Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award-winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices and the traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie, while offering you meaningful modern solutions to help you enhance your company’s growth. I’m your host, Dave Cain.
Can you believe we’ve been doing this podcast for two years? It’s true, and this episode in particular is kind of a big deal for us. Today we are marking our 100th episode of unsuitable on Rea Radio. To celebrate this monumental occasion, we wanted to do something a little special. Over the last several months we’ve asked our guests to share some of their favorite business and or professional growth resources with us. The result has been incredible. So sit back, relax, grab a beverage and take note. Maybe you will be inspired to check out one or more of these resources to help you improve your own business practice, or grow in your professional career.
We’re here with Mike Moran, President and CEO of Affiliated Resource Group. Mike, we will be celebrating the 100th episode of unsuitable on Rea Radio and we wanted you to help us celebrate by sharing a resource or resources that you found to be helpful or inspiring in your own career. Our goal is put together a list of 100 great resources for business owners. Do you have a book, podcast, or any other resource that stands out?
Mike Moran: Well thanks, and I guess congratulations because I know how hard it is to do a series of a half dozen or a dozen blogs. Getting to 100 that’s a pretty positive … that’s a pretty big accomplishment, so congratulations on that.
Dave: Thank you.
Mike: When I look at the people who have had an affect on things in my career, there’s two people that really I think come to mind. A guy named Robert Gay, he works for a company called counterintuitive.com, and their focus is really on sales strategy and how to address the sales process, and help you understand that you’re not really trying to sell anyone in a CRM system. It’s not going to determine can you sell it to them. It’s really the idea of how much information can we gather to understand if we’ve provided our prospect enough information to make an informed decision, and then obviously when based on that information we’ve gathered when they might make that decision.
And the second one for overall if you will, just kind of … energy and business growth and how to do that is a guy named Jack Daily. And Jack’s website is JackDaily.net. He’s written a number of books. Robert Gay, I call him Bobby, but his company is counterintuitive.com. So those are two that help in great manners. Over the years, a number of different times, they’ve helped me.
Dave: Sounds like you continue to go back to those resources and they bring great value to you.
Mike: Yeah, I was at a program last week for marketing professionals and it was funny. Jack Daily was actually a speaker and he was kind of giving an update on things. It was pretty amazing, I mean, here’s a guy who, at 55 decided he was going to do an Iron Man, and everybody kind of chuckles about that. The biggest issue was he didn’t know how to swim. And he actually has the medal from competing at the Iron Man in Hawaii, which is the penultimate and he’s done 13 of them since, and the guy is 68 years old. So, you know it’s pretty amazing just listening to him talk about business growth and common sense things to get it done. You know, Bobby Gay, I probably talk to him at least once a quarter about, “Hey I’ve got an opportunity. I’m struggling with the strategy. What do you think?”
Mark Van Benschoten: I would have to say it was a conversation that I had with Lee Beal when I first started. And we were talking about … trying different things, and he said to me, “If you’re not falling, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough, Mark.” And I’ve used that ever since, and that probably would have been in like January of 2008. So I’ve been using that for nine years. And that’s just a tremendous resource for me, that if I’m nervous, if I’m anxious, that I might fall and that’s OK because I’m pushing myself. I’m trying to get better. So I know it’s not a book or a podcast, but it’s something that I continually go back to as to … If you’re comfortable, Mark, maybe you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.
Dave: So maybe paraphrase from the Rea way is fail forward.
Mark: Sure, fail forward would be a good way.
Dave: Don’t be afraid.
Mark: Don’t be afraid.
Dave: Mark, thanks for sharing and thanks for all your help with the podcast over the years. And we’re also here with Brad Ciccone. And Brad, we just got done talking with you about the podcast, who is the author of the podcast and head of the production crew. And Brad, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary, or episode of Unsuitable on Rea Radio.
Brad Circone: Can’t believe it.
Dave: And we wanted you to help us celebrate. We need you to help us out with one of your favorite resources for business owners. Do you have a book, podcast or other resource that stands out?
Brad: Yeah, the resource that most stands out is getting outside of business by looking at something else. So I’ll actually go to art or music as a resource to, you know, inspire different ideas. I think even reading about the same subjects, or about business if you’re trying to gain more information, sometimes doesn’t break you further enough away to be creative. And I think sometimes just getting away from that entire medium and distracting yourself with something else can re inspire and have you take a different approach to problem solving when you’re back at it Monday morning.
Dave: So step outside the business and have a hobby and just enjoy yourself.
Brad: Mm-hmm (affirmative) and say to yourself, “What makes …” say in crafting a great song, “What makes that song great, and how do I use that same theory behind that song in another problem, such as business building or sales cultivation?”
Dave: In other words, enjoy the journey. Thanks for sharing.
Tim McDaniel: I was just at a client yesterday and I saw on his bookshelf a book called Blue Ocean Strategy. And I remember reading that about six or seven years ago, and it helped me develop some new ideas in evaluation field. And it just talks about more not about beating your competition but making them obsolete. I think it’s a really great book, and most business owners can get something out of that.
Brad Martyn: Dave, I’m a big fan of Ted Talks, and one of the Ted Talks that I’ve grown to love is by a gentlemen by the name of Ernesto Sirolli, and it’s called Shut Up and Listen. And I’ve listed to that over and over and over, and it’s had a real big impact on how I approach a lot of things.
Dave: And why does that inspire you? Why does that Ted Talk inspire you so much?
Brad: One of the points that he makes is that when you’re dealing with entrepreneurs and business owners that what most people have a tendency to do is to come in and give them advice and tell them what to do. And his point is that entrepreneurs don’t necessarily want advice. They want someone to listen to them and understand what their goals are, and then once they understand their goals, to help connect them to the resources that can actually help them.
Chris Pycraft: I feel compelled to give you some legal resources, and like lawyers, I’ll give you a list. Except, I’m not going to do that at all. Strunk and White, Elements of Style, is the first thing that comes to mind when you ask me what resource I like. I have one on my shelf at my home office. I have one at work, too. I work in a communications business, and it’s something I regularly refer to. Strunk and White, Elements of Style.
Dave: And why does that resource inspire you? Is there one or two areas there?
Chris: I think it’s a simple and straightforward approach to a topic that nobody really finds to be all that exciting, except for folks who are way too serious about it. And that’s grammar and usage. And because I tend to write and think and correspond for a living, it’s important that I’m mindful of what I say and I follow established rules and usage rules, in particular. At least to the extent that I can. And while nobody’s perfect, I try to be at least above average in use of the English language. And one of the things we are fond of saying in my business is that words have meaning, and you ought to use the right one. And so, I think that’s a resource that helps people understand the rules of grammar and why they matter. And using them affectively helps you be a more affective and a clearer communicator.
Mary Beth Koester: Vetpartners.org. Vet Partners is a membership association of consultants, advisors, attorneys, bankers … Basically consultants and evaluators of course that assist the veterinary profession, that serve the veterinary profession, help lead them to do bigger, better, more wonderful things. And that website has a lot of great information, a lot of free tools and resources.
One really neat tab on it is the speakers bureau, the directory. So if someone wants to find a consultant who can help them with their practice on a specific project or area of expertise, they can search by area of expertise and also by location.
Dave: That sounds like the cat’s meow.
Mary Beth Koester: It is.
Dave: Meow!
Michaela McGinn: My number one resource is Google. Sorry, but I know that seems pretty lame, but really when I’m doing things, it’s the first place I go. It’s a launching point. Whether sometimes it’s an accounting issue and it gives me the right words to go into one of our search engines, or I’m looking for information. That’s probably the number one place I go.
Second would probably be my close resources with regard to some recruiters, or even sometimes LinkedIn. I’ve got a nice group of people that I work with that I’ve known over my last 30 years, and if I need a resource, that’s a great place for me to start because that’s where I can tap and data mine some information.
Dave: You mean stalking on LinkedIn.
Michaela: Yes, I do. I do stalk on LinkedIn on occasion.
Dave: Do you have a book, podcast, or any other resource that stands out?
Annie Yoder: Yeah, I actually have two. Number one, always find people who have done it already or better than you, and reach out to them. Talk to anyone you can. You can always get tidbits. Number two is Simon Sinek. He has a Ted Talk that’s only 20 minutes long. It’s called Why, and it was very powerful for me because it talks a lot about finding purpose in what you do. So the role that I’m moving into, I finally feel like I found purpose in what I’m doing.
Dave: Now, Mike we only have 30 seconds and I know you have a list as long as your arm, so go for it.
Mike Taylor: I think there are two books that I continue to come back to on a regular basis. One is John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. And I think those 21 laws speak volumes to … we just talked about culture, to that, and to leadership. And the other book, and people look at me like I’m crazy when I say this, but Dr. Seuss All the Places You’ll Go. And if you read that and think business perspective, it speaks volumes to what happens in businesses.
Dave: Well thank the both of you for sharing.
Kyle Quillen: The Rockefeller Habits is a great leadership, company planning, corporate planning … They’ve got a couple of different versions, but that’s what we use to manage the business off of, and it’s actually pretty phenomenal.
Dave: And you keep going back to that time and time again? It’s a more than one time read?
Kyle: Yeah it is, because you always pick up new things and new situations. And they’ve got some great tool sets that we use, and it works really well.
Dave: Well, great. Thanks for sharing.
Kyle: Thank you.
Joe Welker: Basically, what I find really valuable is … I was introduced to a site of a company called knowbe4.com. It was created by a former hacker, and now what they do is they provide phishing service that includes either training to companies or as a service where they can provide the software for you to do it on your own. And basically what it is, is for you to be able to send out test emails to your clients, to your users, to see if they would open a phishing scam email or the attachment. So it’s kind of nice that it does that, that you can do that test and find out who would fall for it and who wouldn’t. We have quite a few clients, actually an array of associates that utilize this company.
They also have online training that many, many, many companies are utilizing right now to have their employees trained in what to look for.
Kim Veal: Yeah, so when I first started beginning to focus on working with ERISA plans and the audits of them, Darlene Finzer introduced me actually to a website called planadvisor.com that I was able to sign up for a daily news letter that actually provides a lot of information about what’s going on in the news specific to retirement plans. Or health and welfare plans, ERISA plans in general. So I do get a daily letter. It helps me stay on top of what all is going on. And you know, that’s great. That type of information doesn’t necessarily show up in the everyday news.
Dave: Right.
Kim: Unless it gets really big or affects a really big entity, but I mean, there’s stuff about certain lawsuits that are going on, there’s stuff about just these types of regulations that we just talked about. You know, all of it. So I use that almost daily.
Dave: We’re here with Mark McKinley, a principal and president of Rea’s central Ohio region. We just got done talking about relocation and renovation of office space. Mark, do you have a book, podcast or any other resource that stands out?
Mark McKinley: I do, Dave. But, it’s not a specific item. It’s the people at Rea and Associates that have challenged me to become what I am. When I work with the talent I work with, it makes me every day realize I have to get better to keep up with everybody else. And that’s what’s inspired me at Rea.
Greg Saul: Yeah, I mean I had talked to you, Dave. I mean based on what I do with the legislature and state government … There was a book that they put out, and geez it’s probably been almost ten years now, but I was a staffer at the time when it was being written. And it dealt with Ohio instituted term limits in 1992, and the first time that they were in effect, 8 year term limits, was 2000.
And so they put this book together so new legislators could read it, and it basically kind of gives a history of the Ohio legislature from the beginning up through the year, I think, 2006 or seven, when the book was written. And so I think it’s good just because it gives a perspective on like some of the issues that come up over the years have been things you know that maybe came up in the seventies and eighties. It might have a little bit of a different spin to it now, but you know, just to be able to kind of see that context, how they dealt with it back in those years, and maybe the legislators that were not around during that time can read the book. And I think it’s good from a business perspective, too, because you know what the legislature does impacts businesses every day, and everything that you do. And so, I think it’s good to kind of read that book and you know …
Dave: Get a lot of the history.
Greg: Yeah, like where Ohio came from and maybe, you know they always say learn the mistakes of the past. Or if there is something that you can be taken out of context that was already a problem solved already before. It’s called Democracy in Session by David Gold. I don’t think it was widely produced. I think you can get it on Amazon. It was by Ohio University Press, I think was who published it.
Dave: Thanks for sharing.
Kevin Bill: So I want to start with, I do have one I’m going to talk about. But one I think, I don’t think there’s just one podcast, book, youtube video that you should be reading, listening to. Me personally, what I do is, if I can take one or two things from a book, a video, podcast, then I’m really happy with what … You know, I’m really glad that I read or listened to it. So just know that.
But the one thing that came to mind was Simon Sinek. Have you heard of him?
Dave: I have.
Kevin: And his start with why? That’s kind of, he had a Ted Talk five, six, seven years ago.
Dave: It was outstanding.
Kevin: Yeah, Brad Marren actually recommended it to me about a month ago, and I went and listened to his YouTube videos. And he’s got a ton of them online. Listened to his Ted Talk, and he talked about leadership, I mean everything under the sun. But he had just … You know not all of it I agree with, but some really good stuff on leadership. And the start with the why, I really thought was great.
Dave: And that’s one you can listen to over and over again.
Kevin: Yeah, you can do all your work when you’re in the car, whenever you want. And for some of us who aren’t great readers like I’m sure yourself, that it makes it a little easier.
Dave: Thanks for sharing.
Kevin: Hey, no problem.
Andrea McLane: I do have a resource. It’s a website. It’s called www.benefitslink.com. And one of the great things they have on that website is they have a message board. So it’s a place for employers, or plan participants, or even third party administrators to go out and check. You can search other problems that people have had, and find your answers. And I found it very beneficial. Not very exciting, but very beneficial.
Desiree Lyon: One book I’m actually reading currently is called Verbal Judo. It’s really something that has been very informative and helpful to teach communication practices in a corporate setting, in you know any type of setting. So, it was by Dr. George Thompson. And one of the quotes that stands out to me in that book is, “motivate others by raising their expectations of themselves.” I think it’s very important to talk to people in a way that you can show them what’s inside of them. And that’s when people begin to succeed and do the work that they need to do, at the best rate.
Pat Porter: For me, this isn’t necessarily an easy question to answer because I don’t have just one. Think about all of the people that I cross paths with, and the positive influence that they’ve had on my life. So I have to start with my family. Grandparents who instilled a high level of expectation of the kind of person that you should grow up to be. My mother and father instilled hardworking, ethical values. A teacher and a businessman. And then certainly I give my wife, my better half, my soulmate and my two daughters an opportunity to keep pointing me in the right direction when I’m likely to go left of center.
But growing up in a small community where there’s strong community leaders and businessmen, bankers, attorneys, coaches, teachers … You know I think about where I’m at today is a result of influences that they’ve had on my life. But you know, it’s not fair of me not to also mention former coworkers, like the folks around this table and many others, as well as current individuals. So I think each and every one of those individual that I’ve touched in my 20, 25 year career has pointed me in the direction that I’m going, and helped me achieve the results that I’ve accomplished.
Dave: We’re here with Abbey, “kind of like this,” and we just got done talking about content marketing strategies. Abby, we will be celebrating the 100th episode of unsuitable on Rea Radio. And we wanted you to help us celebrate by sharing a resource that you found to be helpful throughout your career. Our goal is to put together a list of 100 great resources for business owners. Do you have a book, podcast, TV show, or any other resource that stands out?
Abbey: Yeah, so I actually do. I really like the Content Marketing Institute. I get a lot of their resources via email. I get several emails from them a day pointing me to a variety of different resources and tips and tidbits that I like to use in order to help me become a better marketer. So that’s something that I use a lot, and I think other businesses would be able to get a lot of really good insight into that, as well.
Matt Scherer: The book called Good to Great.
Dave: And how you found that resource inspiring to you?
Matt: Well if you just think about the title, going from good to great, it’s what my mantra’s been.
Dave: Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
Matt: Thank you.
Heather McNichols: I have a podcast that I really enjoy listening to, other than unsuitable. It’s MWF Motivation with Rob Dial, and it’s just a very short, to the point podcast that I really enjoy.
Peggy Minnig: One resource that I use all the time, it’s a Bloomberg, it’s a B and A quick tax reference. It’s an app. I have it for an iPhone. I don’t know if they have it for, I’m sure they have it, whatever the alternate is, I guess. It’s got mileage rates, it’s got tax rates, it’s got all kinds of information. So that’s one thing that I use a lot, and I encourage a lot of my clients to use.
Dave: So this sounds like fun. When we don’t have a cocktail, we can just get out the B and A app and look at tax rates.
Peggy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Dave: Thanks for sharing.
Peggy: Thank you.
Brian Kempf: I really appreciate the Ohio Farm Bureau’s website. They have up to date information on a lot of good agricultural topics. Stuff that’s going through the legislature. So I can really keep up with what’s happening in agriculture.
Dave: We’re here with Austin Black, co-owner of William and Grant Design, LLC in Jackson Center, Ohio. And we just got done talking about starting a new business in the entrepreneurial spirit. Do you have a book, podcast, or any other resource that stands out?
Austin Black: Well Dave, I think I absolutely have to go with a podcast as my number one resource.
Dave: Unsuitable?
Austin Black: It’s unsuitable. Yes. It’s something that I look forward to every week. Every Tuesday, or sometimes Monday night when you guys release it. I get the alerts on my phone. I look forward to hearing it the next day, and it brings questions to my mind of what can I do in my business to help us succeed?
Dave: Great, thanks for sharing.
Austin: Thanks, Dave.
Dave: Now before I sign off, I want to say thank you to all our listeners who have helped make unsuitable on Rea Radio a great success. With your help, we will certainly have more to celebrate in the coming years.
If you haven’t already done so, I hope you will consider subscribing to unsuitable on iTunes and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Until next time, I’m Dave Cain encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.