How can small businesses survive the turbulent times coming ahead in 2020. Businesses across the global have been faced with this very question. Trials and tribulations are nothing new to small businesses but sometimes harder to grasp your mind around when you didn't created the challenges it faces. Other entrepreneurs have been faced with these questions even outside of a pandemic. The only thing you have during a crisis is your conduct during it. I had a chance to talk with Paul Downs who started making custom furniture in 1986, shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in engineering. Downs has only one line on his résumé but has a wide variety of skills gained in thirty years of running his business.

His clients range from individuals and small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, all branches of the military, and foreign governments. Downs lives with his wife and three sons outside of Philadelphia.

In addition to running the business, Paul is a prolific writer. If you felt like your business was about to shut down, could you imagine reaching out to the New York Times with an offer to share the experience with thousands of people? Paul Downs thought it would make for a good story and he wrote for the NYTimes.com for 4-years before writing a “year in the life of my business” book: Boss Life.

You’ve never read a business book like Boss Life. The book quickly joined our list of “must reads” for all current and potential business owners. The work is the most honest and transparent business book that we have ever read and we encourage all of you to read it. If you felt like your business was about to shut down, could you imagine reaching out to the New York Times with an offer to share the experience with thousands of people? Paul Downs thought it would make for a good story and he wrote for the NYTimes.com for 4-years before writing a “year in the life of my business” book: Boss Life.

Sponsor/Partnership:

TubeBuddy’s channel management browser plugin helps content creators, brands, and networks save time and grow their brands directly from within YouTube.

Extra Links:

Paul Downs Forbes articles

Born and raised in Rye, New York, Jeff Amendola moved to North Carolina in 2009. When he arrived in Durham. North Carolina in his search for a career, he became a Durham Police Officer. He never forgot that as a kid, he would often go shopping along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx with his parents and come across a cigar factory where he would watch the torcedors roll cigars and decided to start in the cigar business after starting as a side hustle, he created his own Amendola Family Cigar Brands. He reached out to the cigar makers he’d befriended on Arthur Avenue to design him a signature cigar that he could use at his pop-up cigar events. 

While sitting at a live Watts & Ward event, Jeff and I discuss;

• How he got started in cigars
• Starting young in an "older" industry and creating a brand
• Thoughts around saturation in the cigar market
• How he promotes the brand (online, trade shows, events, etc)
• Favorite Amendola Cigar
• Working with different fillers and wrappers
• U.S Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)  treatment on premium cigars vs. cigarettes.
• Cigars for beginners
• Cuban Cigars and much more!

Other Resources:

• BestCigarPrices.com
• AtlanticCigar.com
• Cigars vs Cigarettes
• Psycology of Cigars(Cigars Daily video)

Sponsor/Partnership

The Beginner’s Guide To Outsourcing Your Business: Find, Hire, and Build Your Team Virtually Today! $2.99 Ebook on Amazon. Step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, giving you the time to work less in the business and more time working on the business.

As a youth, Corey Pegues was a criminal. As an adult, he became a high-ranking police officer. Corey, a native of Queens, retired from the NYPD as a deputy inspector in 2013, after twenty-one years of service.

We talk about Corey's life and book Once a Cop: The Street, the Law, Two Worlds, One Man in which he opens up about why he joined the New York Police Department after years as a drug dealer. Corey speaks honestly about the poor choices he made while coming of age in New York City during the height of the crack epidemic. He’s equally candid about why he turned his life around, and takes you inside the NYPD, where he becomes a decorated officer despite bureaucratic pitfalls and discriminatory practices. Written with the voice and panache of someone who knows the streets, Once a Cop is a credible and informative look at the forces that lead some into a life of crime and what it means to make good on a second chance.

Sponsor/Partnership:

Blooom – Your 401k could earn more. Take a minute to link up your 401k to and maximize your investments. For $10/ month, we manage your nest egg so you can enjoy life.

I had the pleasure of joining my friend Robert Glover aka as Brix of Brix Fitness on his podcast where we talked about mental health. Rob has joined this podcast in the past to talk about his journey into becoming a very successful YouTuber and businessman and he’s shared some of his struggles on his platform along the way.
Mental Health has been thankfully and increasingly growing topic in the world and especially in the entrepreneur community and more. How does your work and ambition influence your mental state?

In this episode, Rob and I openly tackle this sensitive but needed discussion from the viewpoint of business owners, but really look at in a way that is relatable for almost anyone. Rob and I discuss our own struggles and experiences with anxiety (mine), depression (his) and then go on to unpack some of the ways they each manage these challenges.

We also talk about breaking the stigma and finding ways to be great along the way.. This is one of the least business-centered episodes of the show, but you don’t want to miss this one.

Article published in Feedfront Magazine: Mentally Breaking Down Your Hustle

Other Resources mentioned in the show:

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi (book)

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor (book)

Choosing To Cheat by Andy Stanley (book)

Sponsor/Partnership

Dapper Black Box is the first and only subscription service for the conscious gentleman. Get monthly deliveries of 3-4 fashionable accessories (e.g. ties, socks, lapel pins, etc.) and toiletries (e.g. moisturizers and oils) at only $28/month (retail up to $70). Committed to providing different items from different black-owned brands each month. Free shipping within the US. Use the Code: DBBXBLK to Get 20% off TODAY!

As a longtime film and TV producer, Cheryl Miller Houser has become used to the fact that each production becomes its own business enterprise and creating her own company Creative Breed made it a natural investment to follow 6 (8 total including partners) young entrepreneurs in Detroit trying to find their footing in the documentary that I found on Netflix called ‘Generation StartUp‘.

Generation Startup takes us to the front lines of entrepreneurship in America, capturing these entreprenuer’s stories. This film that Cheryl and Co-Directed with Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade celebrates risk-taking, urban revitalization, and diversity while delivering a vital call-to-action—with entrepreneurship at a record low, the country’s economic future is at stake.

Cheryl also tells her story of stepping out and creating her own company  which was designed to create emotionally engaging content that inspires people to think, feel and take action like this. The goal is to share masterful story-telling across all media/multi-platforms.

We also discuss Detroit’s rise a bit more in a blog post you should check out called More than Profit

Sponsor/Partnership
Thrive Themes Blazingly fast WordPress templates and plugins, built to get more traffic, more subscribers, more clients and more customers for you.

Additional Links

Venture for America

Women Rising

michipreneur

Detroit Is Beckoning to Tech Entrepreneurs

• • Start in Journalism
  • The beginning of working @ Black Enterprise
  • His First assignment (story)
  • Remembering Reginald F. Lewis
  • The shift in media
  • Black Enterprise stake in events
  • The Grown Zone
  • and much more….

Other Resources:

I Am College Material!: Your Guide to Unlimited College, Career, and Life Success

Deal of the year – Reginald F. Lewis (Black Enterprise article)

Sponsor/Partnership

Blooom – Your 401k could earn more. Take a minute to link up your 401k to and maximize your investments. For $10/ month, we manage your nest egg so you can enjoy life.

The story of how Jack Daniel's began his distillery through the help of an enslaved African-American, Nearest Green is no longer an open "secret". Fawn Weaver, Owner and CEO was in Singapore and read a New York Time article written by Clay Risen (who has some amazing articles btw) that forever changed Fawn's life and the landscape of the whisky industry. Fawn is an American investor, historian, relationship blogger, and best-selling author. Seems it was destiny for her to share Nearest Green's story.

Jack Daniel was apprenticed in his youth to a Tennessee-based Lutheran preacher, grocer, and distiller named Dan Call. Green was a master distiller who was also owned by Call. Green would go on to teach Jack Daniel everything he knew about the art of distillation and the operation of a whiskey still.

Though Jack publicly praised his mentor, the brand that lived on long after ignored him. Green was written out of the Jack Daniel’s brand backstory—even though he was mentioned in Daniel’s official biography over 50 times. Fawn uncovered thousands of documents, traced Daniel and Green’s histories and came to a formal conclusion—with the help of a couple of members of Green’s lineage and supporting documents: Nathan Green, once freed, was the first master distiller of the Jack Daniel’s brand and the first African-American known to do it.

Other Resources:

The Story of Nearest Green

Anyone who has stopped drinking — either temporarily or permanently — knows the decision is often met with questions, curious looks, or after-school special-style challenges. It can be enough to make you throw in the proverbial cocktail napkin. But Chris Marshall, the visionary behind Sans Bar, wants to make it easier.

Sans Bar, billed as the first alcohol-free bar in Texas, is inspired by Marshall’s personal and professional experiences watching people struggle with alcohol. Marshall being a recovering alcoholic himself, also spending years as a substance abuse counselor, witnessed first-hand the damage that alcohol could cause. In addition to Austin, Chris also hosted pop-ups in places like LA, Portland and Kansas City.

Sober bars, although they’ve been gaining attention in New York, have typically not worked in America, and Marshall wants to change that. His goal is to have a Sans Bar in every city and Sans Bar brand drinks in stores, to be the Starbucks for the sober-curious era

Other Resources:

The rise of the sober curious: having it all, without alcohol
The sober curious movement: Everything you need to know

Kristen Hadeed imagines a world in which all organizations have cultures that empower people to keep climbing toward the best version of themselves every day. As the young leader of Student Maid, a successful cleaning company that hires students, Kristen has fostered a unique perspective on leadership, organizational culture and engaging the next generation.

In October 2017, she published her first book, "Permission To Screw Up," in which she tells the stories of her biggest mistakes in leadership. She hopes to inspire other leaders to share their "perfectly imperfect" stories of success to empower people with the knowledge that even if they screw up, they can still make it. Kristen and Student Maid have been featured in news outlets including PBS, FOX, Inc., TIME and Forbes. Her first TED Talk has received more than two million hits on YouTube.

Sponsor/Partnership:

Coinbase is a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency.

Other Links:
What One CEO Did When 45 of Her Employees Quit (INC)

Serial entrepreneur Robert “Bob” Glazer is the founder and Managing Director of Acceleration Partners, and the founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. He has an exceptional track record of helping companies grow their revenues and profits using performance-based affiliate marketing. He’s also the author of the book Performance Parnerships which is a great read!

Bob is a highly sought after speaker for business & marketing conferences, and a contributor to many large publications including Success.com, Entrepreneur.com.   Every Friday, Bob writes an inspirational post for his friends, family, and employees on his website Friday Forward.

Bob and I discuss;

ReviTrage, has developed into a leader in the Viral and Social Marketing space, and leverages these powerful channels to help his 100+ Internet Top 1000 clients grow their online revenues rapidly. As CEO of ReviTrage,

Nick is responsible for generating over $10M+ in revenue each month for his clients. What if I told you that one site alone can make or break your business in many ways. When sites have amazing viral success, it's a great story to share. When they fail, it can hurt for a long time. Nick shared his successes in broadening his reach through new products and services—not dependent on Google—such as Reddit. Nick has spent a lot of time in what can appear to be a complex but welcoming community and today shares his insight into being a real part of this ever-growing community. 

Nick and I discuss...

• What Revitrage Does
• Revenue generated for his clients and commissions paid to him.
• What Reddit is?
• Success that he's seen on Reddit
• How to get involved in the Reddit community
• The ways smart marketers and freelancers are using Reddit to drive traffic and generate leads
• The differences between “brand platforms” (like Facebook) and “community platforms” like Reddit.
• The types of content that perform best on community platforms.
• Tip: Cool "people finder" tool I use called Rocket Reach
• and much more!

Andrew Brandt has over 25 years of experience in professional football, both from the management and player representation side.

Andrew has written about Sports Money for Forbes, Huffington Post and more, while also appearing across all ESPN TV, radio and online platforms. In his time in the football business, Brandt served as an agent, World League GM and a VP with the Green Bay Packers.

Since leaving the Packers in 2008, Andrew has focused on media and teaching. On the media-side, he provided NFL business analysis for ESPN (he’s shared openly about being laid off from ESPN (he’s shared openly about being laid off from ESPN) and writes a column for Sports Illustrated at MMQB.SI.com. He’s also the Director of the Moorad Center for Sports Law at Villanova University, which is one of only a handful of sports law programs in the United States.

On top of that and as I alluded to above in talking about being laid off from ESPN, he’s also a podcaster, focusing on the business of sports in a podcast named, The Business of Sports with Andrew Brandt.

I had the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam earlier this year for a Lenovo event we hosted with some EU colleagues. Before my travels I read an article in Travel Noire. There’s so much more to Amsterdam than weed culture, but there’s no denying that it’s a huge draw. I wanted to dive deeper and reached out to Co-founder Taraq who was happy to have us use his place as our venue.

Water & Brood’s mantra is Good Food, No Bullshit”. It’s a chic restaurant located near many of Amsterdam’s famous museums and attractions where owners and brothers Rachid and Taraq Hok-Ahin serve everything from chicken and waffles and acai bowls to dishes inspired by their Surinamese roots.

Taraq and I cover:

• Going to school with a greater purpose
• How he got into the restaurant business
• The challenges of opening and running a restaurant business
• Logistics considerations in the restaurant business (margins, competition, menu, product, etc..)
• Difference between a coffeeshop which sells weed and cafe
• and more!

Sponsor/Partnership

The Beginner’s Guide To Outsourcing Your Business: Find, Hire, and Build Your Team Virtually Today! $2.99 Ebook on Amazon. Step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, giving you the time to work less in the business and more time working on the business.

Courtney Reum and his brother Carter are former Goldman Sachs investment bankers, entrepreneurs, operators, and investors. Courtney and Carter started their careers working on deals ranging from Under Armour to Vitamin Water and have since left to pursue careers as both Entrepreneurs and new age VCsp.

After co-founding and eventually successfully selling VEEV Spirits, Courtney and Carter started M13, a 21st century investing platform that seeks to affect outcomes for founders, partners, and investors by institutionalizing the process of scaling consumer-centric brands. Courtney and Carter currently live in Los Angeles, where they run day-to-day operations at M13.

Courtney discusses his and Carter's book “Shortcut Your Startup” (an Amazon #1 best-seller) and ways to turn traditional advice on its head for better startup success. Listen for these action items you can use to take advantage of and help shape your business today!

Courtney and I discuss;

• The influence of their father
• Learning valuable lessons on Wall Street
• The show Hatched
• Criteria in looking for investment opportunities
• Why this (another) business book...'Shortcut Your Startup'
• Speedboat vs. Sailboat

and much more!

Also... check out the Marketplace Post Game: The Startup Learning Curve in which we dive a bit deeper into the discussion between Priest and Courtney about how your first startup idea not working shouldn't discourage you.

Other Links:

Book 'Shortcut Your Startup: Speed Up Success with Unconventional Advice from the Trenches'

INC Articles: https://www.inc.com/author/carter-and-courtney-reum

Josh Zloof, Co-Founder & CEO of Sudden Coffee is passionate about more than just serving up a great cup of coffee. After launching several businesses that ended in some success and even more failures, Josh knew he needed to find his “why.” This led to him founding Sudden Coffee on the idea of “making one billion people happy.” 

Today, Sudden Coffee has served over 200,000 cups of their single origin, speciality grade, instant coffee (delivered right to your door). With over $4.2M raised from Sudden Coffee have been featured in the New York Times, Food & Wine, and GQ. 

Josh and I Discuss:

• Ideas on penetrating the crowded coffee/beverage space
• How Sudden Coffee is sourced
• Process of making instant coffee
• Funding
• Focus around marketing
• Distribution
• Working with coaches and mentors
• and much more!

Use Code: marketplace for 10% off your order @ https://www.suddencoffee.com/

Ahead of his annual Digital Nomad Summit, I had a chance to chat with Johnny FD. A digital nomad who In 2008 quit his corporate gig in California to move to Thailand and follow his passions and work as a Scuba Diver around the world. It was in Thailand that he spent a few years training professionally as a Muay Thai Fighter and fighting professionally. 

In 2013 he started my first online business through publishing a book on Amazon Kindle, then replaced his 9-5 income by starting a dropshipping store which he later sold and start investing in other passive income vehicles. Johnny also started a blog to document and share his journey as a location independent entrepreneur or what he now labels as a digital nomad with my friends and family.

Johnny and I discuss;

• What is a Digital Nomad
• How he finances his travels
• Staying connected with friends and family
• Steps to becoming location independent
• His growth spiritually, mentally, financially
• and much more!

Sponsor/Partnership:

Coinbase  a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency

Other Resources:

Buy low, sell high. It’s a simple idea that a bored accountant used to create a multi-million dollar business, and one that he says you can replicate as a side-hustle. Ryan Grant graduated from college, pursed a career in accounting and quickly found himself wanting more in life. It started while in college, Ryan started shopping for sales in popular retail stores and buy items in bulk. But instead of purchasing what he liked, Ryan came armed with a secret weapon…an Amazon seller’s account and his phone.

Ryan would find sale items in Walmart, Target and Toys R Us, then used the Amazon seller app to compare them to online prices.

Eventually In 2013 Ryan quit his full-time job paying over $50K per year to pursue making a full time income selling online. His business now does over 7-figures in sales per year and he sits down with the Marketplace to discuss just how he did it.

Extra Resources:

Online Selling Experiment

Scoutify—App used for aiding online arbitrage.

Keepa—Amazon price tracker

Camel Camel Camel—Amazon price tracker

Oaxray—Scouting reports for Online Arbitrage

Tactical Arbitrage—Scouting reports for Online Arbitrage

Sponsor/Partnership:

Coinbase  a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency

Dave is the founder of Kindlepreneur, and advanced book marketing website. Dave helps authors and aspiring authors sell more books and make more money. An author himself, Dave penned the Book,  Amazon Kindle Rankings – How To Rank Your Kindle Book #1 ON Amazon. He’s been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and SEMrush for his marketing tactics.

Prior to being an online entrepreneur, he served the US military as a nuclear engineer, military diplomat and even an International Arms Dealer.

Dave and I discuss;

• His family history in the Military.
• Being an entrepreneur
• How Amazon changed the book industry
• His site Kindlepreneur and KDP Rocket.
• Should all entrepreneurs write a book?
• Steps to marketing your book
• Ideal price on selling books

Sponsor/Partnership

Namecheap is a domain name registrar and web hosting company.

Other Resources:

Dave’s Book Marketing Show Podcast

Scribe formerly Book In A Box mentioned on the show

Amazon Book Advertisement with AMS (Dave’s Free Udemy Course)

Some quick rambling on the state of the podcast, what I'm working on and more to come :)