moving things around, um, kind of think of Ripley again, another science fiction tie, uh, where she's loading the cargo in the bay of that spaceship. [01:11:05] And she is inside a machine. That's actually doing all of that heavy lifting now. Today, the technology, we have a can do all of that for us. So it is cool. Uh, I get kind of concerned when I see some of these things. Military robots are my favorite, especially when we're talking about artificial intelligence, but expect the first thing for these to be doing is to be almost like a companion, helping us carry things around, go fetch things for us and in the business space. [01:11:40] Go ahead and load up those trucks and haul that heavy stuff. So people aren't hurting their backs. Pretty darn cool. Hey, I want to remind you if you would like to get some of the free training or you want some help with something the best place to start is Craig peterson.com. And if you want professional help, well, not the shrink type, but with cyber security. [01:12:06] email me M E at Craig peterson.com. [01:12:10] Just in time for the holidays, we have another scam out there and this one is really rather clever and is fooling a lot of people and is costing them, frankly, a whole lot of money. [01:12:26] This is a very big cyber problem because it has been very effective. And although there have been efforts in place to try and stop it, they've still been able to kind of get ahead of it. There's a great article on vice that's in this week's newsletter. In my show notes up on the website and it is talking about a call that came in to one of the writers, Lorenzo, B cherry, um, probably completely messy and that name up, but the call came in from. [01:13:03] Supposedly right. Paid pals, uh, fraud prevention system. Someone apparently had tried to use his PayPal account to spend $58 and 82 cents. According to the automated voice on the line, PayPal needed to verify my identity to block the transfer. And here's a quote from the call, uh, in order to secure your account, please enter the code we have sent to your mobile device. [01:13:32] Now the voice said PayPal, sometimes texts, users, a code in order to protect their account. You know, I've said many times don't use SMS, right? Text messages for multi-factor authentication. There are much better ways to do it. Uh, after entering a string of six digits, the voice said, thank you. Your account has been secured and this request has been blocked. [01:13:57] Quote, again, don't worry. If any payment has been charged your account, we will refund it within 24 to 48 hours. Your reference ID is 1 5 4 9 9 2 6. You may now hang up, but this call was actually. Hacker they're using a type of bot is what they're called. These are these automated robotic response systems that just dramatically streamlined the process for the hackers to gain access into your account. [01:14:31] Particularly when you have multi-factor authentication codes where you're using. An SMS messages, but it also works for other types of one-time passwords. For instance, I suggest to everybody and we use these with our clients that they should use something called one password.com. That's really you'll find them online. [01:14:54] And one password.com allows you to use and create one time password, same thing with Google authenticator, same thing with Microsoft authenticator, they all have one-time password. So if a bad guy has found your email address and has found your password online in one of these hacks, how can they possibly get into your PayPal account or Amazon or Coinbase or apple pay or. [01:15:26] Because you've got a one time password set up or SMS, right? Multifactor authentication of some sort. Well they're full and people and absolute victims. Here's what's happening. Th this bot by the way, is great for bad guys that don't have social engineering skills, social engineering skills, or when someone calls up and says, hi, I'm from it. [01:15:51] And there's a problem. And we're going to be doing an upgrade on your Microsoft word account this weekend because of a bug or a security vulnerability. So what, what I need from you is I need to know what username you're normally using so that I can upgrade the right. So we don't, it doesn't cost us a whole bunch by upgrading accounts that aren't being used. [01:16:15] So once the account name that you use on the computer and what's the password, so we can get in and test it afterwards, that's a social engineering type attack. That's where someone calls on the phone, those tend to be pretty effective. But how about if you don't speak English very well? At all frankly, or if you're not good at tricking people by talking to them, well, this one is really great. [01:16:44] Cause these bots only cost a few hundred bucks and anybody can get started using these bots to get around multi-factor authentication. See, here's how it works. In order to break into someone's account, they need your username, email address and password. Right? Well, I already said. Much many of those have been stolen. [01:17:07] And in our boot camp coming up in a few weeks, we're going to go through how you can find out if your username has been stolen and has been posted on the dark web and same thing for your password. Right? So that's going to be part of the. Coming up that I'll announce in the newsletter. Once we finished getting everything already for you guys, they also go ahead and buy what are called bank logs, which are login details from spammers who have already tricked you into giving away some of this information. [01:17:41] But what if you have multi-factor authentication enabled something I'm always talking about, always telling you to do. Well, these bots work with platforms like Twilio, for instance, uh, and they are using other things as well, like slack, et cetera. And all the bad guy has to do with that point is going. [01:18:07] And, uh, say, they're trying to break into your account right now. So they're going to, let's get really, really specific TD bank. That's where my daughter works. So let's say you have a TD bank account. And the hacker has a good idea that you have a TD bank account knows it because they entered in your username and password and TD bank was letting them in. [01:18:32] But TD bank sent you a text message with that six character code, right? It's usually digits. It's usually a number. So what happens then? So the bad guys says, okay, so it's asking me for this six digit SMS

google australia australian china chinese california america amazon man android military english port french paid change u s pops stevenson web piece iraq united states technology mercedes benz prison warner oculus fbi jewish supposedly gps microsoft james bond robots cgi robocop ai artificial ripley iphone ferris bueller operations navy cisco laden united kingdom venezuela odds homeland facial id minecraft joe biden sims astro provide paypal gandalf domino dystopian basics parking powerpoint msp irs bootcamp godaddy dji ip bb aimed verizon attacks sms jetsons mark zuckerberg iraqi pcs protecting comcast linden automated r2d2 hackers sodas td terrain world of warcraft atv gator smb coinbase phenomenal dns damocles vpn terribly habbo mehta twilio router craig peters craig peterson providers cifs ars technica metta mitre routers multifactor firewalls addresses recognizes abject ssw piaggio dundon clearview ai

Didi Reportedly Planning App Relaunch By The End of 2021 – DTH

Daily Tech Headlines

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2021

Didi Global is reportedly planning to relaunch its ride hailing and other apps by the end of the year, Subaru provides more details on its first EV, and Apple announces the SMB-focused Apple Business Essentials service. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE. You can get an ad-free feed of Daily Tech Headlines for $3 a month here.Continue reading "Didi Reportedly Planning App Relaunch By The End of 2021 – DTH"

news apple tech technology planning subaru essential ev relaunch smb dth reportedly daily tech headlines

Smart and Scalable Affiliate Marketing with Kevin Osborne, SVP of Client Strategy at Acceleration Partners

Marketing Trends

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2021 34:55

You may have some fear or feel a sense of resistance when you hear the phrase “affiliate marketing.” Especially if you had ever been burned by this form of marketing in the past.. Like most sectors, a lot has improved in the affiliate space and that development has stemmed from the creation of tech tools. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Kevin Osborne, the Senior Vice President of Client Strategy at Acceleration Partners, gave us the low-down on how affiliate partnerships can be thought of as more than a last-ditch effort to milk remaining dollars out of the market. Management, implementation and fraud resistance are all areas of modern affiliate marketing that have vastly improved as of late. “People tend to pigeonhole “affiliate marketing” as the last mile. Get that last click drive, that last sale. But again, we really encourage these bigger brands that have a broader perspective on what this channel can do and how it can operate across other traditional media channels already running.” But a successful affiliate marketing strategy is' more than just having the right tools, or the best new gadgets. A big part of the value that Acceleration Partners brings to its customers is by providing guidance on best practices as you roll out your program. Kevin and I dove into how using data, tapping into tried-and-true marketing channels, and reducing friction on the back-end have given modern affiliate marketing the power to be a key tool in your marketing mix, not just an afterthought. Main Takeaways:Old School Affiliate Marketing Systems are Out: The time and labor intensive old school model of affiliate marketing was a big lift, even for bigger companies to pull off successfully. Now with evolving technology, the launching and management of a profitable affiliate marketing program is much more cost effective and less staff intensive. The affiliate system is now more efficient and scalable. Direct Mail can be an Affiliate: Don't limit yourself to the old way of thinking about affiliate partnerships, even in terms of where that initial impression comes from. With some businesses, such as the restaurant industry, direct mail can be the most effective affiliate lead tool. Re-engaging with existing customers: As you think about reigniting that affiliate marketing program, look at your existing customer base as the first well to tap into. Re-engaging with existing customers through affiliate marketing can bring them back to new products or services you offer. Key Quotes:“We look at brands that are trying to acquire subscribers, sign ups, sell shoes, whatever it may be, and at the end of the day, affiliate is simply a channel that's able to pay partners once an outcome takes place. Once a sale takes place at the end of the day, I think a lot of marketers are trying to get to that final accountable metric, which is, ‘does this drive sales?' “You could use this tool, partnership marketing and the different players that are involved in it to drive any part of the consumer journey that you want. You can drive awareness, you can drive engagement, you can drive conversion.”“People tend to pigeonhole “affiliate marketing” as the last mile. Get that last click drive, that last sale. But again, we really encourage these bigger brands that have a broader perspective on what this channel can do and how it can operate across other traditional media channels already running.” “There's some sophisticated technology platforms out there that are great at looking at these deeper analytics. Whether that's attribution, whether that's certain measurement systems based on the partner type, whether it's different commissions based on the interaction that a customer has with the brand, that technology enables us to actually push forward a lot of these new strategies that encompass broader marketing.”“One of the key elements of our services partner development. We have guys that are going out there and forging new relationships based on a brand strategy. We worked with a food delivery app that was trying to acquire new restaurants. There's certain ways that those restaurants engage with media and take action, and direct mail was actually one of those. So working with direct mail service to actually get that brand's message in front of those restaurant owners was really effective.”“One of the spaces that's most interesting, that's been growing the fastest, is B2B, especially the SMB. They have these teams that are business development teams and business development. And that universe is pretty old school, right? It's guys with a Rolodex that are calling up certain partners or certain individuals that might run an accounting firm that are trying to get people to sign up for QuickBooks. And it's pretty disjointed and it's a big world, right? Some of these firms have 20, 30 people on these business development teams and they're willing to invest because they're really efficient, right? These partners can really drive a significant amount of sales for a pretty reasonable cost.”“As far as the industries that are growing the fastest within affiliate marketing there's these traditional, direct to consumer These guys were living off social and SEM for years. They were maximizing those channels. They were driving new customers. They were doing it really cost efficiently.fn the last year or two years, it's become inefficient There is a point of diminishing returns where your bids have to go up and the value goes down. And at some point you need to explore other channels. Over the last three, four years, we've seen a huge adoption by those specific companies coming into a failure because it provides scalability, cost efficiency and new audiences that's where we've seen massive growth with those companies moving into affiliates and really changing the landscape and bringing on new innovation.”Bio:Kevin has served in a variety of sales roles at renowned companies, including AOL, Openbay and IAC. He has received numerous accolades for his leadership, sales training, and mentorship along with his digital industry expertise. His passion for startups and entrepreneurship has led to his working with some of the best and brightest companies in the startup space. Through his passion, charisma, determination and win-win approach to problem-solving, Kevin consistently earned the trust and respect of his clients.Prior to his successful career in sales, Kevin volunteered as a teacher with Citizen Schools and played professional hockey in Paris. If you catch him in the right mood, he may even tell you his favorite French expression.To learn more, click here: {{URL of detail page on found on www.mission.org}}---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world's number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing.

From Bootstrapping to Bootlegging with Mitchell Hayes, Founder and CEO of Los Sundays Tequila

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2021 22:07

As Ernest Hemmingway wisely said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." But trusting blindly doesn't come without risk and if someone ultimately proves they didn't deserve your trust to begin with, it may already be too late.. That is the devastating lesson that Mitchell Hayes, founder and CEO of Los Sundays Tequila had to learn the hard way. “We had some people involved with the business in the early days where a lot of money went missing,” Hayes said. “There was no way for us to get it back. And it nearly sunk us. We were working out of my lounge room at home, around the dining room table. I stopped paying myself cause the money disappeared out of the account to keep paying the three employees that we had. The bank account literally hit zero twice.This was a sink or swim situation for Mitchell and Los Sundays. But, frankly, Mitchell was made to swim. He had been finding his way through all kinds of choppy and unfamiliar waters his whole life. Where did that grit and determination come from, and where did it ultimately lead? Let's find out. Welcome back to The Journey.Main Takeaways:Compensate for your Weaknesses: Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and so does every business. Learn first what the demands of the industry are, learn your competition. Then take stock of your own store of goods; what are you especially talented at, what are your strongest skills? Then think about where you might be able to utilize your skill in an area that your competitors are weak in. This tactic can be enough to toe the line with your competitors. Any Means Necessary: Every business owner comes across trying times and difficult challenges, but sometimes overcoming those things takes superhuman effort. Owning your own business will likely involve a good bit of personal sacrifice and struggle at some, if not many, points. Go into entrepreneurship with the mentality of getting it done by any means possible.It's Okay if Dreams Change: What we start out wanting to do as kids is rarely what we end up having a career in. When you dedicate your entire childhood and younger adult years toward achieving that same goal, the transition to something else can be difficult. Know that changing your dream doesn't mean that you failed at the first one, you just re-negotiated the terms of your dream. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

EP.95 SEARCH FUNDS AND SMB with STEVEN RESSLER

Wealth, Actually

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2021 24:51

You can't go two minutes without hearing about the allure of venture capital and private equity or the cult of entrepreneurship and the start-up. However, these things are hard! Venture and P/E require large pools of patient capital, deep expertise and long time horizons. Entrepreneurship requires a unique angle, force of will, operational deftness and a 24/7 personal commitment to success. This has led to the development of SEARCH FUNDS – pools of capital designed to invest in businesses that have gotten off the ground but aren't exercises in organizational change. STANFORD has done extensive work investigating their attractiveness. These businesses (often small and medium sized "SMB's") are past the start-up stage and usually profitable but could use help in professionalizing certain operating aspects. This has attracted the attention of investors looking for outsized returns and many entrepreneurs looking to run a business without the “startup experience.” Enter STEVE RESSLER- Steve is a serial entrepreneur with 3X exits in GovTech and Software as a Service (including his sale of his first business to Vista Partners). His work has taken him deep into the SEARCH FUND and SMB operator space. He has lots to tell us about both ends of the “search fund” experience, the SMB phenomenon and where it is going. We also cover some great work he's doing with Veterans in the operator space. Background Experience as a founder Having an early exit Software and Government Services- What are the competitive advantages/niches you're looking for here? The appeal of SMB space? Running a Fund vs being an Operator? Expected returns? What is the timeline / exit strategy for your investments? How do the family dynamics differ in search investing from starting the business? When buying the businesses how do you deal with the personal dynamics? Do you get involved in the family dynamics? How do you analyze that? What's next? Involvement with Veterans programs: SEARCHACQUIRE How do we keep in touch? STEVE RESSLER TWITTER STEVE RESSLER NEWSLETTER STEVE RESSLER WEBSITE

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Shaylan Hurley on Quitting his job and Buying 2 Companies in the last 2 Months

Locked On Bucs – Daily Podcast On The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Fans

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2021 28:22

Shaylan Hurley texted me and said, I just quit my job and bought 2 companies…that will get your attention. We dive into mentors, finding deals, structuring deals, and how to stand out. Shaylan is also very good at attacking with full force his fear. Episode Resources Connect with Ryan Condie http://linkedin.com/in/ryancondie http://letsbuyabusiness.com/ https://forms.gle/RRcXpe3dK7pNGqv16 Connect with Shaylan Hurley https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaylan-hurley-064b52a5/ Sponsor: Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. www.liveoakbank.com Lisa Forrest - Lisa.forrest@liveoak.bank 10 Step Video series to Finding a Company to Buy - http://letsbuyabusiness.com/video Ryan Twitter - https://twitter.com/RyanPaulCondie

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Buccaneers First Half Review and Second Half Expectations as Sean Murphy-Bunting Returns to Practice

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2021 37:17

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers come out of their bye week with a matchup against the Washington Football Team coming in Week 10 of the 2021 NFL Season. Bucs cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting is back practicing, and may be able to get back on the field after suffering an elbow injury in Week 1. In this episode, David Harrison shares his thoughts on why Tampa Bay needs SMB back on the field, and he also gives his takeaways from the first half of the season, and what he expects for the second half! Follow & Subscribe to the Locked On Bucs Podcast on these platforms… Apple: https://apple.co/3iOePFk Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3BwlScY Audacy: https://bit.ly/3FAcIhV Google: https://bit.ly/2X0IEdS Megaphone: https://bit.ly/3uZOcSo Follow Locked On Podcast Network on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LockedOnNetwork Check out all of our NFL Coverage: linktr.ee/lockedonnfl Follow James on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JYarcho_BUCS Follow David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DHarrison82 Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. BetOnline AG There is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Getupside Just download the FREE GetUpside App and use promo code TOUCHDOWN to get up to 50¢/gallon cash back on your first tank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hitting The Million Dollar Milestone At 22 - Here's How

B The Trader

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2021 42:07

Max began his trading journey in the 9th grade and is now in his second year at SMB capital! His current trading strategies differ from his original; however, the early start allowed him to grow while minimizing risk. Everyone trades a little differently. It is important to put yourself in a position to create your edge. Max has found the opportunity to engage with 7 figure traders collaboratively and learn the process of establishing an edge. Learn how Max has found consistency and established a career in trading! Follow Max on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maxganik Low Commissions, Cheap Borrows, Fast Executions - https://get.cobratrading.com/bthestory/ Book a 1 on 1 Call with me - https://calendly.com/bthetrader/1-on-1-talk Click here to sign up for our Newsletter BTheTrader Merch - https://my-store-11542608.creator-spring.com Catch me trading live on Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/bthetrader

How to Buy a Salon as an Industry Outsider (and Survive)

entrepreneur entrepreneurship themes outsiders survive salon romer acquisition online business smb acquire

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2021 52:12

Themes from Sarah's interview: The formula for estimating the value of a salon or beauty business What to do when sellers overestimate the worth of their company Where to cut costs after you've made an acquisition Underestimating the importance of company culture The stress of owning and managing a retail business The process of exiting a business you've acquired Reach Sarah at:Sarah dot Romer at gmail dot com

How To Create Content That Connects! Feat. Troy Sandidge @FindTroy

UnScripted: Authentic Leadership

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2021 48:08

Set Yourself Apart From the Competition | John Graf, Owner of the Priory Hospitality Group

Proprietors of Pittsburgh Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2021 35:09

If you have any questions or if you'd like to chat, you can reach me at my contact info below. The purpose of this podcast is to share ideas, inspire action, and build a stronger small business community here in Pittsburgh. So please say hello, tell me what you think, and let me know how I'm doing. It means a ton!YOU CAN REACH ME AT:Website: https://www.proprietorsofpittsburgh.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darinvilanoPhone: 412-336-8247YOU CAN REACH JOHN GRAF AT:Website: https://www.thepriory.comWebsite: https://www.mansionsonfifth.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theprioryhotelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mansionsonfifthFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/prioryhotelFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MansionsonFifth

Starter Acquisition: Buying a $25k Business

entrepreneur entrepreneurship themes starter acquisition online business smb acquire

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2021 36:12

Themes from Neil's interview: The advantages of a small starter business as a first acquisition Looking past media hype that paints billionaire startup founders as the only entrepreneurs The value of a customer list The beauty of acquiring a small business that is already profitable Taking a hard look at a company's books to negotiate a better sale price Delegating operations to trusted employees to better position yourself for a sale later on Reach Neil at: @NeilGranberry Nashville Bubble Ball

Episode 74: Cloud9 Xeta "Game is Too Easy" at LCQ NA

VALORANTING

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2021 140:00

It was our absolute pleasure to have Cloud9 Blue's Xeta (@officialXeta) join us on the show today to give us some insight on his team's advancement to Champions by winning the beleaguered LCQ NA, best of luck to them back in Berlin! We also cover Chamber and how he might impact the game, and we also were lucky enough to snag the services of @JessGOAT to give us a rundown of how Game Changers EMEA shook out in the end. We also had MitchMan get very irate over Upcomer's article on Cned's involvement with the Turkish money laundering scheme, so all in all it's an episode not to be missed! Live on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/dnpeek) every Tuesday at 2pm EST. Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dnpeek), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/dnpeek/), and check out our website (https://www.dnpeek.com/).

RSPA Trusted Advisor Ep. 59: Compliance Best Practices for VARs and ISVs

RSPA Trusted Advisor

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2021 22:33

In Episode 59 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA Legal Counsel Atty. Jill Miller talks with the RSPA's Jim Roddy about compliance best practices for VARs and ISVs. Miller discusses common SMB compliance blind spots, steps solution providers should take to ensure they are compliant with the latest regulations, and more. “The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for point of sale resellers and software developers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org. If you liked this episode of the pod, you'll love courses offered through RSPA Academy EXCELerate, the next generation of education for the retail IT channel. This online system offers continuous learning, training, and development opportunities anytime, anywhere, from any device. Included in EXCELerate are these courses: Preventing Workplace Harassment and Discrimination Preventing Workplace Harassment and Discrimination for Supervisors For more information on RSPA Academy EXCELerate, visit learn.GoRSPA.org.

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How two women are revitalizing gift cards, and why it might save your holiday shopping season.

Own Your Commerce

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2021 40:34

Kelly Vaughn & Rhian Beutler bring nearly a decade of experience in the ecommerce and Shopify ecosystem to the new company they've formed called Govalo — a gift carding solution for Shopify merchants. Their solution couldn't come at a better time as many entrepreneurs are experiencing supply chain issues that are threatening to interrupt their busy holiday selling season. Govalo is more than just a gift card app though, they see gift cards as a key acquisition and retention strategy and have developed a unique solution to help merchants automatically offer gift cards when their products are out of stock. They way merchants are able to easily offer consumers an on-brand alternative for the gift they were hoping to get that special someone. Govalo only recently launched and they are already revolutionizing the way Shopify brands are able to offering gift cards and manage a looming supply chain crisis. If you are a Shopify merchant looking for a solution to your holiday supply chain issues, or are just looking for a riveting and entertaining discussion at the forefront of the world of ecommerce, you aren't going to want to miss this entertaining and thoughtful discussion. Topics discussed: The current shipping and supply chain situation threatening many Shopify merchants this holiday season. Kelly Vaughn and Rhian Beutler's rich history in ecommerce and the story of how they came together to form Govalo. Why gift cards could be at the center of gifting this holiday season and the need for this app. Why are there shipping containers stuck in the ocean and how does Govalo play into that? Insightful data on ecommerce stores and gift cards. Examples of online brands doing gifting and gift cards especially well. What's in store for the future of gift cards and the gifting space? Guest Bios: Kelly Vaughn Kelly Vaughn is a developer and entrepreneur who brings over a decade of experience in ecommerce as Co-Founder of Govalo — the gift card solution for Shopify merchants. Before Govalo, she founded The Taproom, building custom development solutions for fast-growing brands on Shopify and Shopify Plus. She also co-hosts Ladybug Podcast & Commerce Tea podcast, and is the Author of Start Freelancing Today. Rhian Beutler Rhian Beutler is the co-founder and COO of venntov, the creators of SEO Manager, Order Lookup, and ClockedIn. She loves search engine optimization, UX, Google Analytics, and has spoken about SEO all over the world. Rhian is passionate about small business success, and for over a decade, has utilized her background in SMB banking and retail operations to help merchants grow their business both online and offline. Links / Resources: Govalo Blog post: What happens when this doesn't work Commerce Tea The Taproom Ladybug Podcast Start Freelancing Today venntov SEO Manager Order Lookup ClockedIn

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EP 160: Founder of La Cuisine Paris, Jane Bertch shares her Paris story

La Vie Creative

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2021 31:50

La Cuisine Paris, founded in 2009, is the Capitols top rated leisure French cooking school specializing in French Culinary experiences in English. Located in the heart of Paris, and welcoming visitors from all over the world, we share the passion of French cuisine and culture. A small international team, with different backgrounds and experiences, who all work with a common value: the desire to share their "savoir faire" and passion with you. Jane Bertch is an American with European roots with over 20 years of living and working in Europe. Having geographically diverse international experiences, Jane started her career in Financial Services, and in 2009 she took the leap to embark on Entrepreneurial endeavors and started La Cuisine Paris. She is very active in the Paris business and Entrepreneurial environment and in her spare time guest lectures on business and culture as well as is mentors and coaches other leaders in the SMB network.https://lacuisineparis.com/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/join/Laviecreative)

europe american english french european founders located capitol entrepreneurial smb la cuisine financial services

Managing and Marketing Small and Medium Businesses

Digging Deeper

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2021 34:49

Managing and marketing a small to medium business is a world of headache and heartache for many. But for some, it can be optimized and fine tuned to the skills and abilities of the business owner and their team. Sometimes, staffing or freelance help balance it out. Other times, software comes to bear on making the SMB run more smoothly. Gordon Henry is the chief strategy officer for Thryv, a management and marketing software solution catering to small and medium businesses. He joined Digging Deeper to talk about the challenges and potential solutions, both software and not, to making being a small or medium business owner more fun than not. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review! This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro. PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts. If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Jayson Lowe - Why Pressure is a Privilege and Managing Multiple Companies at Once

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2021 29:56

Jayson Lowe left corporate Canada/America in 2008 and never looked back. This is a fun conversation around all things entrepreneurship, grit, and starting with the end in mind. We dive into… — Making the leap to entrepreneurship — Why Hiring Coaches and Mentors is crucial — Pressure is a Privilege — How to manage multiple companies at once You can learn more about Jayson below. Episode Resources Connect with Ryan Condie http://linkedin.com/in/ryancondie http://letsbuyabusiness.com/ https://forms.gle/RRcXpe3dK7pNGqv16 Jayson Lowe: Banker's Vault - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBankersVault Wealth without Baystreet - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj8ZlieHodxhD0vC75-rq0g www.ascendantfinancial.ca www.wealthwithoutbaystreet.com www.canadaprepandship.com www.easyfda.com Sponsor: Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. www.liveoakbank.com Lisa Forrest - Lisa.forrest@liveoak.bank 10 Step Video series to Finding a Company to Buy - http://letsbuyabusiness.com/video Ryan Twitter - https://twitter.com/RyanPaulCondie

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Stay Open to the Many Flavors of Search

entrepreneur traditional entrepreneurship search themes flavors acquisition online business smb acquire stay open

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 1, 2021 57:05

Themes from Chris's interview: Traditional versus alternative search fund models The advantages of self-funded search (if you can afford it) The appeal of bookkeeping businesses How to stand out to potential sellers who have heard it all before The first six months after acquisition Reach Chris at: Chris [at] systemsix [dot] com System Six

Do What Is Authentic to You | Natalie Gentile, M.D., Co-Founder of Direct Care Physicians of Pittsburgh

Proprietors of Pittsburgh Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2021 36:16

As Natalie Gentile, M.D. was planning to move back to Pittsburgh with her family, she began searching for a way to practice medicine that fit her desire for a patient-focused approach. The type of comprehensive and wellness-centered care that she was interested in seemed to be disappearing from modern clinical medicine. Through conversations she had with her mentor, she discovered the direct primary care (DPC) practice model. By cutting out insurance companies and third parties from influencing medical decisions, this alternative format for primary care medicine meant that Dr. Natalie could focus her time and energy on lifestyle guidance and preventative measures to help her patients get well.In 2019, shortly after returning home to Pittsburgh, Dr. Natalie opened her own DPC practice - Gentile Family Direct Primary Care. Building a business from scratch would prove challenging as physicians do not learn any of these skills in medical school. Nevertheless, as she dug into all of the details of starting a new company, Dr. Natalie quickly discovered a love for entrepreneurship that she didn't know she had. As a board-certified family medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, Dr. Natalie is free to run her practice in a way that allows her to spend as much time as needed with her patients while keeping their overall health and well-being front and center. If you have any questions or if you'd like to chat, you can reach me at my contact info below. The purpose of this podcast is to share ideas, inspire action, and build a stronger small business community here in Pittsburgh. So please say hello, tell me what you think, and let me know how I'm doing. It means a ton!YOU CAN REACH ME AT:Website: https://www.proprietorsofpittsburgh.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darinvilanoPhone: 412-336-8247YOU CAN REACH DR. NATALIE GENTILE AT:Website: https://www.directcarepgh.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/directcarepghFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DirectCarePghLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-gentile-md-5982b081

What is the Story with Add-Backs?

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2021 16:24

If you are looking at businesses for sale, you'll notice a lot of add-backs. Some will make sense and others won't. You need to educate yourself on how to dig through the data. In the end, the buyer needs to operate the business the same way the seller operates the business. "Owner add-backs are items that they claim you should not need to pay once the owner leaves the business" - Michell Baldrige Episode Resources https://quietlight.com/3-types-of-addbacks/#ftoc-the-3-levels-of-addbacks-for-ecommerce-businesses https://www.dummies.com/business/corporate-finance/mergers-and-acquisitions/what-add-backs-are-legitimate-in-an-ma-deal/ http://letsbuyabusiness.com/video https://www.liveoakbank.com/ Connect with Ryan Condie http://linkedin.com/in/ryancondie http://letsbuyabusiness.com/ https://forms.gle/RRcXpe3dK7pNGqv16 Sponsor: Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. www.liveoakbank.com Lisa Forrest - Lisa.forrest@liveoak.bank 10 Step Video series to Finding a Company to Buy - http://letsbuyabusiness.com/video Ryan Twitter - https://twitter.com/RyanPaulCondie

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From Search Misery to Successful CEO

entrepreneur entrepreneurship search themes misery trenches acquisition online business smb acquire successful ceo

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2021 48:04

Themes from Steve's interview: The full lifecycle of a traditional search The biggest myth about entrepreneurship Surviving the search process Why he bought Microdea Managing relationships with the sellers (the price of peace) What to do in your first two weeks as CEO Why you should diagnose before you prescribe Reach Steve at:His blog & podcast In the Trenches

Episode 73: T1 Brax Gone, G2 Undefeated, LCQ Reviewed

VALORANTING

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2021 95:01

While we wait for NA to get going again, LCQ in APAC and SA finished up. @AchiliosCasts joins us in this episode to talk APAC region and whether or not FullSense will be able to hang with any of the top guns in Champions, and then our hosts give their (mostly) uninformed opinion on the SA region. We also sift through gigantic ongoing GameChangers EMEA tournament where G2 is rolling along but newly formed teams like GuildX, Oxxgen, and Futbolist are also showing strong. Lastly we also look through the shifting of rosters, with Alliance signing some members MitchMan is very much looking forward to, Brax moving to full time streaming, and T1 signing Thwifo in his stead! Live on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/dnpeek) every Tuesday at 2pm EST. Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dnpeek), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/dnpeek/), and check out our website (https://www.dnpeek.com/).

Buying a 45 Year Old Software Business

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2021 47:18

Themes from Jason's interview: How Jason found the right business with the help of a mentor and a podcast Due diligence when it comes to finances and staff Keeping your options open in case a sale falls through Technical understanding of your acquired business What the history of an established business can tell you Getting to know the stories of the people who will work for you Being the project manager of your own deal Reach Jason at: Metasystems LinkedIn

Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox - Promoting the Post-Pandemic SMB Recovery

Wharton FinTech Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2021 31:52

Anirudh Singh sits down with Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox. In this episode they discuss: - Prashant's early career with big tech companies - Navigating SMB lending during the covid-19 pandemic - The SMB recovery by sector - Fundbox's new products, including Flex Pay And much more! Prashant Fuloria: Prashant Fuloria is Chief Executive Officer of Fundbox. With decades of experience in payments and monetization, he has served in a wide variety of leadership, operational, and product roles at prominent technology companies. Prashant's previous leadership roles at Fundbox include Chief Operations Officer and Chief Product Officer, where he led various parts of the business, including core tech functions, product marketing, collections, support, and HR. Prior to joining Fundbox, Prashant served as SVP of Advertising Products at Yahoo, having joined through the acquisition of Flurry, where he was the Chief Product Officer. He also served as Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the company's advertising and payment product efforts. Prashant also held the role of Product Director at Google, where he built their global payment platform and managed all of Google's products for the APAC region. Prashant received a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He also holds an MA in Business research; an MS in Statistics; a Ph.D. minor in Engineering-Economic Systems & Operations Research; and a Ph.D. in Business, all from Stanford University. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Anirudh's Twitter: twitter.com/avsingh_24

Find a Partner to Compliment Your Skill Set | Kelly Sanders & Monica Yope, Owners of love, Pittsburgh

Proprietors of Pittsburgh Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2021 34:38

In 2017, Kelly Sanders and Monica Yope met at a tech conference. As the two lone, non-tech creatives in the room, they quickly became friends. As they got to know each other, they discovered their common passion for supporting local makers. Inspired by a shared vision, they realized that the city needed a physical space to showcase the abundance of talent in our region. So, they decided to turn the building that Monica found in Mt. Washington into their first love, Pittsburgh location.Fast forward four years and Kelly and Monica now operate three locations throughout the city of Pittsburgh. Their initial lineup of 40 artisans has grown to over 100, and their stores have also achieved a GOLD Certification from Sustainable Pittsburgh for their work in reducing their carbon footprint. Love, Pittsburgh has become a home base for some of the best artisans in the area, and it has also become a favorite shopping destination for visitors and locals alike. In fact, Kelly and Monica created the name “love, Pittsburgh” to invoke the feeling that everything in their stores is like a gift to us from our beloved city.If you have any questions or if you'd like to chat, you can reach me at my contact info below. The purpose of this podcast is to share ideas, inspire action, and build a stronger small business community here in Pittsburgh. So please say hello, tell me what you think, and let me know how I'm doing. It means a ton!YOU CAN REACH ME AT:Website: https://www.proprietorsofpittsburgh.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/proprietorsofpittsburghpodcastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darinvilanoPhone: 412-336-8247YOU CAN REACH KELLY SANDERS & MONICA YOPE AT:Website: https://lovepittsburghshop.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovepittsburghshopFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovepittsburghshopPinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lovepittsburghshop

The 4 Pillars of Value for an Acquisition

time pillars acquisition smb sba risk mitigation quiet light transferability

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2021 13:27

Time and time again buyers evaluate businesses on a few main criteria. It's called the 4 Pillars of Value and it helps determine whether a business has a high multiple or lower multiple. 1. Risk Mitigation 2. Growth Prospects 3. Transferability 4. Documentation / Verifiability This is a framework from Quiet Light which I've linked to their blog below. Episode Resources Connect with Ryan Condie http://linkedin.com/in/ryancondie http://letsbuyabusiness.com/ https://forms.gle/RRcXpe3dK7pNGqv16 https://quietlight.com/four-pillars-infographic/ Sponsor: Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. www.liveoakbank.com Lisa Forrest - Lisa.forrest@liveoak.bank 10 Step Video series to Finding a Company to Buy - http://letsbuyabusiness.com/video Ryan Twitter - https://twitter.com/RyanPaulCondie

FIR 132: Does Elon Musk REALLY Use AI To MANAGE HIS TIME ??

Financial Investing Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2021 9:45

So how does Elon Musk manage his time? Is it AI? Come join us and find out. Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of ClickAI Radio. So Mr. Musk, how do you do it? Calling out Mr. Musk. All right. So of course we've I'm sure all seen the video where it talks about how he manages his time, he manages his time, apparently using timeboxing. And on some of these reports that I've seen, he says he spends 80% of his time doing engineering design work. That's pretty amazing. And that, some have said that he manages time down to five minutes slots, holy chicken soup, that's pretty tight. So what it means is that he plans out his whole day on five minute increments, that's quite the level of planning. I don't know for sure if that's what he does, but time boxing. So apparently what you do with time boxing is, as you plan it out, you put it on a whiteboard or a note paper, whatever. And then of course, you fill out the time that you think it's gonna take to get that done. All right. Now, of course, there's some fallacies and problems with this right? One of those is, as humans, we seem to overestimate. We're overly optimistic, I should say in terms of how long things will take, we think it might take 10 minutes to do something. In reality, maybe it's 20 minutes, right? And of course, there have been studies that talk about people tend to choose the best case scenarios, right? When we're, when we're allocating our estimates for time. This, of course, makes timeboxing really difficult, which would look like if you had a piece of paper, a series of time slots at some increment. Now, apparently, five minutes for Mr. Musk, I would do more like 15 minutes. But hey, who knows? In any event, so when you come up with those, one of the challenges is, how can I improve my accuracy for that? Turns out, there's some tools out there today to sort of help you do this toggl, t-o-g-g-l is one of those tools to help you track your time and see how things are gone. This can of course be painful to do. I listened to one guy, he has a technique where he asks you to go through and describe everything you did for two for two weeks. So every day you write down on a piece of paper for two weeks what you did. And then at the end, he calls it a time study at the end of the two weeks, and you really kind of have a sense of where you're spending your time. And I've talked to multiple people that have done this. And they all complain about it saying what a total pain. And yet how revelatory and insightful it is when you start to see some of the areas that they're spending their time that actually was, was lost to them, right? lost productivity and things that are meaningful and useful. Of course, one of the big objections to time boxing, which says, I'm going to plan out my day on some sort of increment and for each increment, here's here's a box of what I'm doing. One of the objections is around interruptions, right? So let's say you had planned out your entire day for that. Now, how do you deal with the interruptions? I know some people to deal with that. They'll create two columns. They'll have one column that says, here's the my original plan. And then and then they'll have another column, which is the revised plan, right, which Well, here's really what happened, right? thought I was going to be doing this activity of this task. Turns out, I did something else because I was interrupted. I think it was Dwight Eisenhower. That said, planning is everything but plans are nothing. Well, so of course the bottom line is we need to be able to pivot in order to adapt and adjust certainly. And of course, we need to avoid over scheduling too because some also have said that the more you try to do, the less you will accomplish. I think there's something to that. If I context switch too much, man on a five minute increment. Wow, Mr. Musk, if that's true, hats off to you. Five minutes in That's that's that's pretty tough to context switch constantly like that. I think that might be some overscheduling. Who knows? Well, that's why he's where he is, I suppose. Others have said that the way in which they plan, they'll organize it based on the intent for their business. So they'll plan tasks and activities in the morning, that have to do with money generation and revenue generation activities, when they're the most fresh. Those are the areas they want to put most of their intellectual capacity to. And so they'll do those types of time boxed activities in the morning. And in the afternoon, it's more cost management expenses, things on the cost side of the balance sheet, that's interesting technique, then I started to look into AI for time management, you've probably seen there's an app out there called timely think it's from a company called memory AI Anyway, you can download, I think the way it works is you download it onto your Mac or your Windows computer, you start connecting it to your Google calendar or other calendars. And over time, you start training the AI to start recognizing how you're spending your time, and you ultimately are teaching the AI model, something about your work schedule and the way your time is being spent. Now, why would I even talk about time management? What does that have to do? Well, one of the things I've noticed is that, given the increased demand, of course, on SMB owners, finding ways, obviously, to optimize our schedules is certainly important. But the real reason is, many view activities to transform their business as too much of a stretch, right? Because we're so busy running around just keeping the lights on as a small to medium business owner, who can think about adding more activities to our days. So you know, things like, hey, maybe I can improve my decision making by looking at more analytics, right? Or, hey, I could spend some extra time making changes to my business processes through AI insights. Yeah, sounds interesting, but also sounds like, hey, you're being told to take your vitamins. And who wants to do that, right? That's not too exciting. So what you really need to do my experience with his bins is we need to find what's the real business cause, or the motivation to do something like that, right? So sometimes it might be competitive pressure, or it might be a business model threat, right? Or might be growth goals or, or even cost pressures. And when something like one of those is understood first, then finding the time by doing some kind of time analysis helps us to free up the cycles to address this. So I kind of have to find the why right? Why is it that I would do this? What is it that's pushing me, right? And lots of times as humans will move away from pain faster than will move towards a goal. So if you can find, where's my pain point, my business? What is it that would drive me and give me the motivation to make this kind of adjustment, then I can start finding the business context, where I'll start making the changes then to leverage new techniques such as putting AI into your business. I was talking with a large retail organization not too long ago, they said that, before the covid 19 pandemic, they had discussed providing curbside service, right. But at the time, the estimates in the organization, they said it would take about two years to roll that out. And then when the pandemic hit, they were able to roll it out in four weeks, right? So suddenly, obviously, there's this, there's this pain, right? There's this pressure, we have to do business differently, the context has shifted. So finding the motivation, then allowed them to find the time and then suddenly, a lot of the red tape and other things move out of the way. So find your motivation for change as a business owner, right? Then find the time to pursue the change. Those are the precursors for most organizations to pursue an AI strategy. Now many times of course, like I said, we move away from pain more quickly. So where does your business hurt? And then let's get AI on the job. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining and until next time, find your motivating factors to set aside the time to apply AI in your business. Thank you for joining Grant on ClickAI Radio. Don't forget to subscribe and leave feedback. And remember to download your FREE eBook visit ClickAIRadio.com now.

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Why Celebrity Chefs and At-Home Cooks Flock To This Scrappy Apron Business with Ellen Bennett, Founder of Hedley & Bennett

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2021 16:47

There are some beloved characters in pop culture. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Yoda from Star Wars. And then, of course, Dora The Explorer…Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch. But for Ellen Bennett, the founder of multi-million dollar apron company Hedley and Bennett, that children's character's can-do adventurous spirit resonates with and lives within her. And she has tapped into those qualities to approach entrepreneurship in a somewhat unique way. I definitely feel like I was a bit of a Dora the Explorer. With enough kind of humble enthusiasm, you open a lot of doors. That's what I did. And it worked. And, you know, I don't always land all of my wild adventures, but in this case, it really was the beginning of a whole new journey. And it's so simple as just showing up sometimes up to the place where you're going to meet the people, or have a chance to talk to somebody who will get you into the next door. And then you keep asking and you keep asking and you're just, you gotta be relentless.The places Ellen was showing up? They were Michelin star restaurants in Los Angeles and she was going around to the back doors to put her product in front of some of the best chefs in the world. Ellen was not well-known. Her product was an apron — something that every restaurant in town already had in bulk. And she was a one-woman operation trying to leapfrog all of the traditional lanes to go straight to the top and find success. She didn't have Dora's map or her partners in crime to guide her. She was Ellen the explorer and she was out on her own.Welcome back to The Journey.Main Takeaways:Walk Through the Door and Ask: You don't always need to go through regular channels to get things done. If you have enough confidence and gumption to be aggressive, get in front of the decision-makers, and simply ask for what you want, you just might get it. There is risk and rejection involved in this strategy, but the opportunity is there for the taking if you're willing to try.Don't Listen to the Haters: Those who don't see your vision may try to dissuade you at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. Push through, turn those voices off, and do the work that is in your heart. Along the way, you will have to inspire others through your own passion, and you will need to get creative at times to help your vision come to life.Let It Go: Utilize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Learn when you need to turn off the hustle of doing everything yourself and let someone else whose skill set is more suited take over tasks that you are less apt for. Lean into the assets you have that brought the business to life and delegate those smaller, albeit necessary, tasks.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

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